25th March 2007 - John Schofield

25^th March 2007 The arms of Christ
‘It is awesome to think that, in our freedom, we have power to keep Absolute Power at bay.’ ¹
There is an image – a reality – at the centre of Christianity which many find hard to accept.
The cross.
But to those who say – how can you reconcile a loving God with all the evil and suffering in the world, there is a powerful answer. If only we knew how to give voice to it.
It starts here: on the cross, God opened wide his arms for us.
Because of our power to keep Absolute Power at bay, Absolute Power emptied itself, came among us as one of us to try and win us back by love, not by power.
On the cross, God opened wide his arms for us. The arms of love.
	Look at the crucifix behind the high altar (left - click to enlarge). What do you see? Here is a depiction in the classical west European tradition. A pale figure on a dark cross. And above all, agony.
	And what are the arms doing? They’re straining, nearly breaking, bearing the load – sin, alienation, hostility, all that separates us from God.
	This is truth – though not the whole truth – about the cross.
	If you go to the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, you will find one of the greatest works of art of the high middle ages - Matthias Grünewald's searing and magnificent Isenheim Altarpiece (right - click to enlarge). There Christ hangs on similarly strained arms. His fingers are splayed in pain. The body of the crucified is racked not just with the marks of nail and spear and crown of thorns; it weeps with the pustulating scabs of the pox. No one seeing it now can failed to be moved by it; what power, then, for those medieval Europeans suffering that same terrible plague, when they saw their Saviour similarly scarred.
	This too is truth – though not the whole truth – about the cross.
	And you will have to be able to give an account of this.
	We live in an age where our Christianity is contested as it has not been for a long time. It is contested by the likes of Richard Dawkins. It is contested by the rise of that other fervently evangelical Abrahamic religion – Islam. And we must be able to say for ourselves what that figure hanging on the cross means for us, so that we can also tell it to others.

But there’s another view of the cross in this church. Not the lonely figure, bowed, agonised, abandoned, of either the high altar or even the Tanzanian Christ in the Lady Chapel (below right).
	There’s this one (left - click to enlarge). This is a representation of the cross of San Damiano in Assisi. It’s the crucifix in contemplation of which Francis heard to call to rebuild the church. It is still there, though now it hangs in the church of St Clare. I have knelt before that crucifix, felt its power, poured out my heart to God in its presence.
	Why? Not just because of the Francis connection – I’m more a fan of Benedict than Francis. But this is a crucifix in a different tradition. It’s painted not carved (though there’s a bit of relief above the head). And Christ is not alone. He is surrounded by people. With all that that entails.
	Somehow, wherever you stand, sit or kneel in relation to it, the eyes of Jesus look at you. And as Jesus on this cross is surrounded by people, so you are surrounded by him, so you are in relation to him and to others who love him and strive to follow him.
	And the arms. Look at these arms. Not sagging under the weight, but spread out. Not perhaps in triumph – though it’s not far from this style to one which shows Christ triumphant on the cross. But opening wide his arms. The absolute, encompassing, inclusive love of God for you, for me, for the whole creation. ‘He opened wide his arms for us on the cross.’ The love of God alongside the identification of God with God’s so wayward creatures and creation.
	This again is truth – though not the whole truth – about the cross. And you will have to be able to give an account of this too. For remember, we live in an age where our Christianity is contested as it has not been for a long time. And if we are not able to say for ourselves what that figure hanging on the cross means for us, who will?

But let’s return to the Tanzanian cross (right - click to enlarge). Go and look at it later on. I was recently reading this:-
"In talking with an African American friend about the sermon that Ruth had preached that day, they discussed together Psalm 51:7, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Through their conversation, Ruth came to see that her friend did not experience white snow as a helpful image of being cleansed from sin. In a racist environment, the image merely reinforced the spiritual superiority of whiteness.
"Ruth began to look differently at her church’s many visual depictions of Jesus, which she suddenly realized were all very Caucasian." ²
Was it a shock, the first time, to see a non Caucasian Christ?
	Look at the face. It is a placid face. Not agonised. Nor resigned. Just calm and patient. And the arms; they are not strained. They reach out. He’s not even on a cross. Think about that!
	And lurking in the space behind the organ where the choir assembles before the service begins, I found this (left - click to enlarge). A plain cross. An empty cross.
	And this too is truth – though not the whole truth – about the cross, a truth we must be able to express
	Because for all the power of these representations that focus on the figure, we must be able to see through the cross, through it and beyond it.
	The empty cross tells us of that other indescribable truth which we nevertheless have to try and describe both in words and in actions.

This is the truth that the cross was not the end. We do not worship a dead Christ but a living Saviour whom God raised from the dead to demonstrate once and for all that sin and death, disease and alienation, all the barriers we erect, are not the end that forgiveness is strong, that love triumphs that this world is not all that counts – though it counts for lots.
It is inescapable that if we place this figure on the cross – whether stranded and alone, or stretching out in community – at the centre of our lives, we will see beyond our lives to God, and have no option but to start living as God wants us to live, wants the world to live: loving, reconciled, selfless, just as that figure on the cross, through the cross and beyond the cross was – God as one of us.
Here’s my last cross for today (right - click to enlarge). I was given this one to hold during an act of reflective worship led by one of my students recently.
It fits in my hand. I can cradle it. Just as the arms can cradle me. But as it sits in my hand, and I feel its soothing power, I notice that the arms are not in the palm of my hand, inside my folded fingers. I cannot contain the cross. The arms of Christ are always reaching out from me to you, to the world.
The cross is God’s coat of arms.
Can you explain that to other people?

As a response to thinking about and preparing this sermon, I found myself needing to express what I was trying to say in another way.
	*The Arms of Jesus* On a hillside, near a city, Hanging in the noonday sun, Scorned by soldiers without pity, Arms were opened wide for me. O my Jesus, O my Saviour, lifted on the cross for me, Open wide your arms to hold us In the love that sets us free. Faced with anger, God rejecting, Fragile in his agony, Bearing loads we cannot reckon, Arms were opened wide for me. O my Jesus, O my Saviour, lifted on the cross for me, Open wide your arms to hold us In the love that sets us free. Lonely Jesus, placid, patient; Battered by hostility, Yet you call us, ‘Stand here with me’; Arms are opened wide for me. O my Jesus, O my Saviour, lifted on the cross for me, Open wide your arms to hold us In the love that sets us free. Jesus, man for every nation. Shocking truth of God’s great love, In your open arms of welcome Let us see the victory. O my Jesus, O my Saviour, lifted on the cross for me, Open wide your arms to hold us In the love that sets us free.
¹ Richard Gula, (1996) Ethics in Pastoral Ministry New York: Paulist Press, p17 ² I think this quotation is from Keenan, J and Kotva, J (1999) Practice What You Preach – Virtues, Ethics and Power in the Lives of Pastoral Ministers and Their Congregations. Franklin, Wisconsin: Sheed and Ward.