After The Cross - Week One
April 05, 2026
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Week 1 — Flinch
Context:
This week we will be exploring our first possible response to the cross: flinch. Understandably the cruelty of the cross can make us flinch. To truly see the cross is to see pain, horror, and torment. There is no resurrection without death, no Easter without Calvary. To embrace Easter involves facing the cross. The resurrection does not ‘undo’ the cross — Jesus still bears the wounds afterwards.
Some people flinch from the cross and never return for a closer look. It’s too much. Perhaps they drift away from the cross entirely or instead they keep it always at arm’s length — this is the cross as a picturesque postcard — not a brutal reality.
But seeing the cross and flinching from it is a natural human response to the suffering — indeed to truly face the cross might require us to flinch, to understand what it really means. Not to dwell morbidly on the details, but to the honour the sacrifice. If the cross never makes us flinch — is it the cross
we’re looking at? Or just an empty symbol...? Discuss!
Introducing the readings:
Each week of our study we will read a
section of ‘The Walk to Emmaus’ that the two disciples make in Luke 24: 13-35. We begin with Cleopas and his unnamed friend, leaving Jerusalem disheartened after the death and burial of Jesus. It has been a traumatic and tumultuous week and they are now literally walking away from it all. On the way they meet Jesus, but like Mary at the tomb, they don’t recognise him at first. Some key themes in this reading are loss, dejection and the uncanny (how come Jesus is unrecognisable
to them?) After the Luke reading we turn to
Isaiah 53 and contemplate the humility of the
suffering servant. Key themes in this reading
are isolation, suffering, and rejection.
Read Luke 24: 13-17 and Isaiah 53
Response:
When we 'flinch' at the cross today — feeling overwhelmed by its sorrow or the unfairness of innocent suffering — are we, like the disciples in verse 17? Standing still, eyes downcast, grieving the loss of a God we need to be all powerful? It takes courage to look at the cross and see Jesus as weak, vulnerable, suffering in our place. The cross shows us a God that is willing to endure great shame and suffering. This is a path not around pain and loss, but through pain and loss.
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At the cross Jesus takes on the weight of the world — all the pain, hurt, sin and rejection we can throw at him. Like a father stepping forward to take the hit for their children Jesus bears the brunt of it all. No wonder it makes us flinch.
But after the flinch, take a second look. God knows that justice and love aren’t free, that they always require sacrifice, and he pays all costs himself, out of love. It is counterintuitive that in God’s vulnerability and fragility we glimpse God’s power and authority.
Martin Luther, the 16th century German theologian argued that God is most truly found 'hidden in sufferings' rather than in things that
seem traditionally powerful and omnipotent. In
the sometimes counterintuitive domain of
grace: out of death comes life, from suffering comes power, and from shame and failure comes glory and victory. In the cross we encounter a love that knows no bounds and no limits. Even enormous suffering can’t break this love.
Q: Go through Isaiah 53 and explore the hiddenness of God in the description of the suffering servant. What are your reactions to the reading? What words stand out to you? How does it make you feel?
Q: Luther wrote of the ‘Hiddenness of God’ and could it be that a Christ found in the midst of pain and confusion and disappointment of the cross is more meaningful to us because of it? What does it mean for our pain and sorrow to know that Christ has experienced deep pain and sorrow too? What does it mean to come face to face with a God who is not only strong for us, but is also willing to be weak for us? A God that not only wins for us but is willing to lose everything, including his life for us?
Q: In our Luke reading, Jesus intentionally meets the disciples in their confusion and disappointment. We read that this is the same day the women discovered the empty tomb. Jesus isn’t running around on a grand tour or a victory lap — he’s taking the time to walk alongside two ordinary disheartened Christians. Is it vital for our faith that we are we willing to come face to face with the cross again and again and to flinch once more? To discover God’s power hiding in the midst of all too earthly pain and suffering? What questions do we have for a God who doesn’t bypass, avoid or transcend weakness, but is hidden there, waiting for us?
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