When the young Siddhartha Gautama, the future Buddha, left the protection of his parent’s home and began his quest to find out what life was really like “out there” he was overwhelmed by the amount of suffering he saw. The fact that suffering is everywhere and inescapable is the first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Although Christians and Buddhists analyse the cause and the path through suffering in different ways, we both agree that it is inescapable for us humans.
This is one of the things Christians are saying when they put crosses in, and on the roofs of their churches. Many Christians make the sign of the cross as a blessing and wear a cross round their necks. For the first centuries of Christianity this would have been unthinkable. The appalling method of execution was too real. People had seen slaves and criminals being killed in this way and the idea of honouring the torture would have been abhorrent.
Gradually however, as sensitivities to the horrors of crucifixion became dulled, the Cross became more and more a convenient symbol, or shorthand, for the message of the Gospel. Like Buddhists, Christians accept that the world is a mess. We also accept that we personally get ensnared in this mess. We suffer, those close to us suffer. Sometimes despair just seems a hair’s breath away – or even closer.
The Cross, as a symbol of Christ’s death, states that pain, betrayal, the sense of abandonment by God are realities, which even God himself has chosen to share in Jesus’ life. When we talk about Christ’s descent into hell we are saying that the Lord suffered the deepest psychological and spiritual pain as well as physical pain.
I had a friend, an old lady, whose parents had been “purged” by Stalin and eventually found herself enduring the nightmare of a prisoner of war camp. She became a Christian there because she said to herself: “there MUST be more to reality than this!”
That is the other side of the Cross. Without minimising the realities of suffering, Christians believe that it doesn’t have the last word. The Cross also stands for Christ’s resurrection. It stands for a deeper reality of personal love, truth, goodness which is more enduring and more real.
Resurrection is not the same as resuscitation. Christians don’t believe that when Jesus rose from the dead he simply resumed exactly the same life he had before he died. It’s striking that in so many of the Gospel accounts the people who were closest to Jesus didn’t recognise him after he rose from the dead. Recognition only dawned on them during conversations, by being personally called by name, by sharing a meal. We often find it hard to believe in our own resurrection, partly because we are imagining something that just continues the damaged and imperfect life we know now. Also, we tend to see eternal life as a life in time without end. In fact, eternal life must be completely outside the time we know from our present perspective.
On the other hand, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is someone who believers do know now, in our daily lives. Our relationship with Christ is completely different from that we might have with a dead hero, or any other historical figure. It’s a living relationship, deepened by prayer, by Holy Communion and fellowship with others. Jesus’ resurrection isn’t just something we celebrate as a historical event, like the end of a war, or a memorable victory in a famous sports tournament. It’s an ongoing daily reality. It’s a reality in which God says to us: “Just as I love my Son, sharing my stronger-than-death life with him, so I love you and share my stronger-than-death life with you”.
I find it striking that if our relationship with Christ was like that with a dead hero there would be no explanation for the experience of joy that Christians throughout the centuries have reported, and continue to report. This Easter, may you too be able to say from the heart: Christ is Risen! Alleluia!
Mother Sarah
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