Neither the power of Rome nor the Temple authorities were willing to let Jesus’ movement continue. His preaching about God was simply dangerous.
He did not speak about Tiberius’ empire and simply invited people to seek the kingdom of God and his justice. Jesus did not speak about the law of the Sabbath and other religious traditions and seemed to be keen only on helping the sick and the hungry of Galilee.
They would never forgive him for that. He identified himself too much with the innocent victims of the Empire and with those that the Temple authorities did not recognize. He was executed on a cross and He is now identified as God and representing all the innocent victims in history. Along with the cry of those victims, we can now hear God’s own cry.
In the disfigured face of Jesus crucified we can see the revelation of a new God that might me in disagreement with some of the traditional ways of representing God. It certainly questions the religious practice of offering worship to a God who is cut off from a world in which the poorest and the weakest ones continue to be crucified.
If God had died for those that the world ignored, his crucifixion must remain a continued challenge for all his followers. We cannot separate God from the suffering of innocent people. We cannot worship the Crucified and still remain indifferent to the suffering of so many people who are being condemned to hunger, war and misery.
God continues to speak to us through thousands of people who are being crucified today. We cannot go on living as mere spectators of such terrible human injustice and still believe in our own innocence. We must rebel against such culture of indifference that has taught us to stay away and not even hear the cry of so many millions of suffering people.
We cannot remain locked up in our own welfare society, ignoring that there is another suffering society of millions of human beings who were born only to find their lives shortened and extinguished by suffering and famine.
It is totally inhuman and unchristian to have our lives settled with all kinds of welfare systems millions of others who have only known every form of injustice, suffering and insecurity.
When Christians raise their eyes and look at the Crucified, we ought to see the unfathomable love of a God who gave his life for each and every one of us. And if we look at him more carefully, soon we will discover in His face the faces of so many people like us who are crying for compassion and help.
TAKE UP YOUR CROSS
The world is full of Christian churches which are presided by the image of the Cross or Christ crucified. The same world is filled with millions of suffering people, crucified by illness, famine, injustice or simply forgotten. There are the sick who are totally uncared for, ill-treated women, old people who are ignored, and the illegal immigrants without a future. And then there are the unnamed and countless people without food or shelter.
It is difficult to imagine any other symbol charged with so much hope like the Cross planted by Christians in so many places and so many ways, that is the
image of a crucified God and a permanent remembrance of his identification with all the unjustly suffering victims in our world.
That Cross, raised above all our own crosses, reminds us that God suffers along with us. God suffers with the hungry children of Calcutta and Darfur; he suffers, too, with the victims of terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, and all the women victims of physical abuse all over the world. We cannot understand the ultimate reason for so much violence. Even if we knew, it wouldn’t help us much.
One thing we do know: God has joined us in the suffering, and that certainly can help us a lot.
But even the most sublime symbols can become meaningless if we do not try to rediscover time and time again their true content. What is the meaning of a Cross, so visible in our world, if we fail to see on the face of the Crucified Christ the suffering, the solitude, the pain, the torture and the homelessness of so many children of God?
What is the sense of wearing a cross on our chest, if we can’t bear even the smallest cross of so many people suffering around us? Of what relevance are so many kisses on the Cross, if they do not arouse in us the friendship, compassion and welcome towards those whose lives are crucified?
The crucified God uncovers all our lies and cowardice. From the silence of his cross, He becomes an impartial, yet firm, judge of our compromised faith, our
self-centered lives, and our indifference towards so many people who are nailed to their own crosses. Doing worship before a crucified God, it’s not enough to celebrate the Holy Week; we must, first of all, get closer to people who are carrying a cross, week after week.