My Better Half

A week or so ago Christy (my wife, aka my better half) was working the night shift at the school where she works.  In this case, "the night shift" involved fielding parent questions and manually ringing the school bells all in support of Back To School Night. Steve the principal came in and we all chatted a bit.

In the middle of our gab fest, a family that had recently returned from a trip to South America came in with a present for Steve.  The present was the stylized crucifix pictured above.  We were all pretty taken by it.  For my part, I loved the image but I just couldn't think quite why.  In the course of our back and forth, someone said, "You should write about this."  I remember thinking at that moment, "That's a great idea but what do I say besides, 'Hey look! This is REALLY COOL!'" 

Out loud I said something like, "I like it but I just don't know quite why."  I think it was Christy (although I'll give Steve credit if he argues the point) that said something about it being an invitation to put yourself in the sculpture.  That wasn't exactly what was said but what it morphed into when I'd thought about it a little bit.

It is true of course that this is what we're invited into, both the suffering and the triumph of it.  There's systematic theology about the cross ad nauseum.  The best thing about systematic theology is of course way it evaporates into smoke in presence of the fire of life.  In the moment you say "OUCH" in response to what you're facing and suffering, you stop entertaining yourself with logical structures and rules and start instead looking for relationship and help from the one who spoke you into existence.  "Help dad.  I'm hurt.  I'm scared."  In that moment, systematic theology burns away like the old flash paper bookies and other miscreants used to keep their records on.  When the police would come in, they'd just touch it with a cigarette and POOF...all evidence of bad behavior was gone.

Of course, this is also true with human relationships.  We complete each other to the point that we are eventually after time in relationship to be found in each other.  I've quoted John Donne here before but his "...no man is an island unto himself..." comes immediately to mind as does "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."  In the bible, this idea is found in an amazing verse, Eph 4:16, quoted here in King James to roughly match Donne above: 

"¹⁶From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."

At Back to School Night a family came in with a gift that moved everyone there.  We all discussed what the gift was and meant, coming at once to consensus while at the same time forming our own, unique ideas on the subject.  In the time since, I've gotten to write it all down so we can all remember it and share it with others.  And now they too can appreciate the piece as well as a bit of the moment of discovery.

We really all do share each others lives.  It's not at all something we do merely if we choose to.  It's what we are, and what happens regardless of contrary intent.  Consider that even the sudden absence of someone creates anything from pain, to longing, to relief to all of these and more at once.  

And all of this is what is carried at once in the action and message of the cross.  Jesus doesn't aspire to being a consistent logic lesson.  He wants to share our lives.  He wants to complete us even as he uses each of us to complete each other.  Jesus has made himself completely vulnerable to us both at the time of the cross and I would also submit, in all the time since.  He asks for that back.  He asks us to join him on the cross and his invitation to us is in the perfect present tense; it is and will be constantly asked and constantly answered.  We don't just answer once and move on.  We must answer with the direction and course of our lives.