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    Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words
    Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words
    Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words
    Ebook65 pages59 minutes

    Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words

    By Stanley Hauerwas

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    About this ebook

    In Cross-Shattered Christ, theologian Stanley Hauerwas offers a moving reflection on Jesus's final words from the cross. This small and powerful volume is theologically poignant and steeped in humility. Hauerwas's pithy discussion opens our ears to the language of Scripture while opening our hearts to a truer vision of God. Touching in original and surprising ways on subjects such as praying the Psalms and our need to be remembered by Jesus, Hauerwas emphasizes Christ's humanity as well as the sheer "differentness" of God.

    Ideal for personal devotion during Lent and throughout the year, Cross-Shattered Christ offers a transformative reading of Jesus's words that goes directly to the heart of the gospel.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBaker Publishing Group
    Release dateJan 1, 2005
    ISBN9781441202451
    Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words
    Author

    Stanley Hauerwas

    Stanley Hauerwas is professor emeritus of ethics at Duke University where he held the Gilbert T. Rowe chair for more than twenty years. Among his numerous publications are Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified (1998) and Living Gently in a Violent World, with Jean Vanier (2008). His latest publication is Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism of Karl Barth (University of Virginia Press, 2023).

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    • 4/5
      Focused on His seven final statements from the cross, Cross-Shattered Christ emphasized Jesus’ divinity on the cross. The mystery and power of grace are in perfect view upon the cross. Hauerwas’ devotional work is stirring, but sometimes difficult to follow. B+

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    Cross-Shattered Christ - Stanley Hauerwas

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    Introduction

    Mystery is not a word I often use even though I am a theologian. Indeed, I avoid the word mystery because I am a theologian. To say that what Christians believe is mysterious invites the assumption that what we believe is not believable. In short, mystery" suggests that what we believe defies reason and common sense. What we believe does defy reason and common sense; but yet I believe what Christians believe is the most reasonable and commonsense account we can have of the way things are.

    So when I use the word mystery in these meditations to describe the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation I hope to signal to the reader that reflections on the seven words of Jesus on the cross should test our deepest theological convictions. Mystery does not name a puzzle that cannot be solved. Rather, mystery names that which we know, but the more we know, the more we are forced to rethink everything we think we know. So it is my hope that these meditations respect the mystery—a mystery apparent in these words of Jesus from the cross—our faith in God requires.

    Put differently, I have tried to approach these seven words in a manner that refuses to offer any explanations (particularly psychological explanations) for what Jesus says to us from the cross. It is my conviction that explanations, that is, the attempt to make Jesus conform to our understanding of things, cannot help but domesticate and tame the wildness of the God we worship as Christians. Accordingly, I found the writing of these meditations hard and difficult. I hope that those who read them will find reading them hard and difficult. I hope that the hardness and difficulty is not due to my inability to express myself clearly (though I have no doubt that I have often been less than clear) but instead comes from how painful it is for us to acknowledge the reality of the Father’s sacrifice of the Son on the cross.

    These meditations are unapologetically theological. I am, after all, a theologian. But I hope the reader will also discover that the theological character of these meditations does not mean they are without existential bite. I think nothing is more destructive for our ability to confess that the crucified Jesus is Lord than the sentimentality that grips so much that passes for Christianity in our day. Sentimentality is the attempt to make the gospel conform to our needs, to make Jesus Christ our personal savior, to make the suffering of Christ on the cross but an instant of general unavoidable suffering. I should like to think the relentless theological character of these meditations helps us avoid our sinful temptation to make Jesus’s words from the cross to be all about us.

    By calling attention to the theological character of these meditations, I do not mean to suggest that my reflections of Jesus’s words from the cross are smarter or more intellectual than other interpretations of his words. Just the opposite is the case. I have worked very hard to avoid making my theological reading of the seven words a substitute for the words themselves. Theology is a servant discipline in the church that, like all such disciplines, can be used by those called to practice the discipline to acquire power over those the servant is meant to serve. As a result, what the theologian has to say about the scripture becomes more important than the scripture

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