THE CROSS SPEAKS OF LOVE

The supreme message of the cross is the message of divine love. If the cross does not speak this word of love to us, it can say very little more. The cross is not a pretty symbol. The story of the crucifixion is not a story we enjoy telling our children, any more than we enjoy having them hear about any other execution, or other invention of human cruelty. But from the human side, this is what it is, in its simplest and starkest form. An innocent man is condemned to death on trumped up charges. Not only is he innocent, but he is a man who opens people's minds to truth, their hearts to love, their bodies to healing power. Nails are driven through hands and feet, and the cross dropped into place in a shallow hole, tearing the flesh as it strikes bottom. Shock and loss of blood, and dehydration all take their toll until death mercifully brings it all to an end. From the human standpoint, this is what the cross is all about. But there is another standpoint to the cross, the standpoint of the one who is crucified. It seems like madness that anyone would voluntarily allow himself to go through this agony, but this is what Jesus did. Jerusalem was a dangerous place, well fortified by Roman soldiers, but here were many chances for him to change his mind, to escape, to avoid the cross in those days between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, but Jesus did not take them. Why this is so is unexplainable if we see him only as a good man who wanted to improve society a little, and do some good with his life. If, however, we see him as the one who had to confront evil in all of its forms, who came to overcome evil with good, with nonviolent love, if we see as the moving power behind him the strange, boundless love of God for the lost creation, then it begins to be clear. The reason why Jesus Christ suffered the cross, why he would not turn aside from it, is love - that sacrificial love which is at the heart of things, and which is willing to pay the cost. St. John could only explain the cross by saying, "God so loved the world..." St. Paul used different words to describe the same mystery, "God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinner, Christ died for us."

Love is the deepest and profoundest truth that the cross addresses to us. It is God's love, and nothing less than this. From the standpoint of an observer at Calvary, we might see it as a final repudiation, denial, of God's love, for this one who had lived so good a life, and loved fellow human beings so completely, had been allowed to die. And yet Christians look back to that tragic event more aware of the love of God than people ever had been before. They became certain that in the love of Christ they discover the love of God.

There are at least four things which the cross says to us about this love of God. First, it is for us. There is no self-gratification here at the Cross, no mock heroics, no self-glorification. While on the cross he was taunted by the cruel words: "He saved others; himself he can not save." And yet these words, said in jest, caught the truth about his love. That love was for others. Indeed, by his very love "he could not save himself," because he was there for us.

The second truth which the cross reveals to us about the love of God is that it is a power or an energy that fills a person, rather than a law which he keeps. Christ radiated this love. It was a force which poured forth in everything he did. Perhaps you have known some great person who in a lesser, but similar way radiated love. You felt warm merely to be in their presence, and you left them feeling that some of this energy of love had been radiated into your own life. Christian love is an energy which springs from a place deep in a person's soul when God is permitted to be there. We can compare this flow of love to a dam containing behind it a great mass of water. In that dam are numerous channels into which water may flow and be carried to parched cities and fields. We might compare that reservoir of water to the infinite reservoir of God's love, and we might compare the channels to our individual lives. Each of us must decide the flow of love in his or her own life. I can shut my life to it, ignore the cross, seek to make the best of my life by myself, or I can kneel down before it, deciding that "love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all." As we decide this, we become free to love others as he has loved us, to let our lives by channels of God's love. "We love," declared St. John, "because he first loved us." There is a great lack of love in our world today, a great lack of concern for what happens to one's neighbors at home or around the world.. People are seeking love where it cannot be found, and the channels of their lives are dry, or carry waters poisoned by greed and self interest. Love is a power which comes to us, and not a law that we can keep by our own good intentions or abilities.

The third truth which the cross reveals to us about the love of God is that its essence is risk and self-sacrifice. Love is always - potentially at least - sacrificial love. We understand this best, I suppose, in our role as parents. Some years ago a priest friend of mine and his family were on a boating vacation, and one of the children fell overboard. The father, an excellent swimmer, dove in after the child without a second thought. The boy was rescued, but the father disappeared and was later found drowned. Why or how this happened no one knows, but I am certain that when Merrill dove into the water, it would not have made the least difference if he had known that the price he might have to pay for his son. Love involves risk, and possibly self sacrifice.
The cross speaks to us of the risk God's love takes for us. To care for another person at the risk of your own comfort, or your life, is to love.

The fourth truth which the cross reveals to us about the love of God is that it is reconciling, the means, in other words, by which we are restored to fellowship with God and with one another. Donald Baillie, a Scottish theologian, gives us a myth of what happens to humankind before and after it confronts the Cross. He writes of "God calling His human children to form a great circle for the playing of His game. In that circle we ought, " he says, "all to be standing, linked together with lovingly joined hands, facing towards the light in the center, which is God...; seeing our fellow creatures all round the circle in the light of that central Love, which shines on them and beautifies their faces; and joining with them in the dance of God's great game, the rhythm of love universal. But instead of that, we have, each one, turned our backs upon God and the circle of our fellows, and faced the other way, so that we can see neither the Light at the center nor the faces on the circumference. And indeed in that position it is difficult even to join hands with our fellows! Therefore instead of playing God's game we play, each one, our own selfish little game. ... Each one of us wishes to be the center, and there is blind confusion, and not even any true knowledge of God or of our neighbors." It is into this confused and distorted world that the cross comes. It is the cross that reveals our folly, and turns us around toward our true center. It is the Cross that brings us back into God's game of love, for it is the very power of love to restore, and to reconcile.

From our human standpoint the cross, then, is a grim reminder of human cruelty and sin, selfishness and heartlessness, human willingness to excuse the worst injustice in the pursuit of selfish goals. But from God's side, the cross speaks to us the truth of God's love for us, unworthy as we may be. The cross speaks to us of the power of love which God waits to pour into us. The cross speaks of the sacrificial quality of God's love, the costliness of love. And the cross speaks to us the good news of our reconciliation with God and with one another through divine love.

See, from his head, his hands his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an off'ring far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.