Creation and Crucifixion

The cross is depicted most commonly as two pieces of squared lumber joined in a right angle, perfectly square.  The geometry of it struck me, the perfection of it, and reminded me of a kind docent at Notre Dame in Paris.  Kathy and I were looking, agape, at the Rose Window, on the south wall where it would embrace and diffuse the most light into this magnificent cathedral.  A kind docent who spoke good English asked us if we would like to know about the window.  Instead of obscuring the beauty of the window with names and dates and minutiae, he said: look at the circle, and look at the square corners at the base.  The circle represents God’s creation – planets, suns, orbs and orbits.  The square represents the human act of continuing God’s creation, like the stones of this building.”

The elegance of his bringing these contrasting forms, square and circle, into relationship in the act of creation stuck with me; the concept returns to me again and again, and now in the crucifixion.  There is the round face of Jesus, the mouth agape, the eyes, the shape of his crowned skull, the curved forms of God’s creation.  And there he is hung on a perfectly square cross of human design and construction.

Bill Hickey, who frequents this blog with rich comment and inspiration, is on his way with his wife Billie to Oak Ridge Tennessee for tomorrow’s “A Safer World is our Right” protest rally.  The sponsoring Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance describes itself as “a collection of eternally hopeful souls who believe we have the power to create the world we hope to live in. Even though most of them are old enough to know better, they’ve been insisting that nonviolent actions—speaking at public hearings; grassroots organizing; public workshops; civil resistance actions; letters to the editor—can lead to a world free of nuclear weapons.  OREPA is committed to nonviolence and believes in using every tool in the toolbox. Our main focus is stopping nuclear weapons production at the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.”

Nonviolence and creation.  While the Norte Dame rose window is a bright blending of God’s creation and man’s, the crucifix, like nuclear weaponry, is a dark fusion of God’s creation and man’s desecration.  It was the perfectly built argument of the leaders of the church of Jesus time that pushed the Roman procurator to allow the use of the efficient method of torture and death to be used for Jesus, this living threat to their power.  Christ crucified. 

And so it is that across the nave there in that cathedral in Paris, all the way against the dark north wall, that the crucifix shows how far we have diverged from the bright creation of God in our power-perverted acts of de-creation.  To Bill and Billie and the thousands who are gathering at Oak Ridge tomorrow, our prayers and thanks for turning us all to the light as God’s spring blooms all around, creation pleading that we learn from its beauty.