“In the crucifix you
see, in the most vivid, convincing way,
God speaking to us about his great
love.”
- Cardinal Basil Hume, OSB -
- Cardinal Basil Hume, OSB -
The crucifix, which is a cross with the body of Jesus
displayed on it, is such a strange religious image. For those who are not
familiar with the mystery that it conveys, the image of a half-naked man nailed
to a cross is crass and almost grossly graphic. Why not a nicer image, such as
the resurrected Christ in glorified robes and a crown, against a plain cross in
the background, with perhaps a sunrise as well? Some cultures even accentuate
the negative effect, with the figure of Christ bleeding profusely, displaying
sad eyes and a suffering expression. Why would we want to look at that? It both
attracts and repels us. Why is that? What attracts us to it, and what are we
afraid of?
Both fascination
and fear are bound up with the crucifix. The image fascinates because it is strangely
compelling and it elicits fear because there is pain involved. Frank Sheed used
to say that after all his studies and reflection and prayer, the only real
thing that he could say about the mystery of redemption is that only God could
do it, and it hurt. The fact that God is the main character is fascinating, but
the fact that it hurt and may hurt us if we take it all seriously is cause for
fear. Even when love is part of the picture, perhaps especially so, fascination
and fear kick in big time.
This combination
of fascination and fear is not a new one. There was the classic description by
Rudolf Otto of the “numinous” reality of divine presence and power as “mysterium tremendum et fascinans” in the
1923 publication The Idea of the Holy
(Oxford University Press). Subsequently, this description struck a chord with
people, and authors as diverse as Carl Jung, CS Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Carl
Sagan, and Richard Dawkins have built on Rudolf Otto’s work. A quotation from Huxley gives a good notion
of what is meant: “The literature of religious experience abounds in references
to the pains and terrors overwhelming those who have come, too suddenly, face
to face with some manifestation of the mysterium tremendum. In theological
language, this fear is due to the incompatibility between man's egotism and the
divine purity, between man's self-aggravated separateness and the infinity of
God.”
Our own human
experience provides plenty of examples of the same sort of encounter. There is
the range of vicarious, fascinating/fearful enjoyments, such as the tragedies
of Shakespeare, the popularity of UFO’s and horror movies, or the attraction of
Halloween. There are the Xtreme games (online or not) and TV shows, car-racing
and encounters with bears. There is the more personal sort of version, which
includes learning a new language, dating and friendship, keeping a pet or a
garden, and figuring out what to do with your life. All of life’s pieces have both
a fascinating and fearful aspect to them, according to one’s history, approach,
perspective, and follow through.
When a crucifix
is seen as a focused, fascinating, yet fearful symbol of how life is and/or may
be, then the key dimension of love jumps to the fore. Parker Palmer once wrote
that we must "...allow love to inform the relations that our knowledge
creates." We have to work to allow love to happen. God’s love, however, is
a constant reality, available to us through the mystery of Jesus Christ, and
available to others through us. In Anthony Bloom’s words, “At times one can
give one's own life more easily than offer unto death the person whom one loves
beyond all; and this is what God, our Father has done. But it does not make
less the sacrifice of Him who is sent unto death for the salvation of one
person or of the whole world. … We will never be able to experience what it
meant for Him to die upon the Cross, even our own death cannot disclose to us
what His death was: how can Immortality die? But what we can learn, what we can
discover by communing ever more deeply, ever more perfectly through a daring,
wholehearted endeavour with the life, and the teaching, and the ways of Christ
- what we can learn is to love in a way that approximates more and more to that
love divine, and discover in this love the quality which unites death as
forgetfulness of self, ultimate and perfect, with the victory of love,
Resurrection and eternal life.”
