Thinking about the Triduum

Ecce Homo, Mark Walliger

This week I have revisited a number of theologians who have challenged me once more about the importance of the Cross in the Christian story. For all of them, the Cross never stands alone in the story, there is an emphasis on the broader narrative of the person of Jesus Christ. The cross is important because of the whole of who Jesus is and was for us.

In my theology class, we read the introduction to Moltmann's Theology of Hope. What really struck me when I re-read this great essay on hope was his vision of the Cross and Resurrection. Resurrection is foundational to his theology of hope. For Moltmann, the Resurrection is the divine protest and promise against suffering and death. It is not a mere consolation or salve for the soul. God has opened up the promises and the glory of heaven to all of creation through the work of Jesus. The world is transformed, and we are given a new identity as the one's who bear the wonder of this hope. Hope is not an emotion or a conviction. It is not a doctrinal surety or a lovely notion. Hope is about vision and action. As Moltmann argues,

Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present. (Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 21)

Moltmann's theology, then, is a call to live into the ground-shaking events of the Cross and Resurrection. God is with us in Christ and laments the suffering of the world. We are to join Jesus in this lament and then join in the divine protest against the suffering and the injustice of the world. Hope is in the ever present promise of God in Jesus Christ and in the Spirit that there is much more to our stories.

But we cannot leave behind the work of Jesus on the Cross, regardless of our hesitations or fears of how this event has been taught (sometimes in oppressive and abusive ways). For Moltmann, there is no leaving out the story of the Cross for the Christian. Even more so, if we understand the cross as merely the place where our individual sins were forgiven so that we can go to heaven, then we are guilty of a reductionist vision of God's grace and love in the whole of the created order. Moltmann's vision is much more far reaching than than.

What I hear in Moltmann's call is to stop making distinctions between sacred and secular work. At one point in the essay, he argues that we must reintroduce hope in our "worldly thinking" (33). Our imaginations should be enriched and enlivened by a vision of hope that is so comprehensive and all-embracing that our every day should be filled with the wonder of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. The Spirit should be felt in our breathing, moving, doing, and being. There is no part of our lives and our vocations that is not transformed by God's outreaching love through the Spirit and in Christ.

And so, as we enter the Triduum this evening, I'm reminded that this story is not just for me or for my comfort, it is the very miracle of live and love itself.

(Tomorrow I'll write a bit about Kathryn Tanner, who has a call of her own for us in this Holy season...)