TGIF: Has the Cross Become Cliche? | Good Friday Special
Partner with work of CareImpact and Journey With Care!
Description
Has the cross become a cliché? In this Good Friday conversation on Journey With Care, host Wendi Park goes deep into understanding the crucifixion beyond its traditional narrative. Wendi reflects on how her North American evangelical upbringing felt incomplete and explores insights from African Christianity, Francis of Assisi’s humility, and Liberation Theology. She acknowledges Indigenous perspectives, challenging the historical misuse of the cross in Canada. This conversation reimagines Good Friday not as a transaction but as a call to sacrificial love and community action, inviting us to live out heaven on Earth with justice, love, and kinship.
Other Links
Join The CareImpact Podcast Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1PgzJWfkq9/
Reach out to us! https://careimpact.ca/podcast
Email: podcast@careimpact.ca
About the CarePortal: careimpact.ca/careportal
DONATE! Help connect and equip more churches across Canada to effectively journey well in community with the most vulnerable: careimpact.ca/donate
Transcript
Maybe we need to shift the question from, what did Jesus
Speaker:save me from, to, what did Jesus invite
Speaker:me into? What if Jesus didn't erase our
Speaker:shame by bypassing it, but by entering into
Speaker:it? This is Journey with Care, a podcast
Speaker:by Care Impact, where curious Canadians find inspiration to love others
Speaker:others well through real life stories and honest conversations.
Speaker:Hi, friends. Thanks for joining me today. We're doing something a
Speaker:little different on the podcast. Today is Good Friday.
Speaker:And instead of our usual format, I wanted to take some time to share a
Speaker:few personal reflections, some really honest ones. Whether
Speaker:you're listening in your car or taking a dog for a walk or simply taking
Speaker:the time to pause, I'm glad we get to sit here with this
Speaker:together. Can I start with a confession? You see,
Speaker:I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I
Speaker:believe in the crucifixion and the resurrection and the hope we have in
Speaker:Christ. But if I'm really honest,
Speaker:there's been a dissonance in my spirit, a quite unsettledness
Speaker:I haven't always had the words for. Something about the way I've
Speaker:been taught about the cross, the way I've taught it even
Speaker:myself. It's felt, well, incomplete, even
Speaker:cliche. I mean, have you ever stopped to listen to the
Speaker:way we talk about it? And it's not because I haven't
Speaker:studied. I've paid thousands of dollars, spent hundreds of hours in
Speaker:lectures, written the theology papers. I've been that
Speaker:honor student of North American white evangelical theology.
Speaker:I've done the work. I've read the books. I've believed it
Speaker:sincerely. And yet, deep down,
Speaker:something still doesn't feel right. I do recall
Speaker:being that student, hand raised in theology classes,
Speaker:pressing deeper than the professor knew what to do with. I
Speaker:learned that to have faith was just to believe the
Speaker:simple truths and learn some fancy language. And
Speaker:by adding emotion to it, we would truly experience God's
Speaker:redemptive love for such a wretched sinner I was.
Speaker:We're told Jesus died for our sins, that he took our punishment,
Speaker:and that he stepped into our place so we didn't have to suffer.
Speaker:And we're supposed to feel gratitude, relief,
Speaker:like we've been handed some kind of divine get out of jail
Speaker:free card or something, a spiritual fire insurance policy,
Speaker:an insurance policy with immediate, hashtag blessed
Speaker:perks and comforts with promises of eternal bliss.
Speaker:Jesus became our cosmic underwriter, absorbing all the bad
Speaker:stuff so we can coast through life covered by grace.
