The Seven Last Words of Christ on The Cross

The cross of Jesus is the Tree of Life. It is there for our bliss, not for sorrow. The lightness of a Mozart or a Haydn, that lightness that suddenly rises up from D minor which we may rightly call grace, is not a flight from but the fruit of the cross. It chimes with an antici- pation of heaven where we will eternally sing of the mercies of the Lord ( Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo ). Of course, reading the Bible the way you would read a newspaper is not reading it at all. If it is the Word of God, that is, the word of my Creator, Savior, and Lord, I cannot approach it as if I were attending a show or following the news. It speaks to me, it pierces me like a sword, especially when I reach its ultimate, most wrenching point: the Passion of the Word made flesh. I read it only to the extent that I read it within my soul. I read it only to the extent that I let it test me. As I listen to the Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross , I can spend a pleasant, moving hour, but one which leaves me funda- mentally untouched, like a moral add-on to my physical comfort. I'm sitting in an armchair, listening to music, looking at art. But the truth, more mystical and concrete, is that I am at the foot of the cross. The groans of the tortured, the many people today disfigured by suffering and sin, are at my doorstep! I may not recognize it, but as much as I may admire and feel myself a Christian, I am like those passers-by who derided him, wagging their heads (Mk 15:29). In this sense, Kierkegaard got it right. The words of the Lord aren't looking for our admiration or our understanding, but for our con- fession and our conversion. We are protagonists in this story: He gave himself for our sins (Gal 1:4). We have no choice but to identify ourselves with one of the characters in this scene: either the bad or the good thief (as in Luke). Or the scribes who mock: Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him! Or perhaps one of the men who, with the centurion, confesses: Truly this was the Son of God! (as in Matthew and Mark). Or one of the soldiers gam- bling for his vestments, his tunic. Or the disciple who welcomed Mary into his home (as in John). 7