The symbol of the Christianity is the cross. It is also a powerful symbol of nonduality.
The symbol of the Christianity is the cross. It is also a powerful symbol of nonduality.
The Cross and Nonduality
The symbol of the Christianity is the cross. It is also a powerful symbol of nonduality. But that is not the way the death of Jesus is traditionally understood. In traditional Christian thinking, the Cross is seen in transactional terms. It is thought that a transaction happened on the Cross that objectively changed humankind’s relationship to God. A transaction is by nature dualistic, defined as an exchange or interaction between two parties. There has to be two for there to be a transaction. If there is in reality not two – nondual – then there is no need for a transaction.
The usual dualistic interpretation of the cross is that Jesus’ death was the price paid or the sacrifice made to reconcile sinful humans to a righteous God. It is seen as an atoning sacrifice, patterned after the sacrifice offered on the Jewish Day of Atonement. The strictest form of this theory of salvation is called substitutionary atonement, or penal substitutionary atonement. It is that idea that Jesus was punished (penalized) in the place of sinners (substitution), thus satisfying the demands of divine justice so God could forgive sin. The cross is understood as a legal transaction and is often described in terms taken from the courtroom. It is based on the assumption that there is a dualism that needs to be breached.
That model is found in the epistles but not found in the gospels. If that had been the theology of the gospel writers then they would have had Jesus die on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. But they place it at the time of the time of the Passover, which is not a temple sacrifice and has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins or atoning for sin. If one believes in a theistic God as a Divine Monarch orchestrating Jesus’ death history from heaven, then it would have been easy enough for God to arrange for Jesus’ death to happen on Yom Kippur. Then the meaning of his death would be clear. But it was not until later that this interpretation of Jesus’ death arose.
The Gospel of John emphasizes the connection with the Passover even more than the other three gospels by changing the timing of Jesus’ death slightly. In the three gospels, the Last Supper is pictured as a Passover Meal and the death of Jesus happens after the Passover. In John’s Gospel Jesus before Passover - before Passover - on the day of Preparation for the Passover - at the exact moment that the Passover lambs were slaughtered.
John was depicting Jesus as a Passover lamb. This is important because the Passover Lamb was not a sacrifice for sins. It was not offered in the tabernacle or the temple. The Passover was a family event celebrated in the home. The Passover was a deliverance from death according to the Exodus story. The blood of the lamb was not sprinkled or poured out on an altar an atonement for sin, but a deliverance from death. In. In the Exodus story the blood of the Passover lamb was placed on the posts of the doorways into Hebrew homes to deliver them from death - from the angel of death.
The cross is understood as a doorway with the blood of the Passover Lamb on it. It is the way from death to life. Jesus previously called himself the door and the Way and the Life. The death of Jesus is understood as symbolic. It is what John the Baptist meant when he called Jesus the Lamb of God, and even when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” That has to be one of the most misinterpreted verses in the Bible. It does not mean that Jesus’ death atones for sin. It means that it frees us from preoccupation with sin.
The Greek word used by John translated “takes away” is used more than a hundred times in the New Testament. It is never used in the sense of atoning for sin or paying the price for sin or forgiving sin. This is a classic case of Christians reading theology back into a text. This exact word is used four times in this chapter 19 (that I am looking at today) where it is used to describe taking Jesus to the cross and taking his body from the cross. It is used four times in the next chapter 20 in reference to taking away the stone from a tomb entrance and removing the body of Jesus from the tomb. It is not about atoning or sacrificing or paying a penalty. It is removing a barrier to understanding our unity with God.
In the Gospel of John the death of Jesus is a symbol, not a transaction - a symbol based on the idea of the Passover Lamb. It represents new life through death. It symbolizes the death of the body and psyche, the death of the separate self. It is the death of the individual self that separates us from God. Jesus taught that anyone who would be his disciple was to deny himself – deny his or her self. Jesus taught us to die to self, to take up our cross and follow him. That is what the cross represents.
When we die to self we find that we discover we are one with God. Everyone find this out when they physically die. When we physically die we return to our true Self. The good news is that we can discover this before we physically die, by dying before we die. Jesus taught that it is only by losing your life do you gain your life. Only by giving up one’s separate mortal life do we gain divine eternal life. That is the symbolism of the Cross.
The Cross of Jesus is pictured as between two other crosses. Two other men were crucified with Jesus, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus is in the center. The other gospels go so far as to picture one of the men as good and one as evil. One believes in Jesus and the other curses Jesus. This is classic dualism. This is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Good on one side of Jesus and evil on the other. Jesus is the Tree of Life in the middle. He represents nondual reality that reconciles the two opposites. Ephesians puts it this way: “For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility.”
The symbol of the Cross is powerful even apart from Jesus, which is why it has a long history before it was adopted by Christianity. The vertical line unites heaven and earth. The horizontal line unites East and West. The two lines converge at the center, which points to the center of our existence which is identical to the reality of the universe. I like the Celtic cross more than the Roman cross, not only because of my own Celtic heritage, but because it combines a cross with a circle, which is a symbol of wholeness or oneness or the Tao.
There is another wonderful symbol of nonduality in John’s account of the death of Jesus. It is the seamless robe of Christ. When the Roman soldiers crucified Jesus they took off his tunic, which was a finely made seamless garment. It was probably a gift from one of his wealthier benefactors. The soldiers did not want to ruin the garment by tearing it into pieces, so they cast lots for it. John notes that this was in fulfillment of a prophecy about the Messiah in the Psalms.
There has been much speculation about this robe over the centuries. One account says that the robe was later recovered by the disciples. Centuries later the church cut it into pieces and divided it in order to protect it from theft or loss. That is ironic. What the Romans crucifers would not do, the church did. The church inherited the nondual message of Jesus, but divided it into a message of duality. No less than six churches in Germany, France and Russia, today claim to possess the robe or fragments of it. There was even a film about the robe back in the 1950's, entitled "The Robe."
The Church fathers saw the robe as a symbol for the unity of the church. I think it stands for the unity – the nonduality - of reality. Jesus wore this robe – this nondual identity – in life. It symbolized his nature and this message. To communicate the same point John’s gospel says that no bone of Jesus’ body was broken during this crucifixion. Death did not affect the unity of Jesus.
One more interesting detail. John’s gospel says that when a soldier pierced his side to see if he was dead, blood and water flowed from the wound. Although commentators focus on the physiological aspects of this, I think it is symbolic. The first letter of John talks about being born of God, saying, “This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood.”
The gospel writer likely has in mind Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus about being born anew, where they compare physical childbirth with all its bloodiness with spiritual rebirth. It is no accident that in the crucifixion story immediately after this is mentioned, Nicodemus suddenly appears on the scene to take away the body of Jesus and bury it, setting the stage for the resurrection. I could go on, but the point is that in John’s gospel the Cross of Jesus is deeply symbolic, pointing to the nondual reality of Jesus and his message.