THE MEANING OF THE CROSS UNITED PARISHES OF SOUTHBOROUGH LENTEN SERIES 2010 Tonight is the last night in our Lenten series on the meaning of the cross. I am well aware tonight of the disadvantage of going last. We have had three excellent presentations from Fathers Tom, Ken, and Jim. I have the feeling that everything has been said already. We have learned a lot about the central symbol of Christianity: the cross and/or the crucifix. Once again, despite our differing religious or denominational affiliations and histories, we have discovered that there is much that we have or hold in common, that there are more similarities than differences in our understanding of the cross. This is what makes ecumenism possible. It is what makes constructive dialogue possible. It is why and how we are able to learn from each other. Wouldn t it be great if we could do this with other religions as well? Wouldn t it be great if we could do this not only with Judaism, which is a part of our history as Christians, but with Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam? Perhaps we can. In fact, we might just take a few minutes to embark upon that undertaking tonight as we seek to look at or understand the cross from an interfaith as well as an ecumenical perspective. As our presenters made clear, and as we discovered when we shared together in our discussions, most of us as Christians have a lot of feeling about the cross. The cross has a personal meaning for us as Christians. In addition, a particular cross may have special meaning to you. That is why I suggested that if you have a special cross you might bring it here this evening. At the close of our meeting tonight, we will have a short blessing of the crosses. I think it would be a meaningful way to wrap up this Lenten series. We did a blessing of the crosses during one of our Sunday morning worship services in First Community Church last year. One of our members wanted to send a special cross to a young woman who is on our prayer list, a young woman who has suffered for several years with excruciating pain from totally debilitating headaches. When he asked me if I would bless the cross before he sent it to her, I suggested that we might expand the scope of the ritual to bless all the special crosses that our people own, 1
have, or wear. So I asked our parishioners to bring in their special cross if they have one. The crosses were placed on a table in the chancel. Then I made a mistake. Before I did the short blessing, I asked if people would share why the particular cross that they had placed on the table was special to them. I began by mentioning the three crosses that I have brought here this evening. The first, which is blood red and is made of very sharp spikes, was a gift from my wife at the time of my ordination. It is a stark reminder not to romanticize the crucifixion. It reminds me of the tremendous pain that Jesus experienced in his crucifixion and that we must experience when we suffer through our own crucifixions. The second, a crucifix, was a gift from a Roman Catholic nun. It is what is called a Roman cross, with the crossbar located in the upper quadrant. A Greek cross has the crossbar in the middle. The exaggerated height of the vertical axis of this cross conveys a special emphasis on the vertical or spiritual dimension of the cross and of the crucifixion. When we see how small Jesus is compared to the cross, it is a reminder that the cross as an archetypal symbol is much bigger even than Jesus, that it is an important part of the spiritual journey for all of us. It also speaks to me of the loneliness of Jesus time on the cross, and the loneliness that we often experience when we are suffering through our own crucifixions. The third is known as St. Francis s cross. It was the cross before which he was praying at the ruins of San Damiano when he heard Christ call him to rebuild the church. As you know from my presentation at our Lenten series on Christian saints a few years ago, I have a special devotion to Francis of Assisi. This cross, which is from Assisi, is a reminder to me that, like St. Francis, I am called to build up or rebuild the church, the mystical body of Christ, and also that there are many ways of doing this. So what was my mistake? Well, during the time of personal sharing the floodgates opened. People talked in great length and with great feeling about their cross. The cross once belonged to their mother or their grandmother. A friend or a pastor gave them the cross during a difficult time in their life. Many had never taken it off. Some told of fights in the operating room when they were told that they had to remove all jewelry. It was obvious that for these people the cross, even though they wore it about their neck, was not a piece of jewelry. 2
A half hour later we were still going strong. People were in tears. The worship service, which usually lasts about an hour, stretched out to almost an hour and a half. And I got blamed for it! After the service several parishioners told me, in what I perceived as a thinly veiled threat, that Father Flynn s masses never last an hour and a half. I know this is true, for as Jim said last week, he has a knack for turning a scheduled fifteen-minute talk into five. I have the opposite gift (or curse); I can turn a fifteenminute talk into thirty or forty-five without batting an eyelash. My parishioners have told me that I have problems with my terminal facilities. Jim, if attendance at your Sunday masses shot up for a couple of weeks following my blessing of the crosses, now you know where these people came from. The first week of this series, Father Tom asked us about our feelings in relation to the cross. Although I believe it is important to understand the cross as a religious symbol, and specifically a Christian symbol, it is our feeling that makes the cross special to us. Remember, feelings are what give or indicate value. The feeling function is a value-placing function. It forms a personal rather than an intellectual or rational connection to an object. Feelings might be positive or they might be negative. For example, some people at our table in the discussion period the first week shared that they have positive feelings about