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from the Minister & President
Search for the True Cross: Pointing to Resurrection

April, 2004
By Nancy S. Taylor

On Ash Wednesday I attended a private screening of "The Passion of the Christ" to which Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Jewish leaders had been invited. In form, function and derivation, the film is a medieval passion play, a pre-Vatican II Stations of the Cross. It is more dependant on the visions of an anti-Semitic, nineteenth century, German nun [1] than on the four gospels. While it presents a vivid palate of colors, sights, emotions and effects, it sounds a single theological note: that of redemptive suffering.with the emphasis on suffering.

Across the United Church of Christ we have, sometimes, under-represented the cross, minimized Christ's suffering, muted the atonement, and avoided wrestling with the meaning and challenge of sacrifice: Jesus' sacrifice, but also ours. To what sacrifices are we called for the sake of a gospel that remains foolishness to the world, a stumbling block and an offence?

To approach Holy Week and Easter Sunday is, inexorably, to approach the cross. For Christians, the cross is everywhere: in Christian art, architecture and iconography, in hymnody and liturgies, on altars, at shrines and in jewelry. Although it has not always been so [2] , today it is the pre-eminent symbol of the faith we bear and the life we share.

Yet, throughout Christian history and to this day, followers of Jesus have rarely agreed on the meaning of the cross. Some traditions display the crucifix (the cross to which is affixed a representation of the body of Jesus), while others display a bare cross, and still others decline to display the cross at all. And, if we do not agree on whether or how to display the cross, you can imagine the theological disputes about the doctrine of the atonement! Furthermore, the Christian cross has sometimes been twisted and distorted in the service of evil: the burning cross of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi swastika come to mind.

A medieval legend about the search for the true cross tells the story of Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine. She is directed in a vision to find the true cross upon which Jesus had been crucified. Helena finds the spot and begins to dig. Beneath the rubble she unearths three crosses lying in disarray: the one upon which Jesus had been crucified, as well as the two upon which criminals had been crucified on either side of Jesus. Helena now has to distinguish the true cross from the false crosses. The true cross is finally revealed when, by its presence, it revives a woman who had been mortally ill (while the other two, similarly tested, do not). The legend attests that the true cross can be discerned by its fruits: whether or not it heals and brings fife.

By this same test the crosses of the Klu Klux Klan and the Nazi swastika are exposed as false crosses. They are twisted and evil distortions of the cross of Christ. They do not heal, but rather, they bring harm and hate.

The legend reminds us that the search for the True Cross always involves a pilgrimage: journey, testing, and discerning. It is not enough to be presented with a cross, neither by Mel Gibson or anyone else. Together, we must test it, asking: Does it do harm or does it heal? Does it bring brokenness or reconciliation? Does it plant the seeds of hatred or of love? And, perhaps most importantly, does it point beyond itself - beyond pain and suffering, beyond hate and brutality - to resurrection? Does it, in other words, point to the risen Christ? And, having done so, does it call us to a journey of faith and discipleship during which we are moved respond to Jesus' invitation to take up our cross and follow him?