Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
John 18:25-27
Jesus invites all who would follow him to become part of a cross-shaped community. Baptism, which marks our entry into the community of disciples, invites us to die with Christ, to be crucified with him, so we might be raised to new life. In the Lord's Supper we remember our cross-shaped identity by gathering around Christ's broken body. In the cross of Christ all that divides us – gender, ethnicity, social class – has been put to death, replaced by a new humanity shaped by Christ alone.
On the cross Jesus begins to form this new humanity. The beginning of John's Gospel John speaks those who are God's children not because of their blood relationship but because of God's Spirit and God's will (1:12-13). As Jesus is dying he entrusts his mother to his beloved disciple and his beloved disciple to his mother, forming a community based not on blood, but upon a shared relationship to Jesus.
When Jesus died on the cross and there was the rush to bury him before the Passover festival began, there was a strange mix gathered around Christ's body. Joseph of Arimathea was there, a wealthy man who by some accounts was a member of the Sanhedrin, the council that saw to Jesus' death. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and another likely member of the Sanhedrin was also there, but so were Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and several other women who kept watch near the cross of Jesus. Joseph and Nicodemus, the ultimate insiders with wealth and status, found Jesus truer than riches and power. The women, distanced from God's presence at the temple, now offer their compassionate presence to the one in whom the fullness of God dwells. In Christ's death there is reconciliation. It is unlikely that anyone or anything other than Jesus would have brought Joseph, Nicodemus and these women together. When we gather as Christ's body, when we come to Christ's table to receive his broken body and shed blood we are invited to look around us and wonder at the reconciliation and unlikely fellowship God has gathered around his Son. In Christ's body there is reconciliation, hostilities have come to an end, and the new creation has been born.
We live in a world where the importance of biological kinship seems more important than ever. In the U.S many are lamenting the decline of the family due to divorce and out-of-wedlock births. Some are worried about this because it represents a breakdown in traditional morality, while others are concerned by the economic pressures and lack of opportunities faced by those in single-parent households. Around the globe we see all kinds of feuds and wars based on biology: Israelis versus Palestinians, Sunni's versus Shiites, Hutus versus Tutsis in Rwanda, Albanians versus Serbs in Kosovo, and the list could go on.
But on his cross Jesus brings these divisions, rivalries and enmities to an end. In the Lord's Supper we remember Jesus, but we are also "re-membered" by Jesus, joined into, made members of Jesus' body, of the Body of Christ, a fellowship based not on flesh and blood, but on the truth that "in Christ all things hold together, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Colossians 1:17, 19-20).
Let us be attentive to how God calls us to reorder our notions of family and kinship because of our relationship with Jesus Christ. You are invited to listen to these passages of Scripture as we pray for Jesus to make us part of his cross-shaped community:
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