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| Bete Giyorgis, Church of Saint George, Lalibela, Ethiopia |
Matthew 16:21-27
If you happen to travel to Lalibela, Ethiopia you will encounter a hole in the ground. I am sure that you would not notice any difference between it and any other hole in the ground... until you see the cross in the middle of it. The cross is the reason for the hole in the ground, since it was sculpted from the surrounding rocky landscape. I am sure that you would not notice any difference between it and any other cross made out of stone...until you notice the church that lies beneath this cross. The cross that formed the hole in the ground is actually the roof of a church that was sculpted from the that same rocky terrain. This house of worship is the Church of Saint George, Lalibela. It was "carved from solid red volcanic rock in the 12th century" by the bequest of King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela of Ethiopia (whom it is named after). He was inspired to construct several rock cut churches in the area and structure the city of Lalibela after the design of Jerusalem (based on his memory of a trip there). The Church of St. George is part of the greater Oriental Orthodox Church tradition, specifically the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Despite its creative construction this isn't the only church that uses the cross in its design. Above any of the early Christian aesthetic symbols for Jesus (such as the Ichthys fish, the anchor, the shepherd, the lamb or even the portrait of Jesus) the cross is the most universally recognized and utilized Christian image. Why do so many churches throughout the ages, around the world and across denominational lines use the design of the cross? Why is this image and structure so enduring in the Church? Matthew 16:21-27 may give us some insight into this intersection of theology and aesthetics. In today's Scripture Jesus delivers the foundational call for all of his Church to be shaped by the cross. In doing so, Jesus teaches us that there is much meaning in his suffering.
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| Crucifix, Cimabue, Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence, Italy |
From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day...
When I visit my wife's Catholic church I encounter the cross design. Specifically it is in the form of crucifixes. Cimabue's painting Crucifix, ironically is not considered a crucifix in the Western (Catholic) church tradition. Unlike the Eastern (Orthodox) church tradition where the body of Jesus (called the "corpus.") can be painted on the cross. Western crucifixes must feature a three dimensional Christ. In his suffering, Jesus leaves the two dimensional world of illustration and invades the viewer's three dimensional world. The presence of the cross is real and interacts with the space of all who see it. These sculptural images of Jesus fixed to the cross are not only objects for aesthetic appreciation but also objects used in worship. Like the church in Ethiopia, my wife's church in Los Angeles is part of a faith community founded in the pre-Modern era. A time when tradition was sacred, faith was expressed in ceremony and authority gave meaning. Both churches continue the ancient Christian practice of using ritual in the worship liturgy to appreciate the significance behind the cross. Ritual and repetition are powerful tools in remembering Jesus' salvific sacrifice. The viewing and handling of the cross object are not the only rituals that remember Christ's death in the liturgy. There is also the taking of the weekly Eucharist (communion): another act that remembers the Lord's death. And then there is the reciting of the creed. Whether it is the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed, the parishioners weekly testify in unison to what the Church across the ages believes. The word "creed" comes from the first words of the Nicene and Apostle's Creed in Latin, "credo" or "I believe." When the Nicene Creed gets to the section about Jesus it mentions:
When I visit my wife's Catholic church I encounter the cross design. Specifically it is in the form of crucifixes. Cimabue's painting Crucifix, ironically is not considered a crucifix in the Western (Catholic) church tradition. Unlike the Eastern (Orthodox) church tradition where the body of Jesus (called the "corpus.") can be painted on the cross. Western crucifixes must feature a three dimensional Christ. In his suffering, Jesus leaves the two dimensional world of illustration and invades the viewer's three dimensional world. The presence of the cross is real and interacts with the space of all who see it. These sculptural images of Jesus fixed to the cross are not only objects for aesthetic appreciation but also objects used in worship. Like the church in Ethiopia, my wife's church in Los Angeles is part of a faith community founded in the pre-Modern era. A time when tradition was sacred, faith was expressed in ceremony and authority gave meaning. Both churches continue the