A Followup Question on "Bearing Our Crosses"

[[Can you say more about this idea that God does not send us crosses, but rather sends us into a world which is full of them and commissions us to carry them? How can you say that God did not send Jesus the cross he agreed to carry?]]

First, let me say that all the crosses that come our way come with the "permissive will" of God. However, too often we interpret the fact that God "permits" something to happen as though it is equivalent to the notion that he wants it to happen. The use of the word "will" in the term "permissive will" can be somewhat misleading therefore, and it can be associated with the idea that God is in total control (which, by the way, is not the same thing as affirming he is sovereign); sometimes when the term "permissive will" is used, we imagine something like options or possibilities being run past God so that he may intervene or not, say no or not: will she be sick or not; will disaster strike this person or not; should she suffer this pain or that loss, or not; will she die or not; etc? God is ALWAYS on the side of life, not death.

But God is NOT in total control, nor does he stand in the midst of the world's possibilities like someone making a deathcamp-selection of who shall suffer and who shall not. There are, as Paul clearly states, powers and principalities at work in our world, including death and sin, which God is in the process of bringing under complete subjection to himself. In Christ he has won the decisive victory over these realities or realms, but he is not yet "all in all" and some aspects of the world remain yet untouched or unchanged (or perhaps better said, inadequately or incompletely touched or changed) by his presence. Our world is marked not only by order, but by disorder, not only by meaning, but by senselessness, not only by truth but by falsehood and falseness. And God permits all this because it is the price of a free creation who can eventually turn responsively to him in genuine love.

My comments regarding God NOT sending us the crosses we are called upon to carry was largely based on the distorted but very common view of how permissive will operates or "what it looks like". It was meant to stress that, in fact, things happen which God does not directly will or send. That he permits them is not to say he wills them, nor even less that he wants them to happen. He works at all times to redeem the world, every aspect of it, and to reclaim it from the powers of sin and death. The decisive victory, once again, has been won, but there is yet work to do and the result for us is the crosses that ordinary life sends our way daily. Will these crosses eventually disappear? Yes, for one day God will truly be all in all and there will be complete victory over sin and death.


Dietrich Bonhoeffer once summarized the entire situation in a quote I like very much, and have used here before, I think. He said, "Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that does happen happens OUTSIDE the will of God." God is sovereign in this world. Ultimately he will be the total victor, of that there is no doubt. But in the meantime he is not in COMPLETE control. For this to become reality means that you and I must take on the crosses life sends our way, wherever they come from! If we do this worthily IN CHRIST, then these symbols and bits of sinful, death-dealing reality will eventually be transformed into sacraments of God's presence and love, just as the cross WE PLACED ON JESUS' SHOULDERS, and the death he died, was transformed into a sacrament of God's presence.

There is one other problem with thinking that God sends the crosses that come into our lives. Most of the time these crosses are fashioned, as I noted yesterday or so, with bloody human hands and from the twisted, frightened, defensive human heart. Our tendency to think that God sent the cross that Jesus died on has sometimes prevented us from seeing that he REALLY AND TRULY died at our hands under the control of our torturers as crowds of us stood and jeered and mocked, and as our religious people orchestrated the matter even while they tore their clothes in anguish in feigned --- or delusional --- innocence. The cross was completely and wholly fashioned and laid on him by sinful human hands and hearts. When I consider what it was that God willed, it was that Jesus enter exhaustively into our flawed and distorted reality; God willed that he drink as deeply as possible from the cup of our lot, that he experience the very worst of what humans can do AND THAT HE REMAIN OPEN AND RESPONSIVE (OBEDIENT) TO HIS FATHER AND THE SPIRIT in spite of it all. Did he will Jesus' crucifixion per se? No, but there is no doubt it came to Jesus as a piece of the life he lived; still, it was very much something that WE WILLED and did to him. I can hardly agree that our will and God's were identical here except in the most paradoxical and ironic way!

