Life and Love Redefined

A wise teacher once told me that one of the most important questions a person can ask is, "So what?"

In other words, what difference does this make? What makes this so important? Why should I care? So what?

At the time I was studying social policy, and "So what?" is an excellent question to ask when considering policy alternatives to vexing problems.

Years later when I began to study theology I remembered the "So what?" question and it became even more relevant than it had been before.

And today, as we come together to remember once again the mighty acts of God in the passion and death of Jesus, whom we know as the Christ - the anointed one, the chosen one of God, "So what?" is the most important question of all. As we face a cross with an innocent man whom we believe to be the incarnate God hanging on it, we would do well to give it some thought.

One way of answering the "So what?" question as we gaze on the cross is to say that the cross of Jesus Christ redefines life and love. For each one of us as individuals life is now utterly changed - transformed into something it could never have been without the cross. And for all of us, especially those who do not yet believe in Jesus Christ, love is radically altered from something you might find in a Hallmark card to a challenge to the world to put others before ourselves even to the point of giving up our own lives.

Perhaps this is why the cross is so disturbing. We say we are disturbed by the images of our God and Savior suffering. But maybe the real reason is that deep down we know that the cross is calling us to a place we would rather not go.

The meaning of life is changed when we see the God who chose to share our humanity suffer more than we could ever suffer. Nowhere in human history was there ever an event that begged the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" or "Why does God allow evil to happen?"

In the cross we have God connecting himself to humanity in the most profound way. On the cross God suffers and reminds us that God knows something about our suffering. This is why some people look at the cross and see in it their own suffering. When Jesus cries out in another telling of his passion "My God why have you forsaken me?" some people can say in their hearts, "Yes, Jesus, I know what you mean. I feel like God has forsaken me too."

This is why some people gaze on the cross and see the lynching tree and in so doing know that God is with them. This is why when I gaze on the cross I see my dying daughter lying on a hospital bed and I see the chair I was crucified on as I sat and watched her die. The cross reminded me then and reminds me now that God is there even in those darkest moments of our lives.

We can speak of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and we can talk as theologians do about atonement through the cross of Christ. But somehow, while all true and right, that is more abstract and removed from the reality of our lives than a visceral understanding that God has become one with us by connecting his suffering to the suffering of humanity. That's something everybody can understand. If God is with me in my deepest suffering because I know he has suffered, then the happy ending of eternal life becomes something I can take into my heart in a way that otherwise would have been impossible. I can now grasp now how my life in this world and in the next is utterly different because of the cross. So what?, we ask. Because of the cross life will never end. Life is redefined.

Just as life is redefined by the cross, so is love. And whereas the way that the cross redefines life is a comfort to us all, the way that it redefines love is an uncomfortable challenge to each of us whenever we think about what it really represents. Indeed, there is a sense in which the love that the cross shows is a rebuke for us whose lives are rarely, if ever, as self-giving as the life of Jesus.

Self-giving is what the cross is all about. The command that Jesus gave us to love one another as he loves us and the cross go together to make a seamless divine expectation as to how we ought to live our lives. So when we read or hear this passion gospel and focus on the part where Jesus is on trial, we do well to remember that we are on trial too. And our indictment continues as we stand before the cross. Jesus on the cross gives what is most precious, most valued, most protected to us and for us, to God and for God, motivated only by love.

Seldom, if ever, are we asked to do what Jesus did on the cross. But how well do we love when we are asked to do less than that for our brothers and sisters and for God? Speaking only for myself, I think the answer necessarily must be "Not very well."

The love the cross represents belies any sentimental idea of what Christianity is all about. It says that Christianity is not for the faint of heart, not for the weak. It says that the love the cross represents is not simply a Hallmark card kind of emotion.

Instead, this love goes to the very essence and core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. If we say that God is love and we come to understand that this is what love really means, then it also begins to dawn on us, as the light comes with the dawn of Easter, that the full measure of our fidelity to God is self-giving love without restraint, without holding back, without counting the cost.

In the First Letter of John the writer tells us "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear (4:18 NRSV)." I think he is talking here about Jesus' love on the cross. After all, if you are willing to go that far for love, what else is there to fear?

Remember how Jesus said at his last supper with his friends that they would do greater things than even he had done after he had gone to his Father? I think we can see now what he meant. If we can love as he loved us, even to the point of sacrificing our lives, then anything is possible. And while we are doing this - and indeed sometimes even by means of doing this - we can widen the circle of Jesus' friends to proclaim his supremacy over the whole world.

When we look at the cross of Christ and ask "So what?" perhaps these things I have said begin to give and answer. The cross has redefined life and love. The cross calls us to a new life of love.

Let us pray:

Amen.