an empty cross but negative or troubled feelings about a crucifix, a cross with the corpus on it. A couple of minutes ago I said that one of the disadvantages of speaking last in the series is that everything has already been said. Actually, this not only is not true, it cannot possibly be true in relation to a symbol. This is because there is a difference between a symbol and a sign. A sign designates something. It is denotative; it expresses the whole, the entirety of what it denotes. A symbol, on the other hand, is the best conscious expression of something that cannot be adequately be expressed in words or concepts. It points to mystery. That to which it points is not reducible to concepts. That to which it refers is not able to be fully and consciously understood. I think we have to be careful when we are talking about the cross that we are not treating it as a sign rather than a symbol. For example, the word over that door is a sign. It says, Exit. What does it mean? It means that if we wish to exit or leave the room, we could do so by passing through that door. It has no deeper meaning. I suppose that if 3
you were smoking something illegal you might discern a deeper meaning: Exit wow, that s really deep! That s the problem or one of the problems with being on drugs: some things that are inherently superficial take on a depth of meaning that they are not meant or equipped to carry. The cross can be used as a sign. When it indicates that a certain church is a Christian church, it is functioning as a sign. All it says is that that particular church is a Christian church. Not that that is unimportant. As Tom said, Roman Catholic churches usually have a cross on the top of the steeple while many Protestant churches have a weathervane. I m not sure what that signifies. It may be an indication that Protestants want to make sure they know which way the wind is blowing. On a deeper level, it might mean that we Protestants try to be open to the Holy Spirit, who is symbolized or experienced as wind. But I think that would be stretching the deeper meaning of the weathervane a little too much, at least for those of us who are not on drugs. The existentialist theologian Paul Tillich said that a symbol has a transporting quality or function. It connects us to something greater. It serves as a bridge to another realm. This evening I would like us to think of the cross as a bridge to another realm, the realm of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, the realm of eternity. We live in the world or the realm of space and time, the realm of matter, the realm of opposites. For the sake of simplicity and for those of us who are conceptually challenged and prefer to have something we can picture, let s call this the horizontal axis or realm or dimension of being. But we do not live totally or exclusively in this horizontal realm. There is also a vertical dimension to life. This is the realm that transcends space and time. It is the realm of eternity. Remember, the word eternity does not mean a stretch of time that goes on endlessly; it is the realm of timelessness, the realm beyond space and time. We call this the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. We stand at the intersection of these two realms: the realm of time and the realm of eternity, the realm of particulars and the realm of the Great Unity, the material and the spiritual. We stand at the intersection of earth and heaven with a foot in each. As the apostle Paul says, our true citizenship is not of this horizontal world of space and time; it is grounded in eternity. We should live our lives fully in this world but not define 4
ourselves in terms of it. The kingdom that Jesus incarnated, that he taught us about, that he integrated in his life, and into which he would help us pass, is the kingdom of heaven. I think the cross symbolizes the intersection of these two realms. As a symbol, if we approach it in faith it can transport us into the vertical or spiritual realm. Before we get to the matter of the crucifixion, the crucifixion of Jesus and the crucifixions we suffer in our lives, let me say a little more about symbols. If something is a symbol rather than a sign, it is archetypal. It is an archetypal structure or constellation of energy within the psyche that finds expression in a certain outward symbol. This means that it is universal. If something is truly a symbol, it will find expression in many different cultures and religions. This is the case with many of our religious symbols: the circle, the square, the rock, the flower, and the flame. It is also true of the cross. We know that crosses appear in other religions. The Egyptian ankh is a symbol of life. It has nothing to do with the way that Jesus died. In his talk, Father Tom mentioned the swastika, which is a common form of the cross in Tibetan Buddhism. It means life and health. It is a dynamic cross. The way the arms are formed in a Tibetan Buddhist swastika symbolizes a clockwise movement, a movement upward, a movement from the left to the right, from the unconscious to the conscious realm. It is why a Tibetan Buddhist always circumambulates a chorten or any religious holy place, like Mt. Kailas, clockwise. When the Nazis appropriated this religious symbol, they reversed it. Their cross actually moves counterclockwise, downward, or into the unconscious. In this thanka, a mandala that I purchased in Tibet and had framed in Kathmandu, we find several religious symbols that both Christianity and Buddhism hold in common. We have the circle, which is a symbol of spirit, of wholeness, of the psyche. It finds expression in the rose windows of great cathedrals and in the halos that surround the heads of saints. We have the square, which is a symbol of earthbound matter and the body. The square is grounded in the number 4, which finds expression in Christian symbolism as the four gospels and the four evangelists that are often depicted surrounding Jesus. If you look deeply into this mandala you will also see a cross. This cross connects or unites the circles and the squares. It draws our focus to the center of the mandala. This cross is a symbol of life. 5
