Published  originally during Passiontide 2021.

The mocking people say to the crucified Saviour (Mark 15.32): “Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” When God comes on earth to reign as a king, people make mockery out of his kingship. Come down from the cross, then we will see and believe. Stop this foolishness, this shame, this humiliation. Be a king! Then we will know you are who you say you are. Naturally humans do not want a crucified Saviour, crucified God. So by these words he is rejected: ‘Come down from the cross, then we will see and believe.’ Be a king according to our measure, be a king like this world wants you to be – this world driven to madness by violent striving for dominance, by endless cycles of revenge, this world where the poor and the weak are trampled down, where we are consumed by our disordered desires. ‘Reign now, reign over us!’ they say to the silent, crucified God.

We do not want a crucified Saviour, because we do not want a cross-shaped life: we do not want to be fools, but wise; not poor, but rich; honoured, not dishonoured; strong, not weak. We want to think of ourselves as good, or at least as nice. We want to fit in with those we admire. We do not want to bear the burden of unpopular ethical convictions or if we do we want to be vindicated as those who stood on the ‘right side of history’. We want to be seen in our goodness; we do not want the total humiliation of the cross. We want to keep our lives, not lose them: to have what we desire, to be who we want to be, to keep what’s ‘rightfully ours’. We do not want to become utterly gentle, all the way, into the depths of our being. And we don’t want to admit it. But this – the crucified Christ – is the way he gives himself to us, this and no other. To reject the cross is to reject him. ‘Whoever wants to be my follower…’

‘Then we will see and believe.’ Blessed are those who see God in Christ, who do not the reject the offense and the foolishness of the cross. ‘This is God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.’ (1Cr. 2.7f.) O Holy Spirit, come, and enlighten our eyes that we may behold the glory of God in Christ Jesus, our crucified and risen Lord. Lead our feet into the path of life and peace.