BlueCollarTheologian

The cross, therefore, is not a symbol to explain inexplicable suffering. We do not need Jesus to explain or to contain our rage when faced by the tragedies of the world. Rather Jesus’s cross is his alone, making possible a people who do not need an explanation of inexplicable suffering. Love, not explanation, is required when we are faced by the tragedies of life. Our task, a task made possible as well as demanded by the cross, is not to turn away when faced by the suffering of others who are often made all the more alien and frightening by their suffering. Rather our task is to be present to one another when there is quite literally nothing we can do to save ourselves or those we love from having to suffer.

The beauty of the cross is meant to beckon us into friendship with God. God, through the cross, refuses our refusal of friendship. Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, even humbling himself being obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, so that he might overwhelm our determined isolation and claim us as friends. And by claiming us, Christ makes friendship with one another a possibility and, perhaps, even friendship with ourselves.