Tibetan Buddhists maintain that if you meditate on this mandala by focusing your gaze on the center, you may find it will transport you. It can provide you with a centering experience, an experience of deep peace. It can put you in touch with a deeper realm that transcends the realm of space and time. C. G. Jung found that when schizophrenic patients were having an acute psychotic episode and were falling apart or dissembling, they often dreamt of mandalas or figures that include some variation of the quarternity, the number four as a symbol of wholeness, of the reconciliation of the opposites. However, you may meditate on this mandala and experience nothing. This is because, as Jim said last week, the faith we bring to an experience is an important if not essential ingredient in what transpires. This is true in relation to our own sufferings; it is also true in relation to how we experience religious symbols. It is faith that helps us see deeper into both the symbol and life, that helps us discern the deeper meaning of the symbol, that helps us experience the deeper meaning of the cross, of Christ s crucifixion, his death and resurrection, and our own. The cross that is embedded within this Tibetan Buddhist mandala symbolizes totality. It unites the four realms. It connects earth and heaven, ground and sky. It symbolizes the intersection of the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of life, of time and eternity. It does this even though, for the Tibetan Buddhists, the cross has no connection to Christ s death, the event that makes it an especially powerful or poignant symbol for us as Christians. In many religions instead of the symbol of a cross we find the symbol of a tree. The cross and the tree are connected on a very deep level. Both serve to connect the ground and the sky, earth and heaven, and they pull together the four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. The Nordic god Wotan was crucified on a tree. The connection between the cross and the tree is prominent in our own tradition as well. The second verse of the hymn we sang this evening in our worship, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? says, Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? We all know the story of the tree in the Garden of Eden: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God placed the tree in the Garden. For some reason, he did not see fit to guard it. In fact, he placed the serpent in the Garden to tempt Adam and Eve to eat of this wonderful fruit. As the serpent said to Eve, if you eat of this fruit you 6
will enter in the realm of opposites, the realm of space and time. You will know the difference between here and there, past and future, male and female, light and dark, healthy and unhealthy, good and evil. The fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil brought us into this realm of space and time, this horizontal realm. It is, admittedly, a realm of suffering. I know that Eve has received a lot of criticism for eating this fruit and enticing Adam, who was apparently a mindless wuss, to do so as well. I think she should be praised. I would rather be a conscious human being, knowing the difference between right and wrong and struggling to choose the right than to be unconscious, like an earthworm or a turnip. By the way, this mythological Fall into the world of space and time could only have come about through a woman. If you think about it, how did we enter this world of space and time, this horizontal realm? Most of us came into this world through our mothers, through the event of our birth. Once again, even though my mother brought me into this realm of suffering, I would much rather have been born than not be born or spend my entire life in her womb. Did you know that there was another tree in the Garden of Eden? When we talked about this in our Sunday morning adult Bible study, no one in our group knew about the other tree. This is the Tree of Life. If the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil brings us into the world of space and time, the Tree of Life has the power to bring us back into eternity, to connect us with the kingdom of heaven. The second tree, the Tree of Eternal Life, is the way back into eternity. It is the way into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. However, because we have symbolically eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the fruit of which has brought us into the realm of space and time, the realm of opposites, the option of simply eating the fruit of the Tree of Life is no longer an option. We have to reenter eternity in a different way. After Eve and Adam eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and become conscious of the opposites in life, after they realize that they are different, that they are man and woman, we read in Genesis 3:22-24: Then the Lord God said, See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever therefore the Lord God sent him forth 7
from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. The way back from the realm of time into the realm of eternity is blocked. The way back is not to reenter the Garden of Eden. We cannot do it by simply entering into the unconscious from which we emerged, though some people try to do this through drugs and alcohol. It has to be done consciously as a spiritual discipline. Christians believe that the first attempt to reenter the realm of eternity was to live a moral life as defined by the Law. But this was not possible; as conscious human beings we can never be good enough to reenter eternity. Christians believe that the way back is through Christ: through his incarnation, his teaching, and more specifically his death and resurrection. There is an ancient Christian legend concerning the cross. This legend maintains that the wood that was used in the cross on which Jesus was crucified was taken from the tree of the Garden of Eden. It seems to me that the wood for the cross could not have been taken from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; that would make no sense. It had to be taken from the Tree of Life. This alone will help us reenter eternity, not only after we die but in this life as well. The cross teaches us that the way to God is not backward but forward. The cross is the way to enter into a relationship with the realm of the eternal. Through it we enter into the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. This is the way of the cross. This understanding of the cross would seem to be consistent with our understanding of the function of religion. The word religion is formed from the prefix re, meaning again, and ligare which means to connect, just as ligaments connect bone to bone. If religion means to reconnect, if that is the function of our religion, what is it supposed to reconnect? If something needs to be re-connected, it implies that it was originally connected; it was originally one. Then, somehow, the one became two. The unity became a duality or a multiplicity of forms. This is what happened when we ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We became separated or alienated from the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, the realm of eternity. 