Speaker:Has Good Friday become our TGIF? Is this
Speaker:the day we dodge the bullet and pay respects at a
Speaker:funeral service for Jesus? When I look
Speaker:at the suffering in our world, the kind that lingers, the
Speaker:kind that cuts so deep, the kind I've been invited
Speaker:into to care for others in their distress,
Speaker:to experience being in distress myself because of the
Speaker:road marked out for me. I can't help but ask
Speaker:myself, is this it? Is this all the cross was
Speaker:for? A get out of jail card, a fire insurance, a day to remember how
Speaker:wretched we are without Him? Because if the cross is just
Speaker:about escape, why does it feel like
Speaker:Jesus is always leading us deeper into suffering,
Speaker:calling us deeper into suffering? Why does
Speaker:Christianity in North America often leave a a wretched
Speaker:scent rather than the aroma of Christ in places of oppression
Speaker:and suffering? And I wonder why has my ancestry
Speaker:generations upon generations of people devoted
Speaker:to Christ been both the persecuted
Speaker:and the perpetrators of oppression while bearing the
Speaker:cross? Let's start with what's familiar.
Speaker:Many of us grew up with a version of the gospel that focused on
Speaker:substitution. Jesus stood in for us. He took the
Speaker:punishment we deserved so we could be forgiven
Speaker:and go to heaven. And there is truth to that
Speaker:too. Scripture speaks of Christ bearing our sins,
Speaker:of being the lamb who takes them away. And it's not
Speaker:nothing, but the problem
Speaker:is when that's all the cross becomes, a transaction, a
Speaker:legal loophole, a cosmic balancing of the scales.
Speaker:And what often gets lost in the bat version is Jesus,
Speaker:Not the idea of him, but the life of him,
Speaker:the story he told with his body, the people he
Speaker:welcomed, the systems he challenged, the
Speaker:suffering he didn't bypass. In a transactional
Speaker:gospel, Jesus dies so we don't have to.
Speaker:But I think that the gospel that God is revealing
Speaker:to me is Jesus dies to show us how to live,
Speaker:how to live with open hands, with courage, with community,
Speaker:with a love that defies fear and outlast
Speaker:power. So maybe we need to shift the question from
Speaker:what did Jesus save me from to what did
Speaker:Jesus invite me into? Let's look at how other
Speaker:voices, older voices, global voices understood the cross.
Speaker:In early African Christianity, theologians like Origen
Speaker:didn't see the cross as divine punishment. They saw it as a
Speaker:rescue operation, a liberating act where Christ
Speaker:confronts the power of evil and death, not by crushing them,
Speaker:but by absorbing them with love. Then there's
Speaker:Francis of Assisi in thirteenth century Italy. He
Speaker:didn't care much for abstract theology. For him, the cross was about
Speaker:humility, simplicity, suffering love. He didn't just preach
Speaker:it, he lived it, walking barefoot among the poor,
Speaker:treating lepers as Christ himself. And then in Latin
Speaker:America, Liberation Theologians like Gustavo
Speaker:Gutierrez spoke of the crucified people,
Speaker:the poor, the oppressed, those abandoned by
Speaker:systems of power. For them, the cross was God
Speaker:standing with the suffering, not apart from it. Jesus
Speaker:wasn't the fixer. He was the one who got wounded with us.
Speaker:And here in Canada, I live on Treaty 1 territory, the
Speaker:traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, the Cree, Oji Cree, Dakota, and
Speaker:the Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Metis nation.
Speaker:This land was intended to be shared in peace and friendship, yet
Speaker:we recognize the ongoing impact of colonization,
Speaker:including how the cross was weaponized against
Speaker:Indigenous communities, land shaped by indigenous
Speaker:communities whose spirituality has long centered around
Speaker:relationship to creator, to one another,
Speaker:to the land. Many indigenous Christian voices like
Speaker:Lakota theologian Richard Twist have called out how the cross was
Speaker:weaponized during colonization. Used not as
Speaker:a symbol of love, but of displacement, removing people
Speaker:from their identities and relationships. It became a weapon of
Speaker:assimilation, twisting the cross into a tool
Speaker:for forced sameness rather than sacred kinship.
Speaker:Now as a follower of Christ, this is gut wrenching,
Speaker:guys. I lament and repudiate this mockery of the
Speaker:cross. This is not what Jesus came for. This is
Speaker:about God's love for all nations.
