Suffering and the Cross

Tuesdays with Forde

Via On Being a Theologian of the Cross, p. 35

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:2-3)

Theologians of the cross, however, cannot see through the “unattractive” and apparently evil works of God. They cannot see through such works because they have been “gotten at” by suffering and the cross. They see God working exactly through the horror of the cross. God’s hidden and alien working in the cross is such that it reflects back on us and exposes our own lives. Thus the works do not become the occasion for pride, but rather humility and despair. We are led therefore not to credit our own account but to judge ourselves and to confess. The human works that once seemed attractive and good now have no form or beauty and are the cause of sorrow and despair. If we se clearly, if we are able to “say what a thing is,” we should be able to judge ourselves so that we do not come under the judgment of God.