Revealed. . .

There is a common misconception that God is hidden in the cross, hidden in weakness.  The reality is just the opposite.  God is not hidden in the cross but revealed there.  It is precisely in His suffering that God reveals Himself in Christ.  God has not concealed Himself in order for us to find Him but revealed Himself plainly to the world.  We do not know God apart from Christ and we do not know Christ apart from the cross.  It is for this reason St. Paul insists that we preach Christ and Him crucified.  It is for this reason that he can declare that He is crucified with Christ and in Christ so that he no longer lives but only Christ in Him.  It is in this God whose love is revealed not in words but in the cross that God makes Himself known.  It is precisely in His love willing to empty Himself in suffering that God reveals His strength.

Sometimes we are tempted to think that the cross is but something Christ endures to pay the price of our redemption or fulfill the prophecy of the Scriptures.  The cross is not simply what God endures but it is where we see God and know Him and the power of His love.  It maybe tempting to think that people can know Christ apart from the cross or to know God in some way apart from Christ but both are a profound betrayal of God's Word and the work of the Spirit in that Word.  Jews seek signs and Greeks wisdom but the only true and genuine Gospel is Christ crucified.  Christ is the power of God and Christ is the wisdom of God. 

We have but one Gospel to offer the world.  It is not a Gospel of forgiveness nor a Gospel of kindness nor a Gospel of human dignity nor a Gospel of improvement.  We have but one Gospel and that Gospel is Jesus Christ crucified.  It is this Christ who unlocks the Scriptures to us and this Christ who turns water into the water of new birth and this Christ who speaks absolution to the sinner and this Christ who gives Himself in bread and wine.  All theology is for us Christology and all Christology is the theology of the cross.  While some may think this is exaggeration, it is the most essential truth of the New Testament.  The Word of God is the Word of the Cross.  The word which we preach is the Word of the Cross.  We neither imagine God or know God apart from Christ and we neither know Christ nor imagine Him apart from the cross.

The cross is not a detour in the path but the path itself.  When we are called to follow Jesus it is the call to take up the cross and follow Him.  So therefore the cross and its denial of self and embrace of sacrifice is not an occasional detour in the ordinary happy life of the Christian but the very shape of that life.  Somewhere we lost this and we ended up with a Savior for whom the cross was but side trip on His revelation of God and we ended up with a Christian life in which bearing the cross was but a momentary diversion in an otherwise fulfilling and rich life.  It is no wonder we are always asking where God is and always wondering what God thinks of us.  We have forgotten that to know God is to know Christ and to know Christ is to know Him as the crucified One.  Perhaps the problem with modern Christianity is not only in what it confesses but what it misses.  For too much of Christianity the cross has become mere symbol and no longer the very Gospel itself.