"Approach" | Reflection by the Rev. Luk De Volder

At the start of Holy Week we are inevitably approaching the cross, a situation that takes courage to contemplate, to say the least. But if we have the courage to endure this story of suffering we may indeed come to see its wisdom. The wisdom of the way to the cross resides in part in how Jesus' suffering questions profoundly our human inclination to avoid pain and to welcome pleasure. Not that the cross is a renunciation of pleasure or joy or a defense of all life as destined to nothing else than suffering and sacrifice. Jesus’ cross operates with more nuance: Christ’s suffering bars the human desire for ‘more,’ for control, for individual satisfaction. Because those manifestations of selfish pleasure contain at times the seed of violence. Satisfaction and possession can deviate to an act at the expense of others. Those actions of violence have led to endless claims of supremacy and acts of murder, as the ones inflicted to Jesus. Jesus’ cross is the manifest call to humanity to let go of this (self-) destructive approach to life.  The crucified Son of Mankind, The Human, “Ecce Homo” opened the exodus, from this violent oppression as mode of life to the courage to love, transitioning from the striving for dominion toward the choice for communion.

Clearly it takes some time to let go of the desire to violently appropriate as a strategy of happiness. These acts of violence are as old as Cain’s claim on Abel’s life. Today we are still learning how to divest from those acts of brutality. Jesus’ act of power was to bar these energies of violence by a radical care for humanity. Because he doesn’t leave room for any compromise to his love for us, He does not revert to violence or revenge. And by disengaging from the scheme of revenge, Christ creates the room, the safe holding environment for every human to return back to life. We may stand, as scarred and wounded we may be, in the space where God is disarming us from alienation and restoring us to what it means to be humane. Again, we may need to stay in this room of redemption for a while. Unlearning the schemes of deviated life takes time. But there is no better place to be than the space where our own dignity is being restored. So let us approach, one way or another, the place of the crucified.

Caption: Cain slaying Abel, by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1600.

Words in the Wilderness - Walk through the season of Lent with Trinity, one word at a time. Every day (except on Sundays) we will post a photo and a brief refection written by someone in our Trinity community. https://www.trinitynewhaven.org/words-in-the-wilderness