8
The cross, as a symbol of the second tree, functions to reconnect us with God and with the kingdom of God within us. It functions to reconnect, heal, restore, reconcile, and make whole. It joins the horizontal and the vertical, us and God, earth and heaven, the realm of time/space/opposites and the realm of eternity/oneness. Jesus did this in his own crucifixion. He also tells us how to do this. He points the way in his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prays, not my will, but Thine be done. This is a call to the death of the ego, the death of the ego-centric life. It is a call to find the center of our life, to find our spiritual grounding in God. In order to find this, just as Jesus did, we have to empty ourselves. We have to take up our own cross and follow him. Here is where the cross is different from the tree. If the central symbol of Christianity were a tree, we could enter into heaven by simply climbing the tree, much as Jack climbed the beanstalk to get into the realm up in the sky that contained all the treasures that he and his family were missing on earth. However, the central symbol of Christianity is the cross. The way of the cross is death. It involves sacrifice. It calls us to surrender, to be crucified, and to undergo this willingly, just as Jesus did. In this sense, Jesus can t do it for us. We must do it for ourselves. We must pick up our own cross and follow him. I think something in us has to die in order for us to enter eternal life. What is it that needs to die? I think we need to look at our ego, our little identities. We need to die to our egocentric lives to become Christ-centric. We need to die to our self-centeredness to experience our deep connection with others. This is what Jesus did, and it is what he calls us to do as well. In closing, I would like to leave you not with answers but with questions. These questions are in the form of two quotes. The first is by the 13 th century German mystic Angelus Silesius, who said, Though Christ a thousand time In Bethlehem be born, If he s not born in you Your soul is still forlorn. The cross on Golgotha Will never save your soul, 9
The cross in your own heart Alone can make you whole. What did he mean when he said that the cross on Golgotha, the cross on which Jesus died, will never save our soul, but the cross in our own heart alone can make us whole? The second quote, which is also on your discussion sheet, is from the 17 th century German mystic Jakob Boehme, who says, What we people in this world need most is to seek again for what we have lost. But if we want to search for it, we need not seek outside ourselves. Is it the crucifixion/suffering/death of Jesus the Christ that brings us into eternal life or our own crucifixion/suffering/death? If it is the cross in our own heart that alone can make us whole, what it is that needs to be crucified? What did Jesus mean when he told us to take up our own cross and follow him? The cross is a powerful symbol, both in our religion and in others. It reminds me of Jesus death, his sacrifice, how he died for us. It fills me with humility, gratitude, and love. But the cross means more to me than this. It is clear that in our religion and perhaps in all religions it is a way to reconnect something that has become separated. It is the Way to eternal life. When I think of the cross this way it challenges me to do in my life what Jesus did in his, that I, too, might enter the realm of eternal life, not only after I die but right here and now. As Father Flynn suggested last week, if we have faith, if we bring our faith to the symbol of the cross, it will enable us to see deeper. It may help us to experience the mystery behind this powerful religious symbol, the mystery of eternal life. A reflection on the meaning of the cross shared by the Reverend Paul D. Sanderson, Pastor of the First Community Church of Southborough, at the United Parishes of Southborough Lenten program held at Pilgrim Church on March 16, 2010. 10
UNITED PARISHES OF SOUTHBOROUGH LENTEN SERIES ON THE MEANING OF THE CROSS For discussion: 1. Share your feelings about the cross you brought to the meeting tonight. What does it mean to you? How does it (as a symbol) help you connect to something deeper? 2. What did Angelus Silesius (13 th century German mystic) mean when he said: Though Christ a thousand time In Bethlehem be born, If he s not born in you Your soul is still forlorn. The cross on Golgotha Will never save your soul, The cross in your own heart Alone can make you whole. 3. What did the German mystic Jakob Boehme (early 1600 s) mean when he said: What we people in this world need most is to seek again for what we have lost. But if we want to search for it, we need not seek outside ourselves. 4. Is it the crucifixion/suffering/death of Jesus the Christ that brings us into eternal life or our own crucifixion/suffering/death? If it is the cross in our own heart that alone can make us whole, what it is that needs to be crucified? 5. What did Jesus mean when he told us to take up our own cross and follow him? 6. Why is the cross such a powerful symbol in so many different religions and cultures, even those that predated Christianity or that are not Christian? Is the meaning of the cross for them the same as ours or different? 11