Dostoyevsky, the great Russian novelist, says that
“Love is a harsh thing and that it costs, it costs everything.”
That is the profound message of the Cross and indeed of Good Friday,
it costs everything.
Nothing less than everything.
I would like to talk about the cross in three ways to keep it easy: the 3 C’s:
Commitment.
Community.
Courage.
Let me talk about Commitment.
Love is a strange thing.
True love requires of us an all-in;
it requires of us, if we are serious, a deep love.
It requires a full, deep commitment.
Nothing less will work.
Ron Rolheiser says that if we want a deep love
then we have to have a deep commitment
to sweat blood and to die to self.
And that is what the Cross represents.
Jesus dies to himself and sweats blood in the Garden of Gethsemane
to share that love to all to the point of death on the Cross.
This message of dying to self, this sweating blood,
is not something that our culture is keen to embrace.
Our culture is good at many things
but sweating blood and dying to self it is not good at.
Commitment it is not good at.
And we are getting worse at commitment not better.
You see, it requires a deep commitment for love
whether it be family or spouse; whether it be friendship;
or whether it be religious vows.
Our society has a hard time with that commitment
because we want it all.
The struggle that we have in our society is
that we do not think any of us want to do evil
we are sure there are some people who do
but we think that most all of us are not caught up
in ill will, malice or really tempted by the evil one.
We are tempted to do the lesser of two goods.
When we choose the lesser of two goods
then we give in to the lesser commitment.
For example, we think we want to be saints
but we still want to have all the sensation of a sinner.
We want to be able to have it all.
We want to be faithful in our marriage
but we also want to be able to glance and flirt
with everyone who is attractive.
We want to be good parents but we are not willing to make the sacrifice
that it takes to be a good parent,
the sacrifice of our career
to be that good parent.
Or the sacrifice of not being liked by our child
for a couple of hours or a couple of days
while we teach them what is the right thing to do;
and to sacrifice while they learn it.
We want to be loyal friends but we enjoy our individuality
and we rather resent the imposition that we have to do
when our friend or somebody else wants something of us.
You see, deep love requires an all-in commitment.
The love of the Cross costs everything.
There is nothing left behind.
That is what the Cross symbolizes, Jesus leaving nothing behind.
He understood the deep commitment of love even to the point of death.
We have to be very clear that when and if we want to be true disciples,
one who is committed,
commitment at all costs is commitment to the end.
That brings me to the second C , Community,
Community is where we do the loving.
If we think we can be a disciple on our own,
we are completely misinformed because it is not a solitary reality.
It is a communal reality.
We love someone and they love us back;
and then we love them back;
and we love someone who may not be capable of loving us
but that is shared inside the community.
It is what a community does when somebody, for example, dies.
And the community wraps its arms around the loss of that spouse
and helps that family through that period of loss.
It is what we miss so much in this pandemic, the gift of community
and why this technology has been so critical to us
to recognize that community is still alive
and that the love we share operates inside this community
and that is where the clarity comes in.
We cannot pretend that we love alone.
We love inside the community:
Family, the greater community, our nation, our community.
That brings me to the last C, that of courage.
It takes courage to love.
To take heart is what the word courage literally means.
It takes courage to stand for one’s values.
It takes courage to love and to give the commitment at all costs.
It takes courage to put one’s self out and be vulnerable to others.
It takes courage to do the right thing for the right reasons.
That is courage.
Let me give you an example:
There was a young man, who wanted to go to medical school
and was determined to go to medical school.
So he saved up and he and his wife saved hard;
with great cost to him and to his family,
he headed off to medical school, leaving the wife and children at home.
He gets to medical school.
It was a huge honor even to do the medical entrance exam as they came in. The proctor goes around and hands out all the entrance exams
and proceeded to leave the room at which moment.
All the other young men and women in the room
started to take out a little piece of paper from under their sleeve,
from inside a book, from inside a pocket.
And he thought to himself as a flush came over him,
“It is impossible to compete against cheaters.”
So he stood up at the back of the room and he said,
“To every single one of you who have a piece of paper out,
I will absolutely report you.
I left my wife and my children behind so that I can be in school.
I have no intention of being beaten by cheaters.”
And he sat down.
All the little pieces of paper went back into the sleeves.
That class went on to be one of the best classes
that school had ever had because of that moment of courage
that built a community around a commitment to truth.
We hold each other accountable to our commitment
to love inside the community and that takes courage.
It is never easy.
And in the pandemic it is as hard as any other time if not harder.
So when we come to the Cross today,
we see what Christ gave us.
It was courage.
It was commitment.
It was community.
And it was all in love.
Love that costs everything.
When we go home tonight, we spend this weekend
and look around at those whom we love
and may we renew our commitment;
may we renew our community;
and may we renew our courage in the Cross of Christ.
