In this Pandemic Devotion I present a different perspective on the Cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus intended this death in Jerusalem to be a dramatic event designed to snap his disciples out of their illusions about who they thought he was and what his Kingdom was. It was meant to reveal his true nature and our true nature.

It is analogous to the function of the koan in Zen Buddhism. Perhaps it is easier on Christian ears to call it a parable rather than a koan, for the historical Jesus would never have heard the term koan. In doing symbolic actions Jesus was drawing upon the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures. Prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel were known to do dramatic symbolic parabolic actions.

Jesus planned for his dramatic – and traumatic - death to be a symbolic action intended to wake people up - his disciples and the people of Israel - to what he called the Kingdom of God. It was meant to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is not an earthly kingdom but the spiritual awareness of the Presence of God here and now.