A Holy Week / Easter Reflection

A few days ago, I received an email from a friend in which she shared with me a question which had originated from a former President of Conference, Neil Richardson: are we going to keep faith with Jesus when all he appears to be offering us is a cross?

It’s a radical question because it forces us to engage at depth with something which to the world seems absurd yet is a central pillar of Christian faith.

It’s a question which has a particular resonance in a world which stumbles blindly from one crisis to another adding horror to horror in a terrifying apocalyptic litany.

What can the brokenness of a cross and the crucifixion of a man treated as a criminal have to say to the powers and principalities of this world? As I have been praying and preparing for Holy Week and Easter in recent weeks, this verse from Paul’s letter to the Colossians has particularly resonated with me.

One element of the historical background to the events of Holy Week is implied but not referred to directly in any of the gospels. Some days before Jesus enters Jerusalem from the east down the Mount of Olives riding on a colt, Pilate enters the city from the west.

Festival time was always a time when the occupying Romans were on high alert: Pilate was in Jerusalem to keep order. The contrast between these two processions could not be starker. Nick Page puts it in the following way:

Page goes on to describe Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as a ‘…politically charged act, a two fingered salute to the empire, the world and the Gentile ways of power’.

We cannot help but be acutely aware of the destructive power of militarism in our world today in many places of conflict. Power and its misuse, of course, is not just a political issue: it has social, economic, community and psychological forms.

Paul’s choice of image then in describing the cross in these terms is both deliberate and thought provoking. Victorious Roman generals would parade the captives of war in chains through the city. It was a form of ridicule and humiliation entirely in character with an oppressive regime.

It is perverse forms of power, political and religious, which send Jesus to execution, to the humiliation of the cross. Yet just at the hour at which they seem to have won, Paul claims, the table is turned. It is now these forces, indeed all the powers of evil, which are humiliated, relativised and ridiculed like a defeated army – his argument in context is about our participation in the risen life of Christ.

This is a bold claim. What sense can we make of it? It’s interesting to note that the idea of Christ defeating the powers and principalities on the cross –the Christus Victor – was the most important way of conceiving the meaning of the cross in the early Church. I make sense of this in three different ways.

First, I view the cross as having revelatory power. Amongst other things this means that the cross makes clear the forces that are ranged against God in our world and which are still active today. We cannot ignore the parallels between the misuses of power and the use of violence that sends Jesus to the cross with the experience of the world today. We have a duty to name and expose these abuses wherever we see them.

Secondly, I sense that there is something here about the resisting power of mockery, satire and ridicule. It’s interesting isn’t it that those who misuse power find it difficult to accept being mocked. It undermines their power and also reminds them of their mortality – it is interesting to note at this juncture the role of the Holy Fool in the Orthodox tradition who is able to speak truth to power in a way in which others are not.

Thirdly though, none of this makes sense without the resurrection. Christ is Victor simply because he is the risen one. It is this which turns a cross of disgrace into a demonstration of the power and continuing agency of God.

The cross is God’s cross, but it is also paradoxically God’s triumph which demonstrates that ultimately there is a power that is greater than the powers of death which stalk our world. Those who misuse power in the world do not have the last word: their claims are hollow. It is the resurrection which ultimately relativises any other claim to power and authority in the world.

So yes, in response to Neil Richardson’s sharp and acutely observed question, we must keep faith with the cross of Jesus because it is the demonstration of the power of God which relativises the powers of this world and stands as its judgement and salvation. Christ is indeed the victor.

I pray that Christ, risen from the grave, might be your light, life and hope as you journey through Holy Week and Easter.