‘And once again I look upon the Cross where you died,
I’m humbled by your mercy, and I’m broken inside.
Once again I thank you, once again I pour our my heart.’
The Cross of Jesus is and always has been at the centre of our faith. It is the symbol we bear and it is the crux of everything we are as Christians. Once again, this month we walk together in remembrance of the journey of Christ to the cross and yet I am sure this year will feel different. With the spread of the Covid-19 virus and with the country in ‘lockdown’, we will not be celebrating Easter as we normally do. There will be no Palm Sunday donkeys; reminding us of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. There will be no Maundy Thursday Agape/Passover meal; as we reflect on the last supper and roots of our faith in Jesus’ Jewish identity. There will be no Good Friday service, march, reflection, or even hot cross buns, and we won’t be able to meet on the most joyful Sunday of the year, celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and the hope of New Life.
Yet, even without being able to gather in these ways, once again we can look at the cross where Christ died and maybe this year, a unique perspective on it might resonate with us.
One of the most famous saying Jesus declares on the cross is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Is it often called the ‘Cry of Dereliction’. Jesus quotes from Psalm 22 and if you read the entirety of that Psalm it resounds with loneliness of the Cross. These words are so powerful because Jesus, God’s Son, is experiencing separation from his Father for the first time. This is not just a cry of anguish or pain, it is a cry of isolation as the Trinity, the very essence of God, is separated. It is through the lens of enforced isolation that this perspective on the cross becomes so important. Christ on the cross takes the consequences of the sinful world in which we live and is isolated
from his Father by dying on the Cross. As the Romans intended it to be, the Cross becomes the ultimate symbol of isolation, the place where God himself dies. The Cross is the place where Jesus experiences and understands the truest sense of ‘alone-ness’. Once again, I look at the Cross and maybe this time, I find the God who understands the isolation of those living through a pandemic.
But that is not the end of the story, Friday is always intricately linked to Sunday. The Cross can never be separated from the resurrection. We live, through Christ’s sacrifice, in the hope of Easter. It is this hope that we can hold on to through our isolation from each other. A hope which doesn’t diminish the pain and the difficulty of our sufferings, but which points to a brighter future. A hope which acknowledges the costs and sacrifices laid down, and gives them value by declaring that they were worth something. A hope which uses the isolation of God on the Cross to promise us that in his love, we are never alone. Once again I look at the Cross where you died and once again I am thankful that you meet us in our broken isolation and declare, ‘I am with you’.
There may not be any donkeys this year, but there is still the celebration of Palm Sunday that we follow ‘the Servant King’. There may not be a ‘Bring and Share meal’, but we will be in communion together as we remember the Last Supper in our own homes. There may not be Hot Cross Buns in the halls, but there is still the Cross – reminding that Christ has taken true isolation away from us. There may not be an Easter service, but there is hope, always and forever, that even through the toughest times God is bringing us into his brighter future.
Dan Christian
You can read the full copy of the ‘From The Churchwarden’s as a PDF by clicking on this link.