ancient Christian practice of using ritual in the worship liturgy to appreciate the significance behind the cross. Ritual and repetition are powerful tools in remembering Jesus' salvific sacrifice. The viewing and handling of the cross object are not the only rituals that remember Christ's death in the liturgy. There is also the taking of the weekly Eucharist (communion): another act that remembers the Lord's death. And then there is the reciting of the creed. Whether it is the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed, the parishioners weekly testify in unison to what the Church across the ages believes. The word "creed" comes from the first words of the Nicene and Apostle's Creed in Latin, "credo" or "I believe." When the Nicene Creed gets to the section about Jesus it mentions:
"he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures"In this document the early Church Fathers testify to what Jesus prophesied in Matthew 16:21-27. The reason that followers of Jesus throughout the ages have repeated this narrative is the same reason why Jesus told it to his disciples. It is because there is no way to overstate the significance of what Jesus did on the cross. The importance of what Jesus did by suffering, dying and rising from the dead does not only make up the foundation of the Church's creed but also Jesus' own creed. Jesus did not only believe that the cross would happen as a historical event but he also believed in its power throughout eternity. Jesus believed that more than any other good thing that he did in his ministry (preaching, healing, showing kindness, forgiving), this was the great thing. This was the great thing that gave meaning to all of the good things. This was the saving act that his preaching, healing, showing kindness and forgiving testified to. This was the death that would birth eternal life for all of humanity. Jesus repeatedly prophesied and foretold his disciples of his forthcoming sacrificial death. After his resurrection and ascension, his disciples (turned apostles) repeatedly preached the significance of his sacrificial death. Both Jesus and the Apostles had a ritual surrounding their creed of the cross. Whether the parishioners at my wife's church consider the story behind a crucifix, share in the Eucharist meal that commemorates Jesus' broken body and blood or speak the historic Church's collective memory of the Passion and Resurrection, in effect they all practice a living out of the creed. They all testify "I believe" what Jesus believed. Creed is what we believe about Jesus. Jesus' surrendering to the cross was about what he believed. Jesus' cross was his acting out of the creed that his death would lead to new life.
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| Neon Cross, Pacific Garden Mission, Chicago. Illinois |
...Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”
But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men....”
The crucifix is fairly different from the crosses in the Baptist churches of my youth. Those New Orleans churches had crosses but I don't remember any featuring the body of Jesus. Their cruciforms were not used as ritual devices but rather as signage that illuminated the point of their preaching: the cross. Some even included text and light that highlighted the message of the cross. Such a cross like this hangs outside of the famous Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. Illinois. In neon lights it reads "Jesus Saves", as if to infer that Jesus is the light of the world and in his cross he saves. Birthed from the Reformation, Protestant preaching shares something with all thought that emerged from Modernity: that reason did not necessarily come from authority but rather it yielded authority. Like much of the Renaissance, the Reformation's reasoning came from illuminating an ancient text. The text that illuminates the Christian is the Bible. The job of the preacher is to illuminate the mind of the listener through this ancient text. The drive of solid textual exegesis is the message the cross. Like the neon cross outside of the Pacific Garden Mission the text (of Scripture) enlightens the cross. Preaching is authoritative when like the Nicene Creed it defers to "according to the Scriptures." In Protestantism a lot of "preaching to the converted" occurs. Even though many of the church members have read the Bible and heard it's stories over and over, the preacher continues to direct them to the text that illuminates the cross. It's a book club that never moves on to a second book. Now the pre-modern Christian approach of Catholics and the Orthodox also feature preaching in their liturgy, but the modern Christian approach (excluding Anglicanism) structures the worship experience around the preaching act. A sermon that lasts an hour is not unheard of or even record breaking. The act of preaching to initiated Christians (as opposed to evangelism) can be looked at as a form of ongoing catechesis. Catechism is what we teach about Jesus. It is an acting out of the creed in worship. Peter's rebuke of Jesus for