Column title: Crossed My Mind: Thoughts on Culture and Communication
Column entry: Eastertide: “He Lives, Though Ever Crucified”
By John Hatch, Ph.D.
Eastern University (retired)
CCSN Senior Fellow
Column Description: As Christians, we are called to have the mind of Christ. This goes against the grain of our social and cultural conditioning. We seek personal or political advancement; Christ seeks the lost and the least. We grasp for cultural ascendency; Christ descends to the cross of love. This column is dedicated to thinking about culture and communication under the sign of the cross.
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April 2024
Eastertide: “He Lives, Though Ever Crucified”
Last month, I reflected on the ways in which God makes meaning of a painful and perplexing world through the cross of Christ. Seen in the revelatory light of the Holy Spirit, the cross shows us that a truly meaningful life, whether individual or collective, comes neither from victimizing others (outsiders/enemies) nor building our identity on victimhood (gaining a sense of significance or moral standing from the injustices we’ve endured). The wider implication of the cross is that “reality has a cruciform pattern,”[i] as Richard Rohr puts it, and that God redeems the world through suffering love, not through overwhelming power.
Of course, the good news of Easter is that Christ is risen; God’s power and love triumph over death. Yet the resurrection does not negate the truth revealed by the cross; it brings that truth to life in every corner of our world. A hymn recently sung at my church brought this idea home to me. For this Eastertide column, I’m keeping it simple and letting those lyrics have the last word:
Christ is alive! Let Christians sing.
His cross stands empty to the sky.
Let streets and homes with praises ring.
His love in death shall never die.
Christ is alive! No longer bound
to distant years in Palestine,
he comes to claim the here and now
and conquer every place and time.
Not throned afar, remotely high
untouched, unmoved by human pains,
but daily, in the midst of life,
our Savior with the Father reigns.
In every insult, rift and war
where color, scorn, or wealth divide,
he suffers still, yet loves the more,
and lives, though ever crucified.
Christ is alive! His Spirit burns
through this and every future age,
till all creation lives and learns
his joy, his justice, love and praise.[ii]
Amen.
* The views of any CCSN columnists are their own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the CCSN. We invite and embrace a wide range of views and critiques on important communication and cultural issues. The CCSN is a community of Jesus followers who study communication. We do not support or promote a particular social, political, or denominational agenda.
Notes
[i] Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ (New York: Convergent, 2019), 147.
[ii] “Christ is alive! Let Christians sing,” The Hymnal 1982 (New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1985), H. 182. Words by Brian A. Wren, revised, © 1975 by Hope Publishing Company.