I wrote a bit about the theology of the Cross a couple weeks ago, reflecting on Simon Peter’s blundering response to the Lord’s announcement of His upcoming Passion. I hadn’t really planned to touch upon the subject again so soon, but a couple things compel me to do so. And to be sure, the theology of the Cross could hardly be exhausted in this lifetime, no matter how often one might try to write about it.
Monday of this week (the 14th of September) was the Feast of Holy Cross Day, one of the most broadly observed festivals across the Church catholic, both east and west, even if the rationale and emphases in doing so vary. For us Lutherans, it is an opportunity to focus on the decisive victory of our Lord’s Holy Cross and Passion outside of the somber penitence of Holy Week and Good Friday. It is one and the same paradoxical victory in either case, one that St. Paul describes as the central focus of his apostolic preaching (1 Corinthians 2:2), which is to be proclaimed in the administration of the Lord’s Supper as often as it is ever celebrated (1 Corinthians 11:26).
The focus on our Lord’s Holy Cross is far more than the commemoration of an historical event, “once upon a time.” Although He is never to die again, the accomplished fact of His atoning sacrificial death is the permanent foundation for the Church on earth and for the Resurrection to the Life everlasting. It is and ever shall be the true Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise, from which divine Life is bestowed upon us in the Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood of Christ the Crucified. Along with that, it is also the defining lens through which all of life is rightly perceived, interpreted, and understood, as well as God Himself. The one true God is not at all as we mortal sinners would ever have guessed or imagined. Indeed, He is quite the opposite of all that we supposed in our fallen and perishing nature. He comes to us and saves us – He reveals and gives Himself to us – not with crushing power and overwhelming might, but in the poverty, weakness, and humility of His voluntary suffering and death, and now in the fruits of His Cross. So, too, through the preaching of His Cross, which is the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, He humbles the haughty and exalts the lowly, He empties the rich and fills up the poor by His grace.
The world (and our own fallen flesh) looks at all of this as utter nonsense and absurd foolishness. It does not resonate with the perverted logic and sensual perception of this body and life under the curse of sin, so it is rejected out of hand in favor of whatever our emotions, experience, intellect, and (nowadays) big data expect. Ironically, and tragically, not only does that miss the precious Gospel of the Cross of Christ, but it distorts and turns inside-out even what ought to be obvious and rational for earthly existence. As a consequence, there are those who pursue their sins to their disastrous conclusion, who deaden their consciences and harden their hearts to the point that “anything goes,” with sometimes horrific results. We’ve been hearing some stark examples of such debased pursuits recently, and not only with respect to crimes that have been committed, but also in the defending and excusing of those dreadful deeds.
In discussing the theology of the Cross in the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther famously asserted that a theologian of the Cross calls a thing what it really is, whereas a theologian of glory calls evil “good” and good “evil.” That is to say a great many things, actually, but certainly it applies to the blessed suffering of the Holy Cross by Christian disciples of Jesus, who follow Him through death into life. Conversely, it also echoes the warning of St. Paul that Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). All of us are prone to fall into such temptations, in which we regard ourselves and our neighbors on the basis of how we’re feeling and how well “we’re doing” according to the metrics of worldly success, instead of clinging to the Word and promises of Christ Jesus in the light of His Cross. Thankfully, the solution is not to be found within ourselves, but it is laid upon us by the preaching of the Cross, which puts us to death and raises us to newness of life in and with Christ Jesus. For by His bloody Cross and redemptive Passion He has made atonement for all our sins, defeated death and robbed Satan of all his weapons against us, and broken down the walls of hostility that our obstinate rebellion erected between ourselves and God. And the irony remains: In being crucified, put to death, and buried with Christ Jesus, His Cross opens our eyes to see and understand clearly, to know and believe the truth, and to rejoice in His great Salvation!