sustain:if:able kiwi

hearing the cross as sense-exegesis

We are now three weeks into Sense Making Faith course. Each week we take a sense. We explore its use in our world today. And it’s abuse. We explore it’s use in the Christian tradition. And it’s abuse (often through neglect).

Last week we explored hearing. We brought our favourite spiritual music. We listened and made a list of all the noises we heard. We reflected on how much we miss – of ourselves, of God, of our world, because we don’t listen (ie abuse the sense of hearing).

Then we turned to the Christian tradition. What Bible stories describe God speaking, I asked?

The cross, was one response.

Let’s push that further, I said. What noises do we hear around the cross?

And we began to reflect, “hearing” the cross in a whole new way;

• tears
• wailing
• nails being hammered
• gamblers rolling dice
• centurion ordering
• a last breathe being drawn
• thunder
• a curtain being torn

Within two minutes, we had engaged the cross in a much deeper, richer way. This, I suggested, was “sense-exegesis.” We have taken a sense, one sense, and applied it to Scripture. We can do this with any passage. And with any sense.

For more on sense-exegesis, see here and here.