Your words reveal the believer’s embarrassment. I have read the most diverse reactions: some in favor, some against; some clever, some delirious. It surprises when the crucifix is strongly defended by those who make it a bulwark of their racial superiority or cultural identity. They are pious people, prone to crusades and stake fires, or cunning types, attentive to their own interests. For the former, it would be good to reflect about Dostoyevsky’s The Great Inquisitor; for the latter, it would profit them to read Jesus’ “Woe to you” to the powerful. I am making some considerations not to add fuel to the fire, but water to quench it.
God doesn’t love the cross, God loves people. Because of this, instead of putting any person on the cross, God let Himself be crucified. It is not God who has invented the cross, but the evil which is in the world God so much loves and wants to save. The Crucifix is the great mystery of Christianity: it “un-demonizes” God, showing His true face. God is not so much the boss, lawgiver, judge and… executioner; but He is all and only has love towards His children, whether they are good or bad. He doesn’t favor races, cultures or beliefs; He, however, has a weak spot for the accursed and the sinners. The Cross frees us from the false images of God, the human being, life/death. God is the One who loves with a love stronger than death; human being is not whoever dominates but whoever becomes a servant; life is not a commodity to preserve but a gift to give away. The Cross is certainly not a fetish or a means of religious and cultural domination: it is the sign of a love that respects everybody, starting from the least, those we despise and, therefore, crucify.
Let us now consider the cross in schools or courtrooms. According to the Gospels, at the origin of the cross there is the synagogue (school/church) that Jesus attended at Nazareth when He was small. There, after His first homily, “His own people” tried to kill Him. At the end, the religious tribunal judges Him as a blasphemer and the political one condemns Him as a rebel. This is how Jesus ends on the cross. One of them recognizes Him as God: He is the first theologian. The second is the chief of the executioners’ platoon: He recognizes Him as a just man. His throne is the scaffold destined to the rebellious slaves. From there, near to anyone who looks far from God, Jesus is in solidarity with the lost. His friends eventually take courage and detach Him from the cross.
This account tells us what the cross of Jesus is. “The crucifix doesn’t generate any discrimination. He is silent, He doesn’t speak. He is the image of the Christian revolution that has spread the idea of equality among human beings throughout the world… Up to that point, that idea had been absent…Nobody before Jesus Christ had ever said that all human beings are equal and are brothers and sisters” (Natalia Ginzburg).
As far as the animosity between clerical and anti-clerical people is concerned, (the former are mirror of the latter), as a priest, I propose to be more human and less clerical. So that the beautiful name of God may not be used in blasphemy because of us! It is good neither to look for dominance over the world – thank God, it is escaping from us – nor to have the “besieged citadel” complex. If the world doesn’t understand us and hates us, let us ourselves learn to understand it and love it, even if we end up on the cross. I would like to conclude with a suggestion: more than impose or depose images of the crucifix from walls, why don’t we propose to depose from the cross all the “poor Christs”? They are billions. All those whom we, people of the First World, hurry to nail on the cross and keep there! © Popoli – www.popoli.info
