Hebrews 5:5-10

Melchizedek appears briefly in Genesis 14 as a priest-king who blesses Abraham. Psalm 110, source of the second quotation here, takes him as the prototype of a priesthood that Hebrews 7 will explain is greater than that of Aaron.

Who is this figure of blessing and reconciliation prior to and greater than the line of Abraham? What does Melchizedek represent about how God acts in history?

What was utterly mysterious in Genesis is fulfilled and made known in Christ. Jesus, true God and also true man, comes to us as the perfect model of how to receive blessing from God and become a blessing to others. His prayers, fully human in their passion, open for us the way to follow him in faith through the acceptance of unjust suffering and death to the revelation of life that transforms suffering and death into salvation.

May we learn and receive in him an obedience that turns our suffering into blessing.

—Curtis Gruenler

Psalm 119:9-16

The Problem of the Cross

Lent anticipates the cross. Lent is the prelude to the main anthem, the mood setter for the drama to come. Waiting around the corner, begging for the bright lights of Easter, stands the cross. As we reflect on Lent, it is hard to dismiss the cross. But what cross?

The cross as symbol? The cross as personal reality? The cross as a grim, functional instrument of a repressive state? I find the cross to be a disquieting and problematic window into Christianity. It is the ultimate Divine Rorschach Test. It becomes what we project it to be.

Crucifix, cruciform? Simple X-ed bar, or multiple bars, or X-es within X-es? Two horizontal beams, or three, or four? Slanted slats, or squared up ones? Occupied or deserted? Elaborations that tell of centuries of projection and fear and bitter conflict.

Focus on the pieta of a mother’s pain. No, focus on the brutal agony and gore of the wretched victim. No, focus on the emptiness. No, focus on the nefarious history of a brutal mechanism dedicated to subjugation. Always remember that the cross was used to punish. No, it was used to humiliate. No, it was used to liberate.

Social icon or fashion statement? Separator of Christians from Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Others. Distinguisher of people, of Kardashians versus Dali Lamas and bin Ladens. Wear it on our plunging necklines, pierced ears, tattooed biceps. Show the world that we are unique–like all of our clan. Arrayed on grassy fields in geometric rows to signal the graves of Us. We Are Not They.

Healing image, hopeful future? Gently placed on crinkled foreheads on disheveled deathbeds. Kissed for good luck; bon voyage into the next world where crosses reign triumphant. Human frailty, Divine redemption. Sin and selfishness and salvation. The human condition aspiring after higher things through the cross and grave and empty tomb. It all begins with the cross.

Such a simple structure on which to hang so much ambivalence. The cross bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things. It lives in the hearts of millions, billions; spreading good, spreading evil. Such a simple structure; such a world of burden to bear. During Lent we anticipate the cross. But what cross?

—Don Luidens

John 3:14-21

Christ Our Light -- Brother Lawrence, Holy Rosary Priory, Bushey, Great Britain

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.

But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Salvator Mundi, Savior of the World 1465

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.