John Q. Citizen and the Meaning of the Cross

Lecture given in 1985

Who is this person? Whom do you mean? I suppose he is the person in the street, the ordinary person.  If so this is nothing new. We have had this before. Nothing new, but theologians and ministers are also ordinary persons.  Perhaps it would do no harm to repeat. To some extent we must. But we must try to look at the matter freshly.  How?

Let us emphasize the word ‘citizen’ He is not a P.M. or even an M.P. but he is a member of the state and concerned about its affairs, as more or less we all are. Let us see things through his eyes.  But first a warning. Too often this has been done in the wrong way. The Cross does not begin with a message to society. We can only have a Christian society by having Christians. The individual is offered something by the Cross. He loved me. This is the place to begin. A society of Christians would not  automatically be perfect; it would need brains, organization etc. But it would have gone a long way. We will return to this.  But to proceed—

John Citizen knows whom he has to deal with; apart from Jesus, the only name in the Creed.  Who is the person the man has to deal with? A word perhaps on the Roman provincial system? Note the proconsul’s responsibility– management of a province (cf. Petronius and Caligula). And his problem— he has 1,000 troops and 2,000,000 pilgrims. How do you keep order? Is one injustice a good price to pay for saving thousands of lives. What would you do? Radio for reinforcement? But the proconsul can’t.  Are we fair to the police in South Africa?  The point is that while the proconsul might not be a very nice man he represents law and order not tyranny, not Hitler but the local bobby.  More than that, as Jesus himself suggests, he has God given authority (Jn. 19.11 cf. Rom. 13).  Here in fact is the real indictment of humankind and its problem. Rom. 13.1-7. If we are to have a state, a city there must be a sword.  That means there must be sin. We are all guilty persons.

So we learn that the first thing the Cross deals with is guilt.  The first, but not the only thing. This opens the way to renewal. Christian life is forgiven life, because of love, God’s love. Further the proconsul has his religious civil service on whose advice he acts, and it was up to a point conscientious. And they were defending a very good religion. This was their responsibility. In the discharging of it they too become guilty.  So John Citizen will look, and he does, critically at both politics and religion. But this doesn’t mean he can opt out of either. Both claim him. So none of us have clean hands.  And this is where we return to the beginning.

The Cross– it takes away guilt. ‘Be of sin the double cure, cleanse us from its guilt’ That is the Cross takes us out of the wounds so we can heal (though they may still be painful– the iodine itself can hurt). And a community of 100% Christians could have problems, and often get them wrong. But we now go further.  Cleanse us from its guilt and power. This is where another address can begin But the crux of the matter is that I John Citizen know that other persons, even enemies, are those for whom Christ died.  And that determines the way I live.