"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18)
Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and the man I sing"--thus begins Virgil's classic Latin epic, The Aeneid. Some have said that by "arms" Virgil pays homage to the Iliad and by "man" he refers to the Odyssey. Naturally, we could also take it to mean the two halves of the long poem. The first six books seem to deal with the interior life of Aeneas the "man"--whereas the last six books deal with the wars that would settle the surviving Trojans in Italy to found the race of the Romans--thus the "arms". Throughout the epic, we come to know Aeneas the man, with all of his faults, and Aeneas the armed hero, who prevails and fulfills what Jove has planned for him.
The first line of the epic is therefore a convenient way of summarizing the whole epic. How would we summarize the Gospel? In this age of disputes, numerous factions, denominations, ideologies, and changing values, how would you summarize your faith? What is the heart of your spirituality?
Paul the apostle summarized Christianity quite beautifully when writing to a new congregation he had himself planted: "And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). It is as if Paul were saying: "Of the cross and the Son of Man I sing". The heart of all of our faith, all of our teaching, all of our practice, all of our worship, all of our tradition, and all of our evangelism must be the Cross and the One and Only who died on it to be resurrected on the third day. This is the true power of our spirituality. The moment we look away from the Cross, none of the New Testament teachings make any sense. The instant we forget who Jesus is, we lose our faith and our wisdom. Moreover, we forget what love is. Rene Girard once remarked that what was missing from Christianity today was the Imitatio Christi--the Imitation of Christ. Having forgotten who our model is, we turn to worthless models for our behavior and our ideas, or we merely stumble through the darkness. What is more, we forget that the Good News is precisely that--good news, the goodness being the personality, the very life, the words of life, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: "He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:18-20); "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:13-15).
Our epic is the Gospel. Our hero is Christ who died for our sins to give us eternal life through his resurrection. Our "arms" are the words of life; our "man" is Jesus, who wore a crown of thorns and preached words of reconciliation, hope, and love. Our heart is his glorified life.