embracing the creed of the cross and Jesus' subsequent condemnation of Peter's thoughtless theology was in itself a confrontation over catechesis. Peter had just confessed his belief that Jesus was the Christ a few verses earlier. Then he followed it by showing that he didn't understand what it truly meant to be the Christ. If he misunderstood the impending job of God's Messiah, then he also misunderstood the nature of his Kingdom. If Peter misunderstood the nature of his Kingdom, then how could he understand his role as a disciple? If he misunderstood his role as a disciple, then how could he preach the foundation of God's Kingdom as an Apostle? The future catechesis of the Church, the preaching of the Gospel, was contingent on Peter understanding that Jesus' message was not self-centered but rather shaped in self-denial. The plot of the Gospels is Jesus' ministry through the cross, but the subplot is the Disciples' gradual full embrace of this ministry. When Peter rejected the creed of the cross he was rejecting the "things of God." He had not escaped the aspirations of the "things of men" to survive and thrive. Peter had unwittingly aided Satan by deterring Christ's surrender to self-sacrificial love. Peter thought that the cross was an accidental misfortune that could befall Christ but Jesus saw the cross as the real-life performance of his greatest sermon ever. Jesus' cross was the catechesis of God's love in action.
But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men....”
The crucifix is fairly different from the crosses in the Baptist churches of my youth. Those New Orleans churches had crosses but I don't remember any featuring the body of Jesus. Their cruciforms were not used as ritual devices but rather as signage that illuminated the point of their preaching: the cross. Some even included text and light that highlighted the message of the cross. Such a cross like this hangs outside of the famous Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. Illinois. In neon lights it reads "Jesus Saves", as if to infer that Jesus is the light of the world and in his cross he saves. Birthed from the Reformation, Protestant preaching shares something with all thought that emerged from Modernity: that reason did not necessarily come from authority but rather it yielded authority. Like much of the Renaissance, the Reformation's reasoning came from illuminating an ancient text. The text that illuminates the Christian is the Bible. The job of the preacher is to illuminate the mind of the listener through this ancient text. The drive of solid textual exegesis is the message the cross. Like the neon cross outside of the Pacific Garden Mission the text (of Scripture) enlightens the cross. Preaching is authoritative when like the Nicene Creed it defers to "according to the Scriptures." In Protestantism a lot of "preaching to the converted" occurs. Even though many of the church members have read the Bible and heard it's stories over and over, the preacher continues to direct them to the text that illuminates the cross. It's a book club that never moves on to a second book. Now the pre-modern Christian approach of Catholics and the Orthodox also feature preaching in their liturgy, but the modern Christian approach (excluding Anglicanism) structures the worship experience around the preaching act. A sermon that lasts an hour is not unheard of or even record breaking. The act of preaching to initiated Christians (as opposed to evangelism) can be looked at as a form of ongoing catechesis. Catechism is what we teach about Jesus. It is an acting out of the creed in worship. Peter's rebuke of Jesus for embracing the creed of the cross and Jesus' subsequent condemnation of Peter's thoughtless theology was in itself a confrontation over catechesis. Peter had just confessed his belief that Jesus was the Christ a few verses earlier. Then he followed it by showing that he didn't understand what it truly meant to be the Christ. If he misunderstood the impending job of God's Messiah, then he also misunderstood the nature of his Kingdom. If Peter misunderstood the nature of his Kingdom, then how could he understand his role as a disciple? If he misunderstood his role as a disciple, then how could he preach the foundation of God's Kingdom as an Apostle? The future catechesis of the Church, the preaching of the Gospel, was contingent on Peter understanding that Jesus' message was not self-centered but rather shaped in self-denial. The plot of the Gospels is Jesus' ministry through the cross, but the subplot is the Disciples' gradual full embrace of this ministry. When Peter rejected the creed of the cross he was rejecting the "things of God." He had not escaped the aspirations of the "things of men" to survive and thrive. Peter had unwittingly aided Satan by deterring Christ's surrender to self-sacrificial love. Peter thought that the cross was an accidental misfortune that could befall Christ but Jesus saw the cross as the real-life performance of his greatest sermon ever. Jesus' cross was the catechesis of God's love in action.
