The Cross of Christ - MacLeod

I joined the clergy of my diocese today at our cathedral in Springfield to renew my ordination vows, an extraordinary way to begin this holy week. While there I came across the following in the literature on one of the tables in the cathedral, from Lord George MacLeod (1895-1991) He was a Moderator of the Church of Scotland and a restorer of the Iona Community (at least that is what the literature at the cathedral said about him). His words about The Cross of Christ will help to guide me through these next few days:

I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the market place, as well as the steeple of the church.

I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles...

...but on a cross between two thieves;

...on a town garbage heap;

...at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek;

...and at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble.

Because that is where he died, and that is what He died about, and that is where Christ's men and women ought to be, and that is what church people ought to be about.