Interrupting the Silence

I don’t know how to explain the cross and the crucifixion of Jesus. It makes no sense to me. I understand the theories of atonement, but not the cross or why “Jesus had to die.” Though I understand the many explanations, I find them less and less convincing or helpful.

Maybe there is nothing to explain, nothing to understand. Maybe the crucifixion is what it is, nothing more and nothing less – 

• A method of execution by the state;
• Violence, cruelty, and injustice; 
• A threat and intimidation to the people;
• An abuse of power;
• The ability to inflict pain and take life;
• A declaration of another’s powerlessness;
• The presence and preservation of systemic hierarchy and domination; and 
• A response to one who would resist or oppose that system.

I don’t know how to glory in that or why I would. 

I wish there was a theory or an explanation that makes it all better, but there isn’t. It is what it is. I want to look at Jesus on the cross and say, “Yes, this is a good Friday.” But it isn’t. It is what it is. 

I wonder if our attempts to explain and understand the cross belie our recognition of just how tragic and wrong it is. I wonder if our attempts to turn the cross into something it is not are an avoidance and a denial of the reality of the cross in Jesus’ day and in our world today. But Jesus didn’t do that. He didn’t try to explain, avoid, or deny. He died. He was murdered. 

Jesus on the cross does not change the cross into something it is not. He names and reveals the cross for what it is. 

His words, “It is finished,” are not the words of a winner who successfully completed his task. They are the words of a witness who, God help him, testified to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – the truth about injustice, violence, power, domination. (John Caputo, On Religion, New York: Routledge, 2019, 135.) I wonder what that truth is for you today.

Jesus’ death on the cross is an indictment of every cross, whether it is an individual, an institution, or a system. He is the whistleblower on the Pontius Pilates of this world, our country, and our lives. His death on the cross is an act of resistance. It is a protest against injustice, violence, and abusive power. It opposes a world structured by domination.

His death on the cross is the revelation and promise that God stands with the oppressed and powerless. 

Where and with whom will you and I stand on this tragic Friday?

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Image Credit: Photo by Wim van ‘t Einde on Unsplash.