Triumph of the Cross is today. It sounds like “ha ha what a win” but I never think of it that way. I think of intense love, non-violence, humility, sacrifice in the face of indifference, cruel efficiency, fear and profound misunderstanding. The death of the Lord confused Satan a lot because it was something he would never do. He waited for Jesus to come down from the cross and be a lion, challenge him to a fight or a match of wills, anything. I think he even wondered what was wrong with these people around Jesus who either ran away or merely stood by. He had no understanding of love. He is a powerful super intelligent being but humility, love and sacrifice, forgiveness he can’t understand at all. In that moment I don’t think he understood anything. Neither did most people. It’s still a bit of a problem for us, especially the take up YOUR cross part. It’s a big big ask. Only the One who really did that can help us to do such a thing and find the flowers in it. So we have to ask him all the time for that.
“The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away. I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.”
(Isaiah 50:5-7)
Anyone can give intellectual assent to Christ’s existence, his nature and purpose. Anyone can quote Scripture. Satan did both of those things. When the devil tempted Jesus in the desert he quoted Scripture just fine. The demons exorcised by Jesus proclaimed his truth screaming, “You are the Christ the Som of God!” as they left the scene at his command.. So it isn’t enough to know the Bible or to acknowledge Jesus in order to belong to him. Following him, identifying with him, seeking unity with him, living as he did, loving him in all of his mystery, that is what being Christian is.
His triumph was all of the things that most confound the forces of hell: sacrifice, obedience, love, surrender, acceptance, humility, non-violence, abandonment to God, suffering and losing a fight in front of the whole world, and on purpose.
Even we don’t understand it unless we console ourselves that he was resurrected on the third day, which he was. But in that moment he died with trust and abandonment. He gave himself over and faced his enemies in silence.
This throws Satan, and sadly it throws us too.
Even we Christians hold a deep attachment to violence and revenge. We cannot let go of the exhilarating high of vainglorious triumph.
And yet the Beautiful One admonished us to take up our crosses and follow him.
I don’t think that is simply putting up with the hardships of life hoping for reward though I know that is part of it. I think we need to respond to the violent world as he did.
Turning the other cheek to me means, “I will not be turned back from love.” That kind of power can only come from God and we have to want it.
We have to renounce ourselves and follow Jesus. That’s how we find life and even find ourselves.
I haven’t gotten there yet. I have been there sometimes but it is not yet my home, my way of being. Not yet. I suppose that is how it is for most of us.
I still want to win. I want to win, I tell myself, for others; for the poor, for those on the margins, for immigrants. However, like anyone, my motivations are mixed. There is still a selfishness and pride in it. We all want to force things, to feel powerful. It is the effect of the fall of humanity in us.
The real battle we have is against ourselves, as St. Teresa of Avila says. And this is hard, she points out, “because we love ourselves very much.”
God gave us an innate sense of justice and right. There is nothing wrong with this. We go wrong when we stray from the Gospel. A line in the Oscar Romero movie, Romero got to me. St. Oscar said to a fellow priest and advocate for justice, who tried to talk him into joining the rebels with him on behalf of the suffering people of El Salvador, “If you do this you will lose God just as they [those he would take up arms against] have.” Whether these were St. Romero’s exact words or not it is an incredibly powerful statement. It rings utterly true. If we persist in our attachment to violence we will lose God. Nothing, absolutely nothing is worth that. And we will “lie down in torment.” (Isaiah 50:11)
I have read that some people are starting to complain to their pastors when they preach on the Beatitudes, that the preaching was too left leaning. When confronted with the fact that these are the words of Jesus Christ, they retort that this is outdated, doesn’t work, is “weak.” Look at us. We haven’t changed. The Cross, the Gospel, is still a scandal, still makes no sense.
However, When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:23)
“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).
There is really no way around that.
Even those of us who know and accept the teachings of Jesus have parts of ourselves still attached to violence and our own ideas of justice. We still hope Jesus will clear the world of bad people on his return.. Not us though because we are nice people, right?
St. John of the Cross said that even if the only thing keeping a little bird tied to a tree branch is the thinnest of threads, the bird is still tethered, still not free.
We have to cut the thread.
On this Triumph of the Cross in 2023, in this era of mass shootings, unkindness and cruelty, and the promotion of a lack of compassion as a good thing by a significant portion of society, even by a good number of our fellow Christians, lets renounce violence in the Name of Christ, embracing instead the way of Jesus.
We can’t belong to the Christ of Revelation unless we belong to the Jesus of the Gospels with all that he showed us.
Thank God he is with us to help us with his endless grace.
He who has begun the work in us will complete it. (Philippians 1:6)
We have only to decide, every day, and trust that he will triumph in us.
“I have promised it and I will do it, says the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:14b)
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, which is essentially God’s kind of win, so different from our own. The cross isn’t about leaving anyone humiliated or diminished. There is no gloating involved, and no revenge. No one who does not want to be left out is left out.
Jesus took all the negative consequences of both “winning” and” losing” all on himself for his kind of triumph. Love always redeems, lifts up, and seeks out the other. Love sacrifices. Love believes in the loved one’s ability to be made new by the experience. All those Psalms asking God to break our enemies cheekbones and all that perhaps startle when we read them. However, in light of the Triumph of the Cross, they seem so different now that we know what Jesus considers defeating the enemy; turning someone’s belligerence, their attachment to all the wrong things, into their own deliverance.
God’s kind of win is a real win, and that win is for everybody, regardless of our human games, our social understandings of competition and power.
So never be turned back from love, oh soul. That’s what winning is.
We adore you O Christ and we praise you
because by your Holy Cross, You have redeemed the World
Bethany Hang Out 