This post is taken from the prepared text of the reflection I preached at my parish’s Good Friday Service. The video can be found here, and the scripture readings can be found here.

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When I was in middle school, one of my dad’s sisters came to visit us for a week. While I barely remember anything that happened except for this: that before leaving, she gave my family a gift: a crucifix as tall as my arm, with Christ’s body painted a stark white and flanked by a host of bright red roses.

To this day, it hangs in our house in the hallway that leads to all the bedrooms and bathrooms. Yet, as unassuming as that crucifix may seem, it somehow manages to catch my eye nearly every time I walk past. 

It’s not that it literally stops me in my tracks; I sense it in my peripheral vision, subtly acknowledging its presence amidst the blankness of an off-white wall.

Could it be because of its size? Maybe. Could it be because of pasty white Jesus? Probably. But could it also be, above all else, because it’s not just any image of Jesus, but one of Christ and him crucified.

For us and countless others today, the cross is a familiar image—whether it be hung on the walls of our homes and churches, adorning necklaces and bracelets, tattooed on bodies and even woven on socks.

We may see it or pass by without giving it a second thought. In this way, the cross, both by itself and bearing the body of Jesus, has been domesticated—having become intimately integrated into our daily lives. At best, it is an enduring sign of hope and faith, while at worst, it has been normalized to the point where it is a mere accessory nearly absent of meaning. 

When we forget the cross’ origins and divine transformation, we run the risk of sanitizing it—sandpapering away its splinters, washing off the blood, and making it devoid of the grit that was once so identifiable in it.

Through his crucifixion, our Lord transformed a symbol of submission, colonization, and imperialism constructed by the Romans into the triumphal banner of the true 

King of the Universe, the king who—on Palm Sunday—rode into Jerusalem not on a chariot but on a simple donkey to usher in the reign of Love.

The disruption the cross has brought and will continue to bring about is not one that makes us uneasy, uncomfortable, and disturbed. Rather, it is a righteous, holy disruption that calls us to something more, something beyond our imaginations, something greater than the world could ever give.

It will bring us out of our comfort zones, enter into relationship with those we have avoided in the past, and question countless things, but it is all for something greater than ourselves.

This sacred disruption is revolutionary, rebellious, and radical. It’s disruptive because the very person and work of Jesus of Nazareth is. Even before his death on the cross, Jesus was disrupting this world through his radical and revolutionary teachings about love, justice, inclusivity and mercy.

In our readings, we heard Isaiah speak of how he will “shall startle many nations,”¹ undermining the corruption present in many systems and institutions. The Psalmist calls those who “fear” the Lord to “stand in awe of him,”² seeing in the midst of the world’s chaos the breathtaking beauty of God’s love made manifest in creation and action. The author of the letter to the Hebrews compels us to “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds…”³ disturbing the pattern of complacency, inaction, and vice in humans in order to draw people into the reign of God.

My friends, the arms of the cross—the arms of our crucified Lord—reach out, bring us close, embrace us, and then send us out—out of the monotony of daily life into the world so that all may be made new.

This liberative love disrupts the status quo, opening up for us new beginnings by having us stumble into untrodden territory and open once-avoided doors.

By transforming a means of execution to a sign of new life, God has disrupted the principalities and evils of this world through the love imbued in the blood that saturated the wood of the cross.  

May the world, as well as ourselves, be made ever new in the cross of Christ. Amen.

1. Isaiah 52:15; “So he shall startle many nations / kings shall shut their mouths because of him…” ↩︎
2. Psalm 22:22; “Praise the Lord, you that fear him / stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel / all you of Jacob’s line, give glory…” ↩︎
3. Hebrews 10:24; “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” ↩︎