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| Celtic Cross Tattoo from Tumblr |
...Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?...
Lately I have been visiting a congregation that is a member of the Emergent Church movement. In many of these experimental Christian communities one would be hard pressed to find a cross on the wall but could easily find cross tattoos on the congregates. Potentially unbiblical taboos and nontraditional scenes like this are why many conservative Protestants question the prudence of some in this post-Modern take on Christianity. If a cartographer were making a map of Christianity, then she would probably place a warning next to the area for the Emergent church that read "Danger: There be dragons here." The danger that mapmakers warned tattooed sailors, explorers and conquistadors against was not really dragons per se but the danger of the unknown. Maps empower the user when the cartographer has been empowered by information: solid descriptive data about the area described. There are no dragons in this developing section of Christianity... but there is danger. This church serves as an outreach to a new kind of person that we do not know much about. The emergent (and emerging) church is an effort to engage in discussion with the post-Modern person. Post-Modernity is many things in many fields but in theology it is the recognition that the contemporary person increasingly does not believe in the idea of the metanarrative. Wikipedia states that
"The term was brought into prominence by Jean-François Lyotard in 1979, with his claim that the postmodern was characterized precisely by a mistrust of the grand narratives (Progress, Enlightenment emancipation, Marxism) that had formed an essential part of modernity."Many today do not believe that they can find meaning in a text (like the Bible) or a story (like the Gospel). Scripture seems to be a incongruent collection of stories and writings that say conflicting things. The strength the Emergent movement is not that it disbelieves in grand narratives but rather that it engages in conversation with contemporary culture about our place in the grand narrative. The Emergent church is not a denomination but rather a cross-denominational community that emerges from this conversation of many parts in the appreciation of the story. It not only believes that the Scriptures have a "big story", a metanarrative, that it is telling in all of its seemingly diverse parts but that we are part of that grand narrative. Our personal stories, with their apparent inconsistencies, moments of meaninglessness and chaos are parts of God's story. The narrative of our lives find meaning when they are connected with the narrative of God's life. The cycle of creation, fall, redemption and restoration is the grand narrative of Scripture. It is the big story of man on the species and individual level. It is the love story where the life of the Creator and the lives of the created intersect at the cross. The life of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross bring meaning to all of eternity. It tells us what it is all about. God wants to save you from Sin, but greater than that He wants to save you to Himself. Sin separates Man from God, but mankind's separation from God is what the substance of Sin is. The theme of the grand narrative of Scripture is bringing you back in community with God. Pursuing this community with God also leads us to form community with each other. If Jesus' cross was God's love in action then the mission of the Church, God's people, is acting out love to spread God's community... His Kingdom. This call to missional living starts when we observe the cross' call to abandon self-centered lives to eternal life through self-denial. The cross must be intimately applied to our personal lives and metaphorically tattooed to our bodies. Our will must be exchanged for God's will. In Matthew 16:21-27 Jesus offers his disciples an exchange. In exchange for their own temporary lives Jesus offers an eternal one. A life that he bought for them with his own (literal) cross and they embraced through their own (metaphorical) crosses. The cross of their suffering was not something to be avoided but was their baptism by fire that was predicted. The cross for many of them was not a cross but rather another form of martyrdom. You may find it interesting that the Greek word for martyr literally translates as "witness." So a martyr/witness is one who suffers for advocating or refusing to renounce one's faith. For several, like the disciple/apostle John, the cross was not the death of a martyr at all but other trials that pruned and proved his faith. God is not interested in your death for Him as much as He is interested in you showing your steadfast trust of God in the midst of life factors that call you to renounce it. Even Job in the Old Testament displayed his faith by not denouncing God "yet though He slay(ed) (him)." Job had the faith of a martyr. Everyone's cross is different in its particular