Speaker:But what has impacted me is listening to indigenous brothers and
Speaker:sisters share to me a Jesus with a
Speaker:different kind of story, a story of creator
Speaker:entering into our broken web of relationships, not to
Speaker:dominate, but to heal, not to force sameness,
Speaker:but to restore sacred kinship.
Speaker:So where does this leave us? If the cross isn't just
Speaker:about paying for sin, if it's also about exposing
Speaker:empire, entering suffering and forming a new kind of
Speaker:people, then Good Friday becomes less about what we
Speaker:believe and more about how we
Speaker:live. There's another layer I don't want to miss here.
Speaker:For a lot of us, shame is the background to our faith, the
Speaker:belief that we are unworthy, unclean, not
Speaker:enough. And the message we've been given is
Speaker:Jesus took your shame so you don't have to feel it.
Speaker:But what if Jesus didn't erase our shame by bypassing
Speaker:it, but by entering into it? Hebrews
Speaker:twelve two says, for the joy set before him, he
Speaker:endured the cross, scorning its shame.
Speaker:The cross wasn't just painful. It was
Speaker:humiliating, public. It was
Speaker:degrading. And Jesus didn't hide from that. He
Speaker:faced it, not to shame us further, to stand
Speaker:with us in our own vulnerability,
Speaker:to say you are not alone. Even here,
Speaker:you are loved.
Speaker:So instead of using the cross to numb our pain, what if we let
Speaker:it draw us into healing, into telling the
Speaker:truth, into letting others see our wounds,
Speaker:into letting community hold us? Jesus
Speaker:didn't just die on a cross, he told us to take up our own.
Speaker:Luke nine twenty three says, if anyone would come after me, let
Speaker:him deny himself and take up their cross
Speaker:daily and follow me. But that's
Speaker:not about martyrdom complexes. It's not about self hate.
Speaker:It's about courage, about choosing the way of sacrificial
Speaker:love when it would be easier to hide or hoard or dominate.
Speaker:And it's not just personal, it's a community
Speaker:call to action. The early church didn't just believe in
Speaker:Jesus, they became his body. They shared their
Speaker:resources. They challenged unjust systems. They welcomed
Speaker:the outsider and they made space at their tables
Speaker:for everyone. Maybe the cross is less about
Speaker:getting us into heaven and more about
Speaker:getting heaven into us, a heaven
Speaker:that looks like kinship, like healing, like
Speaker:justice, like joy in the midst of sorrow.
Speaker:Good Friday isn't just about pretending we're okay. It's about naming what's
Speaker:broken and watching Jesus step into it anyway. It's about
Speaker:facing the violence of our world and saying, This is not the
Speaker:end. It's about seeing Christ, not just on a
Speaker:hill two thousand years ago, but in
Speaker:our streets, in our prisons, in
Speaker:our hospitals, and in our homes,
Speaker:still reaching, still forgiving, still
Speaker:calling us to love. So wherever you are
Speaker:today, whatever doubts or weariness or aches you may
Speaker:carry, I invite you to linger at this
Speaker:cross, not because it's a magical transaction,
Speaker:but because it's where love broke open the world.
Speaker:To end, I'd like to leave you with a little blessing.
Speaker:May the cross unsettle you, but never shame
Speaker:you. May it stir you, but never
Speaker:silence you. May it root you in love that is
Speaker:deeper than fear, more far reaching than guilt and
Speaker:stronger than death. And may this Good Friday be
Speaker:a doorway, not into escape, but into a
Speaker:life more fully given, more deeply known and more
Speaker:beautifully shared? Resurrection is
Speaker:coming. Transformation is real
Speaker:today. Jesus goes before you as you
Speaker:learn to embrace the Jesus way in solidarity
Speaker:with those in the margins, the oppressed, and those who
Speaker:contend for a messy, loving community of belonging.
Speaker:Thanks for joining me for this Good Friday episode. What are your thoughts?
Speaker:I'd love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Care Impact
Speaker:podcast group or email us at
Speaker:info@careimpact.ca. And remember,
Speaker:always stay curious.