On the other hand, there is another side to the equation I set out: namely, that God sends us, as he did Jesus, into our world and commissions us to carry the crosses the world lays upon us! God's will of course, is to be "all in all" as the Pauline phrase goes. The way that happens is by human beings bringing (allowing) God into those places he cannot force his way into. Jesus did this as exhaustively as he could by dying the deepest most "godforsaken death" one could die while yet remaining open to and dependent upon his Father to make sense out of it, to bring life out of it, and to turn the most horrific human injustice into the source and absolute measure of divine justice/mercy. We must extend this achievement to all the dark and unhealthy places that remain, and that means taking on life's crosses and allowing God to transform them with his presence. God has given us a mission in this world: we are to participate in its perfecting and being brought to fulfillment. This means we are to share in God's own destiny and make it our own; we do this by embracing both God and the crosses (as well as the great joys!) life sends our way.


But God goes further still than simply commissioning us to carry them. He accompanies us in this. More, like Simon the Cyrene, he helps us carry them; he takes a lot of their weight upon himself. He not only did this in Jesus so that our crosses are never as heavy as they might have been without the Christ Event, but he does it now, moment by moment. The image I like very much here is the picture of Jesus holding a young man up. The cross --- whatever it actually is is unclear, though the picture refers to the divine healer --- is the young man's, but the young man is Christ's and so Jesus carries or upholds both the young man and his burden. In all of this God wills to extend his sovereignty (that is, life lived solely in light of his love and mercy) to the whole of reality.

A Distinction between Willing and Commissioning

Perhaps another image will help us distinguish between what God wills for us, and what he commission us to do. When someone joins the armed services in order to protect or extend certain values to the whole world, the officers do not will for men and women to be hurt or die. The commission they are given is one of fighting and bringing peace and other values to a region, for instance. In the process, some will be captured, some will be tortured, others will suffer in all manner of other ways, and many will die. The officers do not will these things and they work in all kinds of ways to prevent them from happening, but the commission remains and it means taking on these kinds of things in the process of carrying it out. A less militant, but more effective image might be the peace corps: the commission is to educate, build community, enhance societies, etc. The means to carrying this commision will entail suffering, hardship, crosses. Does the peace corps as sponsoring organization WILL or WANT these things? No, but taking them on is very often part of the volunteer's commission and the Peace Corp will assist the person in doing so.

My response regarding Jesus is based upon this distinction. God willed for Jesus what was entailed in a life completely obedient to Him, or better, perhaps, he willed a completely obedient (open, attentive, responsive) life which would implicate Jesus' Father and their mutual Spirit into every moment and mood of human existence. Jesus was commissioned in this way. The general mission was God-willed; the specific cross on which he died, and thus, the manner of his passion and death was fashioned by the world and laid on Jesus' shoulders by human hands and hearts. Now let me say that I think it is possible and necessary to say that God willed this particular cross, and embraced it himself, but one needs to make our own role in it completely clear in doing so. That becomes even more important when we are dealing with the crosses that life hands us, but that God has never willed for us.

I hope this clarifies a bit more what I was saying in my last post. Again, please get back to me if it raises more questions or causes greater confusion!!

On Bearing the Crosses that Come our Way

[[1) Are there such things as "unworthy" crosses, or "unholy" crosses? 2) Is God only able to use "holy crosses", or "worthy crosses" in our lives?? 3) Does he simply remove these ["unworthy"] crosses for us??]]

Well, it's an interesting couple of questions, but the answer to the first one is no (or potentially so), and the answer to the second question is a definite no!! The third one is a bit more nuanced, so see below. Let me start with the second question, which is more straightforward, and more clearly theological. It will provide the basis for answering the first and third questions as well.



To begin we must start with the central paradigm and symbol of our faith, the Cross of Christ. When we think of the Cross of Christ and Christ's passion it is critically important to remember that what was most significant about it was not the agonizing physical torture associated with it, horrific as this was, but rather the shame, offensiveness, and scandal of the cross. There was nothing holy, or worthy, or respectable about the cross Jesus assumed as his own. Quite the contrary. It was in every way the cross formed and shaped from and by human sinfulness, depravity, cruelty, inhumanity, and shamefulness --- not from human nobility, compassion, integrity, or anything similar. This cross represented the antithesis of the holy, the good, or the noble. It was understood to represent Godlessness (anti-life, anti-holiness, etc.) in as absolute a way as anything could. And of course, it is THIS shameful, unholy cross that God uses to redeem and reconcile his entire creation! (I am not going into this theology of how that happens in detail here; I have done that other places so please check the tags in the right hand column to find those articles re how the cross works, or the "Theology of the Cross".)

