The Cross is the means to the end, not the end itself.

The Cross is the means to the end, not the end itself

Another essay which I wrote a few years ago. I was inspired to share this essay this morning when a friend of mine shared with me a photo she took in the Holy Sepulcher. The photo was of a wall sized icon of the crucifixion of Christ, and Christ was on the cross in the ancient way, not contrapposto. Thus I am sharing this essay.

In the year 2004, Mel Gibson produced a movie called “The Passion of the Christ.” This movie spent 2 hours following the final hours of Christ’s life leading up to the crucifixion and then briefly touched on the Resurrection. The movie was full of gore, was indulgently violent and was meant to give the viewer a strong understanding of what the Lord went through in the last few hours of his life. The viewer of the movie was subjected to watching Christ receive each wound he took on the way to the cross as if somehow this would help purify our souls of the sins which we have committed in falling short of total love of Christ. Upon leaving the movie the viewer could not help but feel guilty for their part in the sin that bound Christ to the cross. In spite of the detail paid to the suffering of Christ, it missed the point of the Passion of Christ completely in that it focused on the Resurrection for only a few fleeting seconds at the end. The viewer suffered through all of the pain of the Passion of Christ and then was left to feel guilty for their own sins, but was denied the joy that is The Resurrection of Christ. Speaking in purely philosophical terms, “The Passion of the Christ” focused on the means, Good Friday and the Death of Christ on the Cross, but not the end itself, which is Pascha. The end is Pascha. It is Christ trampling death over death and giving life to those in the tombs. Good Friday is merely the means to achieving the end. The cross has meaning and power because it was God’s ultimate trump card. Sin and death thought they had won through Christ’s death on the cross. On Pascha they found out they were wrong.

If you look at early depictions of the crucifix in Orthodox Iconography, especially those dating before the 11th century, you will notice that most of the time Christ is standing on the cross straight up. Compare this to the depictions from the past eight hundred years where Christ is shown in a slouched contrapposto form. Contrapposto is an Italian term that refers to a figure which has most of its weight on one foot rather than equally distributed on both. In modern depictions of the cross, Christ is shown hanging from the cross with the curve to his torso, barely supported by the weight placed on one foot, with his hands only being held to the cross by the nails which bind him. This is true of both icon crosses and western depictions of the cross. The most extreme example of this modern depiction is the Pontifical Crosier of Pope John Paul II which is depicted at the beginning of this paragraph. This cross depicts a clearly defeated Christ barely hanging from the cross. Compare this to depictions of the cross dating from the 12th C and earlier where Christ is shown standing straight up, with no weight transference and no stress being placed on the hands. In some early depictions he is even shown fully clothed, and it often seems that he is standing on the cross by his own power and will. The theological implications of this contrast are very relevant both to iconography and how we view the cross in relation to Pascha.

While the tilted hips of the contrapposto give the form of the person a nice curve which is visually appealing, it also denotes a western mindset in dealing with the crucifixion which is altogether foreign to the Orthodox ethos. In the contrapposto form, Christ is clearly dead. There is no life in the body that hangs from the cross. He is the sacrificial lamb of which the Prophet Isaiah speaks in chapter 53. By his wounds we were healed. In the western church all of Lent leads to this one single event. The Stations of the Cross focus on the events which led to the crucifixion and are prayed every week during Lent in the western church. Some cultures like that in the Philippines go to great lengths to reenact the events of Good Friday. This is because the west with its legal mindset needs to see that Christ has paid the penalty once and for all for the sin of Adam. The doctrine of original sin has many theological consequences which we will not delve into in this essay, but we Orthodox Christians need to see where it has crept into our own understanding of the life of Christ. Because our icons teach us the Gospel in very subtle ways, it is important to understand why there is a better way to depict Christ on the cross as iconographers have historically shown us, and how this depiction is inherently more Orthodox in nature.

The fifteenth antiphon from Holy Friday makes it clear to us that Christ has died for our sins. There is no questioning that, and yet even in our lament we look past death and yearn for Pascha. “Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on the tree. The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery. He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face. The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the Cross with nails. The Son of the virgin is pierced by a spear. We worship Thy passion, O Christ…Show us also Thy glorious resurrection.” Good Friday is the most sad day of the entire year, and yet even in our grief we find hope for what will come. Many iconographers that I know echo this mindset in a very subtle way when depicting the cave under the cross which bears the skull of Adam. Instead of making the cave pure black, they add blue or purple to it so that even in the darkness of hell there is still a tiny bit of the light of Christ. The skull of Adam is deliberately placed at the foot of the cross to remind us that even while suffering on the cross and dying to this world, Christ had already begun the work of redeeming man to the Father.

