The Mark of the Cross

Here's my reflection from today's Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford:

In Luke’s Gospel we read that Jesus, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9.51-62). In Isaiah 50, we read of God’s servant setting his face like flint and not turning backwards although he gives his back to those who struck him, and his cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; so, he did not hide his face from insult and spitting (Isaiah 50.4-11). That is an accurate description of what Jesus did and endured in Jerusalem on the way to the cross:

Your face, set like flint,
set towards Jerusalem,
bears the mark of the cross.
You carry the cross
in the resolution
written on
your features.
Death is the choice,
the decision,
the destiny,
revealed
in the blood,
sweat and tears
secreted from
your face
in prayerful questions,
prophetic grief,
pain-full acceptance,
then
imprinted on
Veronica’s veil.

Jesus bore the mark of the cross on his face as he was so determined to go to Jerusalem and to the cross. In Luke’s Gospel we read that he entered a village of the Samaritans but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. The flint-like determination on his face was such that the Samaritan villagers could see what he was determined to do.

What does this determination, this decision, say to us about Jesus and his death? In our Lent Course on the Stations of the Cross, we asked ourselves what was it that held Jesus to the cross? Was it the nails, or Pilate’s judgement and decree, or the presence of the soldiers, or the size of the crowd? If Jesus was God, then legions of angels could have freed him so, if that was the case, what actually held him there?

We then reflected on these two poems:

What holds you here?
The cruel nails
driven into wrists and feet?
Armed guards
ringing the base of your cross?
The crowd
mocking your purpose and pain?
The exhaustion
of a battered and beaten victim?
A willed commitment
to a loving, reconciling purpose?

***

Blow after hammer blow holds your body
to the cross. Yet, if you had willed so,
you could have walked away. You did not so will,
your will held you crucified and dying.

As God, Jesus had the power to walk away from the Cross or be rescued from it by legions of angels. He chose not to do so. Ultimately, it was not the nails or soldiers or the crowd, or those who condemned him that held him to the cross. He was there because he chose to be. It was his will and his determination and his love that held him there. We first see that will and determination in the flint-like setting of his face to go to Jerusalem. The steely determination that can be seen in his face is the mark of the cross on his face and a sign of his love for each one of us. This Holy Week may we see that love afresh as we look on his face that is set like flint.

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Adrian Snell - Golgotha.