Those who look meditatively and long enough on the Crucified Jesus are healed at deep levels of pain, unforgiveness, aggression, and victimhood. The gazing is an exchange of receiving the image within and offering one’s soul back in return.
The crucified Jesus offers a very compassionate meaning for all of history. Without which the agonies and tragedies of Earth feel completely beyond understanding. Because all our crucifixions lead to some possible resurrection and are not dead-end tragedies, this changes everything. Because God is participating in the suffering of humans and creation, that changes everything.
We Christians are given the privilege to name the mystery rightly and to know it directly. We can all learn this from the flow of life itself, and our Christian Scriptures named it and revealed it to us in Jesus. It will all depend, however, on whether we “gaze” long and deep enough at the paradoxical mystery of the cross, at the mystery of life and death.
Galatians 6:14 “As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died.”
