Crucifixion

The cross is not a defiant denunciation of death and death’s agents, but a complete immersion into the fullness of its agony.  Before the cross was empty God hung on it displaying the human condition and the consequences of human competition.  Naked on the cross, God is radically exposed as one who is completely and passionately in love with those who suffer, as well as those who inflict suffering and those who are desperate to elude suffering.  Victory is a paradox, after all.  Easter is done, as all death’s conquests are overturned, by one who embraces the grief and enfolds the pain along with victims as they suffer.