In his meditation on the fourth of Jesus's seven last words, Stanley Hauerwas writes, "we, that is, the survivors of the century past, believe we know horror ... It is not surprising, therefore, that of all the words of Jesus from the cross, we most identify with 'my God, my God, why have you forsaken me'. [But,] only a people like Israel, a God-possessed people, can know what it might mean to be abandoned by God."
As I've been meditating on Hauerwas's Cross-Shattered Christ during my week of Passover observance and his Holy Week, I am struck by how often members of my own people, Israel, still not spiritually recovered from the Shoah, think that this theme of birth - death - resurrection is about someone else's religion, rather than their own. In this, the first of a three-part meditation, I suggest why I think this theme is, in fact, our own.
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