Seeing the Crucified
Last night, I went to a friend’s home to watch the Oscars. Though the gathering was small, we had a good time watching the performances of songs, revisiting clips of films nominated in different categories, and generally sharing a good time over finger foods and fun conversation. In the midst of our frivolity, we were graced with messages that have, in some way, become part and parcel with the drama of the Oscars: acceptance speeches touching on present day concerns in the world.
There were at least two such moments as I sat in my friend’s living room and took in the elegance of the evening. The first came when the director for The Zone of Interest accepted the Oscar for the best international feature film. In his speech, Joseph Glazer, who is himself Jewish, “said that he rejected ‘Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.’” He went on to say, “Whether the victims of October the seventh in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?” (The New York Times, Jonathan Glazer Condemns ‘Occupation’ and Violence in Israel and Gaza)
Later during the awards ceremony, the director of a documentary about the war in Ukraine also used his time for his acceptance speech to voice the pain the war has caused and is causing. The director, Mstyslav Chernov, said in his speech, “I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities, I wish to give it all the recognition to Russia not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians. I wish for them to release all the hostages, all the soldiers who are protecting their lands, all the civilians who are now in their jails.” (The New York Times, Ukrainian Director Says He’d Rather Have No Oscar and No War) You could hear the pain the director felt for his people and for his country.
As I listened to these acceptance speeches for winning films about very contemporary concerns in our world, I began to wonder if we could recognize any longer the ways that we continue to place humanity on the cross and continue to nail the Christ to that cross in these and other ways. The speeches became for me a moment in which I began to wonder about the profundity of the crucifixion in the modern world in which we have become so accustomed to violence and death and war as part and parcel of what life will include. Are we able to see the ways that we continue to place humanity on the cross, and are we able to feel the pain, the suffering, the death in the places in the world that are experiencing war and strife? Or, is it simply too much for us to encounter in our spiritual lives as we seek the comfort of the Holy One in our own lives? Do we lack the bandwidth to pray for peace and then understand that the prayers we pray for peace in the world are also intended to be the very things that change how we inhabit the world?
All of this pondering brought me to remember that perhaps we have simply forgotten that God loved the world in a very particular way: by giving us God’s only Son to call us back into deep relationship with God. The way in which God loves is through a sacrificial love that, hopefully, helps us to remember that we, too, are to love our neighbors in an analogous way. When we gaze upon the cross, it is tempting for us to see it only as a symbol of faith, hope, and love. And, in our context as Christians, it is truly a sign of those greater truths, but it is also important that we see it for what it was originally: a symbol of pain and suffering and death. Christ goes to that cross to transform an instrument of death into a sign of faith, hope, and love. The transformation comes through Christ’s victory over the very death the cross was intended to deliver, and it then becomes an invitation to transformation for those of us who would become followers of Christ Jesus in the years afterwards.
For reflection:
Where are places of pain or suffering or death in our own communities?
How is God calling us toward the cross for our own transformation? What does it look like for us to go into places of pain, suffering, death with the light and hope of Christ?
Where are you praying for peace in the world? How is your prayer working to transform you into a person of peace?