With this in mind, I think I can now approach the answer to your first question. There is no doubt that many of the crosses that afflict our lives are the result of unworthy choices, whether our own or another's. Not all the crosses we are called to bear are the result of an unchosen illness, for instance. People hurt one another, sometimes deeply and in ways which leave wounds which are difficult to work with or treat. Children are abused by parents and their capacities to love, trust, or live can be badly impaired. Adults sin seriously and impair their own and others' physical and emotional health in the process. In so many ways we carry the scars of these events, sometimes for years and years, sometimes our whole lives long. When you refer to unworthy or unholy crosses I think you are probably referring to these kinds of things, crosses that are the result of sin, inhumanity, cruelty, and the like. They are not unworthy in and of themselves, but they are the result of choices which are unworthy of both God and mankind, so let me go with that understanding for the moment.

What do we do with the Crosses the World Sends our Way?

So, what are we to do with such crosses? And further, can God use these for his own purposes even if he does not "send them"? Well, as with any cross we are to bear them patiently. HOWEVER, to bear them in this way does not mean simply to carry on without treatment, therapy, necessary personal work, healing and the like. To bear these kinds of crosses REQUIRES we work to allow the healing we need to live and love fully as human beings. This correlative work is actually a piece of bearing our cross patiently, ironic or contradictory as that may initially sound.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. A child who is abused will grow up scarred; it is a cross she will have to bear for her whole life, though not necessarily always in the same way. However, it is a cross which will need to be borne precisely by taking on therapy and the hard work of healing. Were she to refuse this work and thus allowed her life to be dominated or defined completely by the past, she would not be embracing her cross or bearing it patiently, but denying and rejecting it. One does not embrace one's cross by refusing to live fully. To bear a cross patiently means to take on LIFE in its shadow, and marked by its weight and imprint, but also to do so with the grace of God which brings life out of death, wholeness out of brokenness, joy out of sorrow, and meaning out of senselessness. It does NOT mean to forego the challenges of living fully in the name of some piously-rationalized cowardice and "victimologization". For instance, the abused person would not be bearing her cross patiently if she said, "Well, God sent this cross, so I will simply accept all the consequences, dysfunction, crippled human capacities, and distortions that come with it. Don't talk to me about therapy, or moving out of this abusive relationship, or working hard to change the situation, etc!"

Prescinding from the idea that God sent this cross for the moment (a notion which I personally reject and explain below), what this attitude describes instead is capitulation to what Paul calls the powers of sin and death which are so active in our world. It is the refusal to allow God to redeem the situation, the refusal to be free in the Christian sense, and represents the embracing of bondage or slavery instead. It is an act of collusion with the destructive effects and process of the cross. Whether one is motivated by cowardice, hopelessness, masochism, or some other similar thing, in this case the pious sounding, "God sent this cross so I will accept it, all its consequences, dysfunction,. . ." is a refusal to live fully, to seek genuine holiness and humanity. It is a refusal of God's grace as it usually comes to us as well, for God's grace here ordinarily comes to us through things like the processes of therapy, spiritual direction, personal work, and all the relationships and changes which bring Christ's own hard-won healing and wholeness.

Can God Use unworthy Crosses?