manifestation, however, they are the same in that are all the point of dying to the self. Denying one's self is accepting God. Trials produce witnesses. Witnesses testify to the glory of the cross of Christ. This exchange of a life for a life is a change. By change I mean to say a conversion. Conversion is how we live because of Jesus. It is an acting out of the creed that we believe and the catechism that we teach in the world around us. It is the fullest act of worship to a God who calls us to go out into the world. It is the liturgy that we practice outside of the walls of a church building. It is where we answer God's call to be the Church. It is living our public life as God's mission. Conversion is not a one time event when you walked up and shook a preacher's hand. Conversion is a life long process sanctifying us from Sin and reprogramming our hearts to live a life outside of ourselves. Conversion is God forming a selfless love in us: intended for God and expressed toward mankind. Conversion is not just the changing of what our minds think. Conversion is also the changing of our how hearts feel, what our eyes can see, where our feet walk and what we have a taste for. When Christ has converted our minds to be full of trust in Him, our hearts to be full of love for our enemy, our eyes to see the Kingdom of God, our feet to follow him, our ears to hear the suffering of those around us, our mouth to profess the truth of God and our appetites to hunger and thirst for righteousness, then he has converted (changed) us into a whole new man. The old man has passed away. The new man that lives within us is Christ Jesus. Conversion changes our will and our ways. Conversion changes us from living in our death to living in Jesus' life. Like Christ it leads us to pursue the good of those around us. Conversion is bearing the image of the cross. Jesus' cross is the way of life that we must continually be converted to.
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| Church of Saint George, Lalibela, Ethiopia |
“For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
If you were to lead a travel discussion of the sites of Lalibela, Ethiopia and started to describe a large hole in the ground with a cross, then one of your listeners might infer that you were depicting a grave. But you would know that it isn't a grave because graves are where the dead are placed. The church is not dead. On the contrary it is very much still in use. Living worshipers who desire to connect with God dwell in it continually. This is where you and Jesus agree. But while you may be describing the church as a building, Christ is describing the Church as a people. Yet we as the Church can continue to learn from this church building. Jesus was the king who built his Church for living worshipers who desire to connect with God and dwell in Him continually. It is in dwelling in God, being part of the body of Christ and entering His kingdom that one partakes in the fruit of eternal life. Many of those that were present as Jesus spoke in Matthew 16:21-27 did not taste of physical death until they had seen Christ coming in his kingdom. There physical deaths are only temporary. Before they departed they partook in the fullness of life that Christ offered. Life that cannot be taken or expire. Life that is not invested in the Self but grounded in the Savior. The cross not only forms the foundation of St. George's Church but its walls, its ceiling and its entire structure. There is no part of this dwelling that is outside of the mold of the cross. The Church that Jesus testified of also abides in the cross. We dwell in it and without the shaping of the cross there is no Church. Like St. George's Church, Jesus body was taken from the earth and erected as a sign of salvation. Like Jesus' body, we the Body of Christ (the Church) arise from death and stand firm as a testament of God's power exercised in those who have given their lives over to the cross. Our King had his workmen chip away from the rocky earth to uncover a church that had been waiting there all along. It may have just seemed like any other regular stone, but it was a church waiting for it's glory to be revealed. It just had to be unearthed by its Creator from its temporary grave. You and I are the Church of God and He is salvaging us from our graves and inviting us to life.The cross creates the space where we dwell with God. The cross is what we are called to remember. The cross is what we are called to preach. The cross is how we are called to live. The cross is our creed, catechesis and conversion. Why do so many churches throughout the ages, around the world and across denominational lines build around the design if the cross? Why is this image and structure so enduring in the Church? It is the because Jesus' cross is the conclusion of Mankind's death and the beginning of our life in God.
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| Church of Saint George, Lalibela, Ethiopia |
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