Dear Friends,
Perhaps you noticed at the end of the processional last Sunday that I stepped quickly to the right at the last minute; my nose had been buried in my hymnal, and I had nearly clobbered myself on the troublesome, low-hanging cross suspended in our chancel this Lent, as it has been now for several years. You may have seen Dcn. Tina and me move out of the way to allow passage for the acolytes. You may have had trouble seeing the elevation of the bread and wine during the Eucharist.
The second year I asked Sam to suspend the cross, fashioned lovingly by Gary Owens, Melissa’s husband, higher to prevent mishap. And then it occurred to me that we would now be able cheerfully to ignore it as a decoration. Since that time, it has been returned to its position of nuisance.
“We proclaim Christ crucified,” said Paul in last week’s epistle, “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” The cross was, indeed, a stumbling block to others. Nowhere in paganism, nowhere in the Jews’ expectations, was it possible for a god who would rule to be subjected to such an utterly humiliating, public death. It was proof to them that Jesus could not be God Incarnate.
Christians do not face this same stumbling block. We must, however, never allow ourselves to get too far from its reality, never allow it to be sentimentalized or its centrality diminished. So I’ve left it where it is. A nuisance. Troublesome. In the way of our patterns of sight and forward movement. Ugly. Just as it should be.
Wishing you every blessing,
Mtr. TJ