Today is Good Friday, the day that the Roman empire murdered an obscure — and problematic — Jewish teacher and miracle-worker named Jesus on a cross outside of Jerusalem.
In March 2016, I preached a Lenten series of five sermons at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, on the theme of the cross. Over the course of the series, I introduced five different visions of the cross present in the New Testament.
The cross isn’t just one thing. The New Testament uses a number of words and images to convey the power of the Good Friday events and to communicate the meaning of Jesus’ death.
I’ve been revising the sermons to share them in a booklet. This is the third in that unpublished project: The Crossbeam.
A sermon from LENT 2016 (revised), from St. Paul’s Episcopal, Richmond, Virginia.
In yesterday’s sermon in this series, I introduced a second word from the New Testament about the cross — the word σταυρός, stauros, which means an upright stake or a pale.
Stauros. This is not an organic image of the cross but instead refers to something that human beings make. It is an instrument of death. Its vertical structure symbolizes the power that divides the world into the privileged and the outcast, a power that expresses itself in violence of victimizers toward their victims. Those who control society are at the top and the people they oppress are at the bottom. Stauros is a stake. And its verticality represents the hierarchal power needed to enforce its torturous purpose. Understanding that stauros is about state-sanctioned murder takes us to a deeply political reading of the cross.
But there is some theological controversy about the stauros — because this word in Greek is somewhat ambiguous, what some Christians has called a “simple cross.”
You'll notice, of course, that in this sixteenth-century picture, the stauros is just a pole, a vertical upright, not the kind of cross that we understand and might be familiar to us, the kind of cross that many of us wear around their necks or see in Christian art.
It is missing the crossbeam.
Some historians and biblical scholars argue as to whether or not stauros is just an upright stake or stauros is the whole rendering of the cross. The Greek is unclear, and ancient sources conflict.
Despite the controversy, and for much of history, Christians have placed a crossbar on this stake. Indeed, as far back as 135, Christian writers insisted that Jesus’ cross was unusual in that it had two pieces — a stake and a crossbeam — that formed an actual physical cross with two dimensions.
There is no word in the Greek New Testament for that second dimension, that horizontal bar. It simply merges into “stauros.” But there is a word for it in Latin that started showing up very quickly in church history and theology: patibulum.
Patibulum simply means a bar or beam that cuts across the vertical pole and forms the angles of a cross.
Patibulum comes from the Latin pateo, which means open, accessible, attainable, exposed, vulnerable, or extended. And whenever I think about the patibulum, I think about this powerful piece of artwork — a famous statue — Christ the Redeemer in Brazil. It may be one of the most powerful visions of the patibulum in Christian art. Jesus with open arms, exposed heart, and vulnerable to the world.
One of my favorite memories comes from when my daughter was very small. Every single day when she was in preschool, the same thing would happen at pick-up time. Back then, I had an office at Virginia Theological Seminary. On campus, they have a wonderful little nursery school and that’s where my daughter stayed while I worked. And so, whenever I was writing books or teaching classes, she was nearby.
I didn't often go and visit in the middle of the day because I didn't want to disturb her daily schedule. So instead, I would wait until the end of the day — and it would unfold in the exact same way at the end of every working day. I would drive from the top of the campus down to the preschool. I got out of my car. I'd walk up, open the door, kneel down at the entrance, and open my arms wide.
From across the classroom, my daughter would shout, "Mommy!" She would open her arms too — running toward me, sometimes tripping over toys and always making a big ruckus. And she jumped into my arms. Together we would embrace in joyful reunion.
In many ways, it was the best part of being a mom. It happened nearly every day for four years. I especially thought about it during her teenage years, when we had more trouble extending our arms toward each other. But I held the memory close, that remembrance of outstretched arms. When I struggled with motherhood, when I struggled with her, the outstretched arms often saved me.
The outstretched arms. The pateo — the patibulum of parenthood — represented open, completely accessible, and vulnerable love. And it wasn’t only about being mothering. The outstretched arms are the extension of the divine presence — the love of God — into the world.
The Bible says a lot about outstretched arms. "Oh, Lord God, behold you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you." We might think about the outstretched arm of creation — like the artist image of Michelangelo's painting, God creating Adam and giving the gift of Eve. The outstretched arm is also a protective embrace: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers chicks under her wings." God pulling us close.
There's a story in Exodus about a battle. The Amalekites attacked Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. Moses commanded Joshua, "Come, send men for us and go out and fight. Let's get rid of this enemy." And, then, Moses tells Joshua that during the battle he will stand on the top of the hill with God’s staff in his outstretched arm.
Joshua gathered his army. Moses went up to the hill and held up outstretched arm as he promised. Then Exodus says: “As long as Moses held his hands up, the Israelites would win the fight. But when Moses put his hands down, the Amalekites would win.”
Moses had to keep his arms outstretched! Aaron and Hur, understanding this, sat Moses down on a rock and the two men held up Moses' arms so that the staff is always visible. There is Moses sitting on a rock on the top of the hill with outstretched arms — and Israel won the battle. The outstretched arm: Protection, deliverance, victory.
These are the images of outstretched arms in Scripture: creation, protection, liberation.
When we think about the cross, Christians do often reflect on both its vertical and horizontal dimensions. The vertical dimension is about us and God, freeing us from the terrors of hell to go up to heaven. The horizontal dimension was about us and other people, that God loves the world.
That familiar way of interpreting this cross is true.
But it is actually even more profound and more radical than the conventional rendering. The horizontal line, that crossbeam of outstretched arms, actually disrupts the vertical line. It's not just two dimensions, but two dimensions intersect and are at odds with one another.
