The Cross is Only Halfway There
Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, CA
Before I started really studying Christianity I believed it was all about Jesus on the cross. And no wonder; the guy is constantly up there! Just about any Catholic church I’ve ever walked into has got him hanging around somewhere. There’s usually a lot of blood, he usually looks mournful as hell, and he’s usually all alone.
If you don’t know, we’re approaching this cross right now. It started some 40 days ago with Lundi Gras, Mardi Gras, and Ash Wednesday. There was that curious Kairos wilderness time there in the middle and now we’ve landed on Maundy Thursday. This is also known as the first celebration of the Last Supper, aka communion.
Tomorrow is the big day of the Cross which you can ‘celebrate’ by walking the twelve stations of the cross, all of which are kind of a memorial to burtality. But that’s not the end of the story, despite what most Christians would have you believe.
Now, I haven’t been crucified in this life (yet) but I imagine it is a bit mournful and bloody to go through that experience. And there’s something really important about walking with death and grief.
One of the best worship services I’ve ever had was Jesus’ funeral at St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco where we laid flowers on an icon of him in the tomb and fully prostrated three times as a congregation to kiss the ground of his death.
But the truth is, being crucified was a mere fraction of Christ’s ministry. And it was actually just a brief - if intense - portal into his true teaching; death is not the end.
You see, he taught this for most of the three years he was actively teaching as an enlightened being. No matter your sickness, your loss, your grief, your struggles, your pain, you are not alone and God is not done with you yet.
Whatever you’re going through, it’s not the last thing God has planned for you. Or as I’ve been taught by the many ministers of House for all Sinners and Saints including the ever-insightful Nadia Bolz-Weber; the worst thing is not the last thing.
There’s a cathedral in Oakland called Cathedral of Christ the Light. I went there on a kind of self-directed field trip when I was in Seminary and what I saw there astounded me.
The photo at the top of this email is a picture from the entrance to the sanctuary. As you can see they don’t have Christ on a cross as their focal point of worship. They have him showing up as a teacher under a sacred Yoni, i.e. the feminine womb of universal life.
What’s more, the pews for worhsip are all placed directly under that sacred vesica piscis so that the metaphorical waters of life are pouring down on you every moment you’re in church.
This to me is the true teaching of Jesus and Holy Week. In fact, if you know anything about crucifixion (which hopefully you don’t), Jesus’ crucifixion was actually kind of miraculously fast.
Usually it took people 5-7 days on a cross to die of slow suffocation. That’s why it was such an effective method of crowd control; who wants to spend a week walking by their friend who’s been alive since last Tuesday with nails through their hands? Not I.
But Jesus spent a mere 6 hours on the cross. Anyone who heard this story at the time would immediately know that Jesus wasn’t preaching suffering but rather miraculous mercy. He was saying with his death that suffering - especially in the name of God - was not necessary. As you can tell, this message has been a little lost to history.
After my visit to Cathedral of Christ the Light I bought a small cross in the gift shop. It’s pictured below and to me it’s the message of life in the empty tomb. As you can see, Jesus is not there but rather blue waters and (real!) flowers.
This is the ultimate trampling down of the death-dealing forces of the Roman empire; flowers, water flowing from the Yoni of the Universe, and endless teachings about the magnificence of life.
May your Holy Week be full of miracles like this, may God come find you on your cross and in your tomb and remind you it’s not the end, and may the blessed teachings of the Anointed One grace your days forever.
