Wrestling With the Cross

By The Rev. Jane Milliken Hague, Interim Priest-in-Charge

In seminary we used to play a game called ‘tell a Martian.’ To explain the doctrines of the Christian Church, we would pretend we were talking to a being who had no previous knowledge of Christ, the Virgin Birth, the Trinity, and the Son of God. etc. The hardest and most complex doctrine to explain was and is the crucifixion, the Cross. In fact, crucifixion is a word that I never remember how to spell. How symbolic: can’t spell it, can’t explain it.

In the last 2000 years, theologians have tried mightily to explain the meaning of the cross. Their theories have reflected what the world was experiencing at that moment. One, the Doctrine of Atonement evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries when the world was continually at war. Jesus’s death on the Cross was seen as a sacrifice or atonement for our sins. In our liturgy we say, ‘Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’ It reminds us that Jesus was the lamb at the sacrifice.

In the 21st century, the understanding of the Cross has become less about sacrifice and more as a symbol of our separation from God.

Sam Wells, a theologian and Vicar of St Martin’s in the Field,* has written extensively of a new doctrine and understanding of the Cross. He postulates that Jesus was with God, was of God as Jesus walked this earth as a human. Jesus would retreat into prayer frequently to reconnect with the part of Himself that was of God. Jesus was an icon of God the Creator’s great desire to be with us.

The moment on the Cross when Jesus feels forsaken by God, there is an earthquake and tearing of a massive curtain that guards the Holiest of holies room in the Temple. The torture and horrendous death of the Son of God tore humans from the love of God. It was an intentional and brutal separating ourselves from God. That is the definition of Hell.

Throughout my ordination process, I could not understand the importance of the Cross for our congregants. Then I was given an opportunity to literally come face to face with what the Crucifixion meant. One of my clerical internships was at a church that did not have a stand to hold their wooden cross, and I was asked at a Good Friday liturgy to hold their large wooden cross by the altar so the congregants could venerate it during the service. I was strictly told to never release the cross, or we would all crash to the floor.

As the men and women came forward, I watched the emotions of sorrow and grief reflected in their faces. Tears poured down their cheeks. This was a church of immigrants. They knew what it meant to suffer. Their devotion to the Cross rose from their belief that Jesus knew their pain, too.

Perhaps more symbolically for me, some congregants came forward to emotionally cling to the cross, and I literally had to wrestle with them and the large wooden cross.

I continue to wrestle with the meaning of the Cross.

*Wells, Samuel: A Cross in the Heart of God, Reflections on the Death of Jesus. (London, Canterbury Press, 2020.)