The Seven Last Words from the Cross

by Fleming Rutledge

We need to make a conscious effort to understand that the Cross in reality is, by a very long way, the most irreligious, unspiritual object ever to find its way into the heart of faith. This fact is a powerful testimony to the unique significance of the death of Christ.

And if we are truly honest with ourselves this Good Friday, we see also within our own hearts the capacity, under certain circumstances, to engage in terrible acts, or to assign others to do terrible acts in our name while we wash our hands of them.

The Christian community, when it is not grieving the Holy Spirit, comes into being without regard to differences. Personal likes and dislikes have nothing to do with the body of Christ.

The disciple and the woman are not individual people here. They are symbolic: they represent the way that family ties are transcended in the church by the ties of the Spirit. That is why Jesus calls his mother "woman" in the Gospel of John. He is setting aside the blood relationship in order to create a much wider family.

We do not want to hear the older words telling how we are "tied and bound by the chain of our sins." We do not want to think of ourselves as sinners in such explicit terms.

On the Cross, Jesus voluntarily and willingly bowed his head under the power of Sin and the curse of God. It is vital that we understand that the Father did not do this to the Son; the Son and the Father are doing this together. Jesus "gives himself with his own hand," as one of our most important Eucharistic hymns says.' God is submitting to God's own wrath.

He was so utterly secure in himself that he was free for others in a way we can scarcely imagine.

"The Christian life is lived in between - in between My God, my God, why halt thou forsaken me? and Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."