This quote is from Sigrid Undset's great novel of the Middle Ages, KRISTIN
LAVRANSDATTER: THE CROSS. It is about a woman's hard life in a hard world. So many things are different today than they were
in Kristin's day, but life is still hard and the world is still a cold, difficult place. It is still a place of the Cross.
Christians say that the Cross is not merely the truth about life, it is also
a way through life, a way to redeem life. Christianity believes in a radically different God than the world has ever seen
before. This God sees our sorrows with a compassionate eye and he descends into our suffering, he gathers it all up "aloft
with him upon a cross."
There are many versions of God in the world. Ancient mythology gives us capricious
gods who play with human beings and their sufferings; fundamentalism gives us a righteous, angry God who punishes humans;
Christianity gives us a merciful God who sees, who understands, who takes up, who loves. This God only desires our redemption.
It is not God's will that any should perish.
Religion is a way to look at life and life can be understood in all of these
three ways. Surely, a case can be made--as in ancient myth--for a capricious, hard, cold universe in which our sufferings
do not concern the gods in the least. Life just happens. But one can also moralize the world so that humans are to blame for
their own suffering and God's righteous anger will smite us. There is plenty that we are to blame for, humans do foolish,
selfish and evil things all too often.
But for me, neither of these two ways helps much. Nihilism and moralism both
leave us stranded in a dark and hopeless place. So I prefer--or, rather, my heart has been captured by--a redemptive vision,
a redemptive path through this sad old world. I believe with Jesus Christ that life can be saved (salvaged) via love, forgiveness,
kindness, and compassion. And I believe that these "spiritual" truths are also very pragmatic truths, they work and they need
to be embodied in real life, including politics, economics, and all the other aspects of being an actual person.
Life will never stop being hard. There is no magic wand to wave. But there
are ways of coping with life's realities that can help us through. Jesus, for me, is not a matter of pious and sentimental,
but irrelevant, truths Jesus is a down-to-earth, sleeves-rolled-up savior. His way is a very real way to live out a life.
It is about mutual burden-bearing, it is about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and forgiving the sinner. It is about
non-judgmentalism and love for enemies. It is about treating each other as we would want to be treated. It is about a real
cross with real blood. That cross is the essence of God. It is what we need to know if life is to be redeemed.
Happy New Year,
--Pastor Bastien
