ART KATZ ON THE CRUCIFIXION
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
"And they Crucified Him"
-by Art Katz.
Only the Cross can effectually crucify the world from us
and we from it. The world is too much with us, because
the Cross has been neglected in our understanding and
in our experience. Nothing less than the Cross can
separate us from a world that is powerfully seductive,
at enmity with God, and lying in the Wicked One. How
many of you believe me even as I say these things? I do
not mean 'acknowledge'; I mean 'believe'-to the point
where your heart winces, where if you touch any aspect
of the world a shudder runs up your spine; that the world
is as abominable to you as it is to God. And I am not
just speaking about its ugliest vices; I am speaking also
about those things that are equally of the world which
are applauded as virtue and as good."
"A writer says that 'The Cross is the utterly
incommensurable factor in the revelation of God,' and
that 'we have become far too used to it.' We have made
a theory of salvation out of it, but that is not the Cross.
We have sentimentalized and distorted and taken the
sting out of it; we have negated its death and suffering.
It needs to be recalled as an event, and we need to
make it for ourselves an event. The central, pivotal,
event of all our faith and life. All must go dark for us,
become as night in the daytime of our comfortable
religious understanding.