The Existential Cross of Christ

(Chapter 5 of 'The Existing Christ: towards and Existential Christology'.)

There are two powerful messages or revelations about the Cross of Christ in the Gospels. First, Christ tells people that they should pick up their Cross and follow him. Second, Christ carnally dies on the Cross at Calvary. The Cross in the Gospels was a definite symbol of not getting along with the world and its prevailing powers. Christ called people to follow him, not to follow the prevailing powers. In the end, the prevailing powers dealt with Christ and his ministry by crucifying him and destroying his carnal life.

The reality Christ includes the infinite and eternal Christ, and includes the incarnate Christ along with the carnal death of Christ. Incarnation (i.e. the Word become flesh) and carnal death (i.e. the crucifixion and death) are at the heart of the Christ reality. In so far as Christ actually exists, the Cross exists.

It is important to note in regards to Calvary, that Christ did not embrace death. All evidence is to the contrary. Christ tried to avoid his carnal death. Christ loved and chose life. The life Christ chose was lifting the Cross not into death, but into spiritual life. Christ was arrested, imprisoned, scourged and put to death carnally. Despite carnal punishment and death, Christ was spiritually triumphant --- from Bethlehem to Calvary. Christ picked up his Cross: what he saw, he saw through it; what he heard, he heard through it; what he understood, he understood through it; what he felt, he felt through it; and, what he spiritually lived, he lived spiritually through it.

The existential Cross of Christ[1] is the touchstone of Christ-specific spiritual formation. When we choose to follow Christ, we choose spiritual life and in lifting Christ we are drawn by Christ to Christ. Once we pick up the Cross, we either destroy Christ or let Christ live in us and through us. The existential Cross is in the make-up of Christ. We lift Christ through the Cross and in turn we are lifted by Christ: then we commune with the Creator and the Creator communes with us. The existential Cross is where and when God touched Christ in this life; it is where and when Christ in this life touched God. God touches us and we touch God through Christ. Such is Christian existence.

Jacob’s encounter or ‘wrestling’ with God was existential. He knew God from his relationship with God, in his personal encounter and personal interaction with God. Job’s encounter with God was existential. He knew God from his relationship with God, in his personal encounter and personal interaction with God. In each situation, God was triumphant because the person was triumphant. These are two excellent examples to help understand the existential Cross as a personal experience of existence.

The existential Cross exists in the Word become flesh, be that in the historical Christ of 2,000 years ago or in Christ, here and now. While Christ fully lived the Cross; the Cross is referenced in only two ways in the Gospels. One reference is when Christ tells people to take up their Cross and follow him. He did not mean that they should be subversive, be sentenced to crucifixion, and then be crucified. He was not referring to a Cross that would be made by a soldier, on which the person would actually be crucified. Christ was referring to being spiritually born from above and living spiritually. In order to life spiritually, one must die to this world. Christ himself carried this kind of Cross from Bethlehem to Calvary. It was at the centre of his mind, spirit and heart. Christ carried his Cross in every breath he took. Christ calls for us to do the same. We each personally carry our Cross in every breath we take. With each breath, we decide to be alive spiritually or not. We decide to express or manifest Christ or not. Christ is present through us, or we do not affirm Chris, in which case Christ is not present to us and through us. The other reference to the Cross in the Gospels is in the historical crucifixion of Christ 2,000 years ago. That message in the Gospels says that temporal death did not and could not destroy the reality Christ. Many were crucified in the Roman world. Many died terrible deaths and experienced great suffering. Many simply died into death; Christ died into Life.

The Cross has been a very compelling phenomenon in the Christian experience.  Calvary was a significant temporal event, but the Cross is something infinite and eternal and at the heart of the significance and meaning of Christ. There is something in the reality of Christ that is of the Cross, but which much larger than the material death at Calvary. The meaning of Christ is that God serves people. The Gospel is that as God-in-human terms, Christ serves people. Those who follow Christ, for their part serve God by serving people. Like Christ, they suffer for others. Like Christ, they sacrifice for others. Like Christ, they take on the burdens of others. Like Christ, they pursue righteousness, justice and mercy.

