-
7. Cross and Resurrection as Mystery and Wonder
- Augsburg Fortress Publishers
- Chapter
- Additional Information
74 Remember my mention of a cross in the Stuttgart exhibit fashioned by Jo Schöpfer from slabs of concrete? Production and power are broken on the cross as though on a concrete wall. Because of the cross, powerlessness and weakness are exposed like a naked wall. It stands in the middle of indifference and brutality like an austere memorial. Failure, impact, and wreckage are expressed in each of these aspects. As Jörg Baur notes, “Inasmuch as every no is enacted in Christ’s cross, it also negates the misused potency of the world as its own possibility.”1 We can go further: every condition is broken on this hard reality and comes to naught—including religious expectations, ecclesiastical goals, and theological traditions. Christians and atheists together are in a head-on collision with the cross.2 This has been forgotten in a history that has been shaped by Christianity. Instead, the Christian West 7 Cross and Resurrection as Mystery and Wonder Cross and Resurrection as Mystery and Wonder 75 recognizes the cross and its content as a symbol of shared value, agreed-upon goals, standardized language, as well as a consistent culture in itself. Traditionally the cross has symbolized Europe and its expansion across the globe. People are hardly aware that Christianity arose in Palestine, or that Syria and Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia, were the so-called cradle of Christianity. That mythical “center” has been thoroughly Europeanized3 and cultivated in Europe, and its loss has been vigorously lamented for more than a half century. That the cross could stand for destruction, decay, and unobtainable diversity is still commonly regarded as unthinkable, although the so-called dialectical theology of the 1920s had already emphasized a diastasis between cross and tradition. In the meantime , this was already needed in the midst of the kind of widely overlooked obtuseness that, for European and especially German Christianity and Christian culture, the cross is not their point of unity but the point of difference, the place where paths and languages diverge and traditions are splintered or ossified. It is especially evident in art. From Baselitz to Tàpies, from Rocha to Knaupp, from Waldemar Kuhn’s multidimensional scrap-crucifix in the chancel of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Emmerich to Ursula Querner’s crucifixion grouping in front of the east wall of the St. Thomas Church in Helmstedt: what they all have in common is what they assert. When we encounter a number of representations of the cross offering the [3.227.251.194] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 14:40 GMT) Cross and Resurrection 76 opportunity for theological critique, then we likewise must remain respectful in the multiple presentations without regard to their various artistic qualities. They must be acknowledged as expressions of perception or experiences of the cross of Christ in our time and in our reality. More precisely , the conspicuous diversity of presentations (it would be foolish to revert to rampant subjectivity ) gives the impression that a centering point and unity can no longer be built on the basis of the cross, which has become a “stumbling block” in which the abysmal contingency of human existence in general finally breaks open (and should no longer be covered up). Specifically, we live in an unholy, torn, and lost world. It is precisely this world into which the God-man comes, this world in which and for which he suffered and died on the cross, not to establish a cultural or ecclesiastical “center,” but to establish the reign of God. The cross is therefore no longer exclusively or even primarily a cultural symbol. The insight here is that the cross is indeed a symbol of death and the embodiment of failure. However, without realizing it, churches and theology use it as an affectation rather than as a confession. Even so, to a great extent the cross remains for them an important “in fact” on whose heels the decisive, all-overpowering “yet” of Easter closely follows. It misses the point that the power of salvation and truth gets lost in this dishonesty. This is certainly understandable. Christianity has often and long enough had stirring accusations and great dishonor aimed its way, Cross and Resurrection as Mystery and Wonder 77 since even its central stance is that of a symbol of enmity toward life.4 Indeed, this accusation found much support in defining the word Christian. If we listen to the primary accuser, Friedrich Nietzsche, we hear that the cross itself will...