On Adopting a Posture of the Cross

For longer than I care to admit, I’ve approached the cross of Jesus more for theological reasons than anything else. As a result, my primary motivation in reading and studying Jesus’ crucifixion had less to do with transformation and more to do with gathering information I could use to formulate a theological position. Questions that related more to justifying my preferred atonement theory seemed to dominate my mind, rather than the implications of what the cross meant for everyday life.

While studying scripture will always yield biblical and theological conclusions that require discussion, I can’t help but think that my ultimate reason in approaching the cross should center less on formulating a theological position to be argued and more on a posture I need to embrace.

The cross of Jesus will always be a multi-faceted spectacle to behold. No one theory of atonement could ever possibly capture everything that happened on and through the cross. Try as we may, our human theories which attempt to pin Jesus’ death down into a neatly packaged theological system will always fail us. The day God died on a cross will always defy words.

Perhaps that’s the way it should be. Maybe, just maybe, the power, glory, and splendor combined with the sheer agony, loss and death of the cross-event will always force us to move beyond words to behold the image of a humble God who demonstrated a posture of sorrow, identification and human embrace.

Love Lies at the Center of the Cross

I’m becoming increasingly convinced that love lies at the center of the cross. Love, more than anything else, is the power behind the cross. Love compelled Christ to embrace the weight of the cross and it is love that should compel us to embrace our own cross in solidarity with Jesus.

We are most like Jesus when we identify with his cross by taking up our own. We will never follow Jesus more closely than when we seek to imitate the humility and sacrifice of the cross-bearing God. The cross is less about something that is against us and more about something that is for us. As Brian Zahnd has so often said, “Jesus didn’t come to save us from God. Jesus reveals God as Savior.”

“For God so loved the world (cosmos- entire created order) that he gave his unique son. God gave his son to the world (cosmos — entire created order), not to condemn it, but to save it.” (John 3:16,17)

Love stands behind, in and through the cross. Cosmic reconciliation, salvation, and transformation is the impetus behind the cross, not condemnation, judgement and fear.

Through the cross, Jesus ended the cycle of violence and inaugurated a new cycle of grace and peace. As people who now live and participate in the kingdom he inaugurated, we are called to imitate his enemy-loving posture by returning good for evil and to continue his ministry of reconciliation through the divine enablement of the Holy Spirit of peace.