The crucifixion of Jesus is the preeminent example of God’s
love reaching out to us. It is at the same moment the worst and best thing in
human history. The Franciscans, led by John Duns Scotus, even claimed that
instead of a “necessary sacrifice,” the cross was a freely chosen revelation of
total love on God’s part.
In so doing, they reversed the engines of almost all world
religion up to that point, which assumed that we had to spill blood to get to a
distant and demanding God. On the cross, the Franciscans believed, God was
“spilling blood” to reach out to us! This is a sea change in consciousness. The
cross, instead of being a transaction, was seen as a dramatic demonstration of
God’s outpouring love, meant to utterly shock the heart and turn it back toward
trust and love of the Creator.
Richard Rohr
___________________________________________________
It is an age of horrors
With hate sitting in high places
People snatched off the streets
and “disappeared”
A time when racism is flaunted
compassion is a sin
and justice is denied
The air is thick with free-floating anger,
resentment, and feel
we are choking on our own bitterness
We want to claw our way
out of this dark, brooding place
we are desperate
for one clean breath of love
we are tired of stumbling in this sullen gloom
we want to once again walk in the light
Jesus of the cross
You know our pain
It is your pain
What assails us put you there
hanging on that tree
looking down at a world
that cried out for deliverance
You suffered to deliver
not to deliver us from suffering
but to teach us how to live with suffering
the poor will be with us always
so too the tyrants
the small, bitter souls that delight
in the pain of others
there were those who stood underneath your cross
delighted
there were more who simply turned away
overwhelmed by their own pain
unable to bear anymore
unable to see and feel the pain
oozing from the very earth
which cried out in its travail and shook when you died
but you bore it all
and in your near silence
you preached love
Yes, love
because only one thing has power completely
and that is love
Love seeks not power, or wealth
Love seeks not control or retribution
True love is freely given
and in that freedom is its power
it does not need
anything
love not seeking
can give
love not protecting can reach out
from the dawn of time
we human creatures have misunderstood
how You work
we have seen you as distant and demanding
and we have sought you out of fear
in fear
we have spilled blood on innumerable altars
and endless battlefields
seeking to please You
hoping to find favor and blessing
We have killed in your name
doves, and lambs, and fatted calves
and children
your beloved children
but in Jesus
in Jesus on the cross
you revealed your limitless love
from the cross You love poured out
like blood pouring from a pierced body
the cross is an insult
it shocks us, confuses us
and it changes us
we cannot describe a love such as this
but we can see it, experience it, accept it.
we can let love come to us
and freely, joyously, sacrificially
not only return it
but pass it on
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