The vertical line does not represent a kind of holy elevator between this sinful life and heaven. The stauros, the stake, represents the empire, the power of Caesar, the sinful choice of a broken, wounded world toward violence and death.
And the horizontal beam represents the reign of God, the extension of love through the whole of the universe. Outstretched arms make us open to the world, open to the Spirit, led by our hearts. And you can even see it here in this posture — the vulnerability of the heart.
When we open our arms, our hearts are exposed. The horizon, the patibulum cuts across the vertical violence and makes possible a different sort of reality, one based in tender, risky, open love for the whole of creation. Outstretched arms are liberation, the loving victory of God.
This love — love that is displayed on a stake with a patibulum — points us toward a particular kind of love that involves suffering. At the cross, love and suffering intertwine not because God intended that love always entails tragedy. But when the horizontal intersects the vertical, it results in strife. It causes conflict between what is inherently violent and God’s embrace. The crossbeam upsets empire, as it slices through structures of power and privilege.
And when that hierarchical structure meets this sacred challenge, there will be anxiety and fear from those who staked their lives on their own power. They will do whatever is necessary to regain control over the world as they imagine it to be. Verticality will beat back the horizon of love anytime it is threatened.
But the patibulum, the horizontal, presses against all of that. At the intersection of the vertical and the horizontal is angularity. It is the place where sin and violence encounters openness and love. That cannot help but result in conflict. To love fully, completely, and radically in this world always involve some sort of suffering, because the violence of stauros is not easily overcome.
The church has always known this. And it has depicted the intersection of the horizontal and the vertical in surprising and often subversive ways — including the patibulum as an image of God's motherly love. Medieval mystical writers sometimes wrote of the cross as labor pains that gave birth to the new world. The blood and water that burst forth from Christ's side is like the breaking of the waters at birth.
Even male theologians, such as Anselm of Canterbury, spoke of Christ on the cross as nursing us with his blood. In medieval art, the cross was often depicted as a birthing stool where the laborer was held up on the crossbar in order to do the great work of liberation, just like Moses on that stone in the battle with the Amalekites. Here, the cross is a birthing stool with Jesus held up on the crossbar by angels — and his new born brings forth victory over sin and death.
The crossbeam is an expression of the deep feminine of God, about birth and love and nurture and protection and deliverance. Julian of Norwich once said this, "I understand three ways of contemplating motherhood in God. The first is the foundation of our nature's creation. The second is God's taking our nature where motherhood of grace begins. And the third," Julian said, "is motherhood at work, Christ's death on the cross. And it is all one love. Creation, incarnation, crucifixion, God's motherly love."
That sweaty, bloody, tear-stained labor of the cross bears new life. Our mother, Jesus, gives birth to a new creation and you and I are his children. If we're going to keep growing into Christ's images for the world around us, we have to give up fear in favor of the love of birth.
— Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori
The stauros and patibulum meet at the birthing place. Birth is hard. It is a suffering love. Yet, this is the central encounter of Christianity, this crossbeam of new life that is the mystery of God.
And that takes me back to my daughter. I hope we all hold such memories of someone whom we love running towards us with open arms, that moment of complete vulnerability, heart to heart, where there is risk and challenge and fear, and as any parent knows, suffering.
When I recall that memory — which is as vivid to me as if it is still happening, almost like an ever-present reality in my life — I wonder if that will be my last memory. Will my final remembrance of this life be that of the open arms, a little girl running toward me as a three-year-old, "Mommy, mommy"? Is that the picture in my mind's eye at the end?
When I consider that, something strange happens. The image rearranges itself. And instead of a child running towards me and her saying, "Mommy, mommy," I become her, and I am running with open arms to God. "Jesus! Mother, Father, Love!" And there at that moment of heart-to-heart meeting, I know the deepest promise of the crossbeam, of the love overcomes the violence of the world.
And the refrain echoes within: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
INSPIRATION
Of 385 varieties, to make the simplest
all you need are two sticks:
one vertical; the other, horizontal.
Call one time; one, space or
life—death, good—evil, male—female.
You choose. . .
— Francine Sterle, from “Making a Cross,” read the entire poem HERE.
See, as they strip the robe from off his back
And spread his arms and nail them to the cross,
The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black,
And love is firmly fastened onto loss.
But here a pure change happens. On this tree
Loss becomes gain, death opens into birth.
Here wounding heals and fastening makes free
Earth breathes in heaven, heaven roots in earth.
And here we see the length, the breadth, the height
Where love and hatred meet and love stays true
Where sin meets grace and darkness turns to light
We see what love can bear and be and do,
And here our saviour calls us to his side
His love is free, his arms are open wide.
— Malcolm Guite, “Stations of the Cross, XI Crucifixion: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross”
A worship service from your heart to ours, Diana. I am so glad for the measure of rewarding nurture I receive from the Cottage....and all because I was drawn to the Freeing Jesus retreat last Spring. O happy day. What Joy is understanding! What a portion you hospitably share with us. Thank you. I’ve been at the table, an equal fellow/member when I read your Spirit filled words.
Crossbeam
I found a crossbeam, inside a black hole.
Bottomless spiral, desperate plunging, but somewhere in the endless falling I fell upon a crossbeam.
It slowed me.
It broke me.
It sifted me.
I found God stretched out on a crossbeam somewhere inside the hole in my soul.
He was there laid bare, abused, neglected.
I knew he had spread Himself in my way, outstretched, disrupting oblivion.
It stunned me.
It reached me.
It turned me. After a long dark night of the soul, I wrote the poem above. Your Friday reading touched me deeply. Thank you.