The cross can never be merely assumed but must always be interpreted and re-placed at the center. There is a centrifugal force at work in human nature; we want to spin out and away from the offense of the cross. A current tendency is to interpret the incarnation to mean embracing the world just as it is, because the Son of God hallowed the world by becoming flesh — incarnatus est. This, however, can easily become a sentimental evasion of the tension between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be — the life of the world to come, the world that God is going to bring into being.