The more ancient way to depict Christ on the cross is to show him standing on the cross, with no transference of weight from one hip to the other, with no slouch and no stress being put on his arms. Clearly he is dead on the cross, but in the death there is no defeat. He has paid the price for sin, but has not been conquered and defeated. Instead, in his death he stands there by his own power in glory for all of the world to see, and has already begun the work of redemption which the Father sent him to do. The third ode from Lamentations on Good Friday reads: “Verily, creation, having beheld thee suspended on Golgotha, O thou who didst suspend the whole earth on the waters without hinges, was overtaken with great surprise, crying aloud, There is none holy save thee, O Lord.” O death, where is thy sting? This is apparent from the inscription on the icon cross. Historically the cross should read “INBI”, but instead the icon cross has the inscription read “The King of Glory.”

Christ is the King of Glory and in his glory he has destroyed death by death and reunited mankind with God the Father with whom man had been separated since the time of Adam. This fact is made even more clear that on the icon cross the skull of Adam is shown under the cross and has blood on it. Tradition holds the name Golgotha is “The Place of the Skull.” It is the traditional burial ground of Adam, the first man. Thus the first person to break communion with God the Father was the first person restored to that communion by the blood of Christ. The Sixth Ode from Lamentations on Good Friday tells us: “The fall of Adam resulted in the death of a Man, not God; for though the substance of thine earthly body suffered, thy Divinity has remained passionless, transforming the corrupt to incorruptibility. And by thy Resurrection thou has uncovered the incorrupt fountain of life.” In the third ode from Resurrection Matins we hear: “Thou has stretched forth thy hands, O Savior, and gathered the things dispersed of old; and by thy Burial in linen and the grave thou hast loosed the captives, who shout, There is none holy save thee, O Lord.” No, Christ is not hanging there dead on the cross. Rather, in his death he has already begun the work of redemption which culminates in the joy of Pascha!

We Orthodox Christians spend all of Great Lent in preparation not for Good Friday, but rather in preparation for Holy Pascha. Yes, Holy Week leads up to Good Friday, but once we have arrived at Good Friday the sorrowful readings only last a few hours. We only mourn the death of Christ a few hours before we have already begun to hear the echoes of Pascha. At the very end of Good Friday Vespers the Troparion reads: “Verily, the angel came to the tomb and said to the myrrh bearing women, myrrh is meet for the dead, but Christ has shown himself to be free from corruption.” We have not even made it to Lamentations on Good Friday and yet the Church is already beginning to echo the joy of Pascha. In Friday Night Lamentations while we are lamenting the death of our Lord and carrying him to his entombment, in the 9th ode he already has this message for us: “Do not lament Me, O Mother, seeing Me in the tomb, the Son conceived in the womb without seed; for I shall arise, and be glorified; and, as God, I shall unceasingly exalt all who extol Thee in faith and in love.” While we are burying and lamenting the death of Christ, he is already in Hell preaching the Gospel to the dead and defeating the netherworld once and for all. While the sorrow of Good Friday lasts but a few hours, the joy of Pascha is eternal. Yes, we identify in the cross of Christ, for we all suffer in one way or another to prove our faith in Christ. But our true meaning as a people comes in the joy of Pascha. It is the resurrection of Christ which gives all meaning to life. The cross is but the means to the end of the Resurrection!

At the Vesperal Liturgy on Good Saturday morning, we see that the true power of the cross lies not in the cross itself, but in the Resurrection which the cross served as the means to. “Today hades has sighed, crying, My power has vanished, because I received a dead Man as one of the dead, but could not hold him completely. Rather, I lost with him those who were under my reign. From the beginning of time I have held control over the dead. But this One raised all. Wherefore, glory to thy Crucifixion and to thy Resurrection, O Lord.” As I mentioned in an earlier essay on art, it is not the means which is important, but the end. And the end in this case is the Joy of the Resurrection of Christ.

©Michael Goltz, 2014. All rights reserved.

NB: Thank you to my great friend and fellow iconographer Nick for taking the time to point this out to me many years ago. You were right, Nick.