The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 16, A.D. 2007


The Enigma of a Crucified God


O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him the victory. All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.

That all makes sense doesn’t it.

For after all, God is the creator of this universe, and he has constantly manifested himself in powerful ways, such as a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud.

At Mt. Sinai, God came down in fire and with the almost deafening sound of trumpets.

That all makes sense doesn’t it, for, after all, God is the creator of the universe and has manifested his awesome power time and time again.

But, to be quite honest: today, Holy Cross Day doesn’t make sense, and quite frankly, we are confronted today with the enigma of a crucified God.

Who could imagine this same creator God who, because of our failure and sin hung on a cross on a hill on a Friday afternoon?

The God who breathed life into dust and created Adam – the God who breathed his last on the cross and said, “It is finished.”

Crucified God – an enigma and oxymoron at best.

So, how do we make any sense at all of Holy Cross Day?

What does it mean for God, what does it mean for us?

A brilliant German Lutheran pastor named Jurgen Moltman wrote a book entitled Jesus Christ for Today’s World in which he tells us how he came to faith in Jesus Christ.

“Who is Christ for me?

In 1945 I was imprisoned in a wretched prisoner of war camp in Belgium.

My home town, Hamburg, lay in ruins, and in my own self things looked no different.

I felt abandoned by God and human beings, and the hope of my youth died.

I couldn’t see any future ahead of me.

In this situation an American chaplain put a Bible into my hands, and I began to read it.

I was drawn to the story of the passion and when I came to Jesus’ death cry I knew: this is the one who understands you and is beside you when everyone else abandons you.

I began to understand the suffering, assailed, and God-forsaken Jesus, because I felt that he understood me.

And I grasped that this Jesus is the divine brother in our distress.

I became possessed by a hope when in human terms, there was little to hope for.

I summoned up the courage to live, and this early companionship

with Jesus has never left me since.

The Christ for me is the crucified Jesus.

(Moltmann, Jurgen: Jesus Christ for Today’s World, page 2, Fortress Press, 1994.

Could it be, then, that the cross is the connecting point between us and God the creator, between us, and the God who sent his son to us, and, in fact, the connecting point between us and Jesus Christ.

For, to be honest, if there were no cross – if there was no suffering – if there was no death on that Friday afternoon – if there was no resurrection on Easter morning – how could we connect with God at all?

If God had not become us, then God would have remained forever untouchable.

In today’s Gospel Jesus is speaking to some Greeks about his impending passion and death.

He tells them: “the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.”

Well, that makes sense.

But then he says to his Father:

“What shall I say? Father save me from this hour?

No, for this purpose I have come to this hour.

Father, glorify thy name.”

Then God, from the throne of heaven says, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

Everyone heard it, some thinking it was thunder, and some thinking it was an angel speaking from heaven.

Pretty powerful, I would imagine, and of course it makes sense for God to speak of his glory.

But, then, Jesus turns and probably to the astonishment of everyone says:

“Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.”

And, sure enough, lifted up on the cross on Calvary’s hill, God in Christ stretched out his hands to embrace every human being, who was, and would ever be, and his nail-scarred hands literally embraced the ends of the earth.

When you think about it, how else could God have reached absolutely every human being?

Where else could he have found us, but in the midst of our own pain, our own fear, and in our own death.

For God to truly find us, to truly put his arms around us, he had to enter the fearful and painful turf of every human being, without exception.

And, in so doing, my brothers and sisters, he has embraced every one of us.

Who among us has ever felt abandoned, rejected, or fearful?

Honestly now, who among us has never said “My God, my God, why hast thou forsake me.

Sounds hauntingly familiar, doesn’t it.

On the cross, lifted up and suspended between heaven and earth, Christ drew all humanity to himself, and he drew into himself all the pain, all the fear, all the suffering, and even death, and, when he said “it is finished” – at that moment all separation between God and humanity was dissolved into the incredible love of God, and at that moment, even death was invaded by the God who turned it into everlasting life.

On Good Friday we sing: “Behold the life giving cross upon which was hung the salvation of the whole world…O come let us worship him.”

On this Holy Cross Day we stand before the cross of our crucified God, and we do not stand alone…for all humanity stands with us.

God invites us to look up at the cross and to see life.

The crucified God also invites us to reach out and take upon ourselves the cross and to follow him.

St. Paul makes sense of the enigma of a crucified God when he wrote: “Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality wit God something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-11)

Who could have ever imagined such a thing?

But then again, who could have imagined what St. Paul also tells us: “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Crucified God – crucified us – all for the salvation of the world, and my fellow crucifiedees we have job to do, right here, right now, in the midst of our very broken world.