No Way with the Cross

"It used to be fashionable...to approve of young terrorist. Now that they have gone rather too far, it is fashionable to condemn them. But this evening I have just heard that one of the young Moluccans imprisoned in Holland for hijacking and murdering hostages, having inflicted definitive and incurable psychological traumas on chance victims who were absolutely innocent - that he has hanged himself in his cell. And anyone hanged in his cell is Jesus Christ on his cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?" 

- Petru Dumitriu, Romanian novelist (1979)

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Dear Kate,

In a way - in many ways - we can understand why Christians don't want to talk about the cross.

Say, why don't you talk about it?

To begin with, what is there to talk about that hasn't been talked about already?  You know how it works, the cross.  You better know how it works.  If you don't know better, you better not let on to keep letting on. At any rate, there are reliable formulations to nip curiosity in the bud, corporate faith statements that cannot be easily contradicted even in family fights - most needed during family fights. Theological trump cards are rarely used now, but you can always find one up your sleeve when you need it.

And then there's the sense that we should be kinda getting over it already, the macabre theatrics, growing triter and longer with every retelling.  I mean, we all know how it ended.  We all know we should be thankful for how that wasn't our end, only because Jesus has taken a big one for the team.  But still, we have given credit where credit's due, showing up at church more than occasionally the least of it, still identifying ourselves as Christians in this godless age a growing embarrassment not unlike the weight of wood on its way up Golgotha.  If the cross is to get us back on good terms with God, can't we get over it by now? Aren't we at peace with each other now? He can't be still mad at us?!  If not, can't we just say a simple Thank You, close the book, and move the heaven on?

Still I don't think these are the biggest reasons, the most obscured, dirtiest disdain we harbor towards the crucifixion story. What it demands from us is what we can't give, so little of it we tried so hard for so much of our life with so little success to squeeze no more than zilch out of us: intimacy. The plain fact on wood of God being hung high and dry calls for an emotion we can't call out of us! We know we should be crying, a wretch like us, so totally fucked up to fuck God up this way, but somehow we just don't feel like crying, not exactly very sorry about God hanging there - or anything at all. We don't know what we are feeling, how we should feel, why we should even feel anything new at all upon hearing the loooooooooooooooooooooonng boooooooooooooooooring story one more time - yet here we are, all pious and quiet, letting the preacher waste another precious hour that we could better use apart or together: make sandwiches for the poor maybe, pray for Ukraine too, take the bus, drive less and save humanity, fight for truth and justice, read the news and form a better opinion, all these positive, productive, life-proliferating things we could do in God's name, and we choose instead to crack open the scab and warm up the curdled blood one more time...and what for?

What is at stake? God knows.

Yours, Alex