Christ’s temporal death makes Christ more human, than Christ’s incarnation, on its own. Temporal death is part of taking up one’s Cross and following Christ. Christ carried his Cross from Bethlehem to Calvary. It was with him in every step he walked. It was there in Gethsemane, in the trials, in the scourging, and on the Cross. All the while, with every breath and step, Christ chose to do the work of God and fulfill God’s will.  The Cross we bear is our choice for spiritual life, while dying to the world. Indeed, no one chooses death. Christ did not choose death.

The notions that Christ’s death was a sacrifice for sin, a payment for an offense or a payment to redeem captive people, projects much, perhaps too much of carnal desires and carnal propensities onto God and the makeup of created existence. The notion that to be truly human, Christ had to taste death, suggests that God was unaware of or that Christ had not that ‘taste’ before he incarnated.

When the Word becomes flesh, the Cross is present --- the essence and meaning of the Cross is present. Where ever Christ is, the Cross is. Where ever the Cross is, Christ is dying to this world and rising spiritually victorious. For our individual, personal part, we actually express Christ and we actually spiritually live through Christ. The infinite and eternal Christ exists and subsists and darkness does not comprehend nor does death overcome that reality, of which we are a part through birth from above. In not expressing or manifesting Christ, the Christ we would have expressed or manifested does not live temporally through us: in effect, from the perspective of our temporal existing Christ is destroyed or dies. We cannot go back and do what we did not do at the time. We actively lift the Cross and are drawn to Christ. Or, we nail Christ down on the Cross and lift up that action of destruction and are lifted into destruction.

When did the Word become flesh? It was not merely a transient onetime event in human history. That is clear from reading John 1. The Word became flesh in the eternal expanse; and in the eternal instant. The Word became flesh in the infinitely large and infinitely small. The Word became flesh in created existence. The Word is inherent in the makeup of created existence. The Word is 'alongside creation, calling creation into being', which is the meaning of the word Paraclete (John 16:7). The Paraclete was with us in Bethlehem and Calvary and all in between: the Paraclete is present to us now.

The Word became flesh... The Cross became a reality when the Word became flesh. The Cross links God to us and we to God. In a manner of speaking, God must suffer tangible specification when the Word is flesh. We have a present living connection with God through the Word of God, manifested in human terms in Christ. Christ is in us allowing our communion with God. In our creation the Word is in us, alongside us calling us. If the Word did not become flesh, the gulf or chasm between God and people would not have been overcome. We would have no present living personal connection with God.

When Christ taught the beatitudes, he was teaching what had learned from his experience in the flesh. He was not setting down laws from on high, as was done for Moses. Christ existed and in existing knew of what he taught from his personal human experience. Christ personally experienced the beatitudes directly. Each day Christ picked up his cross. Each day he carried it, and worked it in serving others. Each day Christ learned from his existing. Christ’s experiences of the beatitudes were shaped by his carrying his Cross each day. His teaching was shaped by his Cross. And, so it is for us. One might imagine that Christ continued to experience existence and learned from his experience in Gethsemane, his trial, scourging and crucifixion. Each day, Christ picked up his Cross and carried himself into Life. At Calvary, Christ also picked and carried his Cross into Life, triumphant over temporal death.

 As Martin Luther might have said it, we know the Cross by living it. To know the Cross any other way, is not know it at all. We know spiritual life by being spiritual. To have knowledge of spiritual life, other than by being spiritual, is to know only echoes or faint shadows. The existential Cross exists when a person picks it up to follow Christ and actually carries it in his or her personal existing or being. Knowing the Cross is not an exercise in reading scripture or de-coding texts. The existential Cross exists when an individual personally lifts it; either destroying Christ or having Christ be alive within. At the core of one’s heart, spirit and mind that existential Cross of Christ draws the individual person into death or into Life.

Calvary is history; we are not. The Cross that we carry in following Christ is at the core of our hearts, spirit and mind. It feeds the heart, spirit and mind with the blood and body of Christ making us from and of Christ. Christ’s Cross that was carried long before Pilate or Calvary, and is carried today, is a Cross of service to people calling them to Life. Calvary is an echo of the existential Cross carried in all created existence by Christ. The suffering of the Cross is that where there could be Life there is destruction and death. Christ is reality. Existing from and of Christ, is existing from the Cross lifted to Life.