subject: Our Rejection of Our True Being [print this page] There are people who think we ought to get rid of all talk about the crucifixion of Jesus in the twenty first centurythat it is a negative, unhelpful, even harmful image.
They point to how Christendom has even taught people to crucify themselves, putting themselves down, subjecting their will to that of others, and actually to feel bad about themselves.
I believe we do ourselves a disservice if we rid ourselves of the crucifixion imagery. The crucifixion of Jesus is a symbol of what we do to ourselves each day, out of which we do it to others.
What has been done to us, we do to those around us, and they do it in turn back to us.
Christendom has said we are to crucify our desires.This very teaching is itself what does us in. We have enshrined in doctrine, as if it were a virtuous way to live,the very self-crucifixion that the cross of Jesus holds up to us as a destruction of our goodness.
Being crucified with Christ is a biblical teaching, but it has been totally misunderstood.
In what sense are we to be "crucified with Christ?" I propose that we have the meaning exactly backwards.
Our repression and suppression of our true being are crucifying us.
What needs to be crucified is ouralienation from our humanness and the world of nature. We must die to all that robs us of the fullness of life, for to be what we are in all our fullness is the only end in life.
Whatneeds to be crucified isthe way we continually crucify our potential for fulfillment.
If there was one thing Jesus was known for, it was his brash expression of joy. The religious folk of his day accused him of partying too much, drinking too much, eating too much. How dare he live an ecstatic life in a world in which humanness is suspect?
Jesus' death was the unavoidable outcome of aligning himself with those aspects of ourselves we tend to repress. He loved the whole of life, and he loved every person, especially those society looked down on.
He was crucified because the world can't tolerate someone who is wholeheartedly immersed in and committed to life.
Such a meaningful life spotlights how lacklustre most of our lives are. The world had to get rid of someone who held up for us a mirror of our mediocrity, our self-limiting, our rejection of our magnificence. We couldn't stand the brilliant light he shone on our fear of being who we really are.
The one who embraced his humanity fully died at the hands of those who refuse to embrace their humanity.
The crucifixion resounds throughout history because it touches a nerve in each of us. As Sebastian Moore puts it in his brilliant bookThe Crucified Jesus Is No Stranger, crucifixion is a symbol of how we refuse "some fullness of life to which God is impelling us and which our whole being dreads. Some unbearable personhood, identity, freedom, whose demands beat on our comfortable anonymity and choice of death. Further, something that at root weare, a self that is ours yet persistently ignored in favor of the readily satisfiable needs of the ego."
Sebastian goes on to say that Jesus is "the representative, the symbol, the embodiment of this dreaded yet desired self of each of us, this destiny of being human, this unbearable identity and freedom."
Do you see why we have to crucify ourselves? Why we crucified the one who represents our true being in its fullness?
"The crucifixion then becomes the central drama of humanity's refusal of our true self."
The symbol of crucifixion invites us to become deeply rooted in our bodiliness, in the seasons, in nature, in our deepest and truest selfindeed,in everything that is a manifestation of the loving divine source at the heart of all reality.