Can God use these "unworthy" crosses for his purposes? Of course. Why would he not be able to? To suggest otherwise is to say that God is incapable of redeeming certain aspects of his creation, or of making all things work for good in those who love him and let him love them. It is to suggest the Christ Event was a failure, and today's passage from Romans 8 ("nothing will separate us from the love of God") is hyperbole at best, and a lie at worst. God may not have sent this cross, but there is no doubt that he can use it as a unique mediating source of grace in one's life. We grow in all kinds of ways when we embrace the unavoidable difficulties life throws our way, but especially when we do so in faith and in concert with God's grace. This points up another way of refusing to carry one's cross, an unusual way I think, but one nonetheless. It is a refusal to carry one's cross to say, "God did not send it, so let's just be rid of it (or ignore it, etc). I cannot grow in this virtue or that one in light of this cross because it is unworthy, unholy, and God did not send it." In fact, God ordinarily does NOT send the crosses that come our way. They are forged instead in the workshops of human sin, stupidity, cruelty and violence --- just as Jesus' cross was. And yet, he expects us to take them on with his grace so that he might redeem us and our world. I don't for an instant believe that God sent chronic illness, injury and pain for me to live with, however, he can use these with my cooperation to transform both me and my world. I don't for an instant believe that God sends the crosses that are the result of abuse, neglect, carelessness, cruelty and the like, but there is no doubt that he can use these to transfigure their sufferers and our world.

Does God Simply Remove unworthy Crosses?

Your last question was a bit more of a surprise than the other two and you may need to say more about it for me to answer adequately. Let me take a stab at it though. Does God simply remove these crosses for us? My first answer is no, though I am sure he COULD do. My second or related response is a question, namely, "why should he?" I suppose in some way this question stems from your other two: if a cross is unholy and unworthy and God did not send it, then why shouldn't he simply remove it? But the simple fact is that crosses become holy and worthy in the bearing of them! They are "worthy" or "holy" crosses only when the one afflicted by them bears them worthily and in holiness. These crosses become something other than the result of human sinfulness and cruelty only when they are borne with grace --- and here grace does not simply mean superficial equanimity (or something less noble like grudging resignation!); it means "with the life-giving life and power of God's accompanying love." God has chosen to redeem this world by participating in its crosses, but as with Jesus, that means that one has to take the cross on in a conscious way and walk with it. Of course we will fall under its weight from time to time. Jesus did as well. But in the end, it is only in this way that God can take on sin and death, enter into them exhaustively, and transform them with his presence. We take these things on as a piece of Jesus' own redemptive work; we cannot eschew such a burden and be true to our callings.

Theologically, it makes no sense to me to try and distinguish between those crosses which are sent by God and are worthy of being borne, and those which are not. Partly that is because I don't believe God sends crosses so much as he sends the means by which they may be redeemed and become redemptive. Partly it is because it is precisely the unholy and unworthy that God takes on WITH US (and in us!), in such cases, transforming them into something of real worth and holiness. Did God send Jesus the cross he took on! NO, it was entirely a human construct made with our own bloody hands and twisted, frightened hearts, but absolutely he did send Jesus into our world to TAKE IT ON! Do you hear the difference? Does he send us the crosses that come our way? No, but he sends us into the world so that we might be part of its redemption and fulfillment and that means he sends us into the world to take on the various crosses that COME OUR WAY "naturally" (and by "naturally" I mean that come our way through the human sinfulness, cruelty, and violence we meet everyday).



No cross is worthy or holy until it is borne with grace and courage. God does not send crosses per se, but he sends us into a world full of them expecting to help us in their redemption, and he certainly commissions us to carry the crosses that come our way. The only other point that needs to be reiterated is that we bear crosses patiently only when we choose to live fully in spite of them, and in taking them on with the grace of God accompanying and empowering us. That means we take on the therapy, medical care (including appropriate medications for pain, etc), personal work of healing, and so forth that are part of these crosses. If someone has hurt us, even if they have hurt us very badly, it also means taking on the work and the PROCESS of healing we call forgiveness. This can take years and years of course; it is not simply an act of will --- even though it involves such acts (sometimes many of them in renewed intentions to let the past go). It requires assistance, not only of God, but physicians, psychologists, confessors, spiritual directors, and friends. The bottom line is there are many ways to refuse to carry a cross including labelling them unworthy or unholy and waiting for God to simply remove them, but to carry them means more than to simply accept the events that forged them initially; it means to accept everything necessary to transform and redeem them and ourselves as their bearers as well.

I hope this answers your questions; if I misunderstood them in some way, please get back to me and clarify.