The week after Pope John Paul's dramatic visit to Jerusalem last year, a local retired rabbi gave a wonderful talk at our parish. Members of the rabbi's former congregation were in attendance, and the discussion following his talk on better understanding key biblical passages was affirming and lively. Toward the end, an older Jewish woman rose and asked with emotion why Catholics are so consumed by the story of Jesus' suffering, his crucifixion, and the cross. The next day, when the acting rabbi of that congregation learned of the woman's words, he called me to apologize for her insensitivity, explain-ing in part that she was a Holocaust survivor. Though very grateful for his call (it prompted an extended heartfelt ex-change), I tried to assure him that her words were not offensive and that, indeed, her question needed constant attention by Catholics and all Christians. It is certainly the question that Catholics need to raise during Lent and Holy Week.

In a provocative, perceptive, and extremely credible fashion Mark Heim, Systematics Professor at Andover Newton Theo-logical School, touched on that very question at the February 28th Preaching Colloquium in preparation for Lent and Holy Week this past year. Professor Heim related the task of addressing the scandal of the cross to his own roles as preacher in the Baptist tradition and as professor of theology. He presented a theme giving three sides of the cross, a theme resonating with those of us who have gratefully inherited the Christian story of redemption and its difficulties. Relying in part on the work of René Girard from Stanford University, Professor Heim looked first at the truth revealed in the crucifixion and death of Jesus as that truth confronts scapegoating sacrifice. The scapegoating process is unmasked by the cross. The cross exposes the demand for the sacrifice of an innocent vic-tim as abhorrent to the true nature of God. The cross of Jesus is not a scapegoating sacrifice. Consequentially, in explaining the sacrifice of Calvary, the Christian community cannot ap-plaud a turning on one in order to save the many. To be true to the meaning of the cross it must stand over and against such victimization.

The second side of the cross shows God's gift of reconciliation without scapegoating sacrifice. Jesus' crucifixion is not simply a bigger sacrifice, greater than a dove or a lamb, intended to obtain a bigger reward. Jesus' crucifixion is God's resounding scream, "Enough." This sacrifice is intended to end the blood-shed, to end sacrifice itself. In the New Testament no one is left out of the guilt of scapegoating, of shedding Jesus' blood. Consequently, the radical reconciliation God offers touches everyone. It is the very sin of scapegoating that God wishes to destroy.

Heim's third side of the cross has to do with conversion. If Christians are aware of their own susceptibility to scapegoat-ing and the clear meaning of the cross calling for its rejection, then they need to be about showing forth the Lord's death and resurrection in a way that rejects the violence upon which human communities are too often founded. The first word out of the resurrected Christ was not one of vengeance toward his enemies but "Peace."

Professor Heim suggested a triptych, three successive cross symbolizations. The first cross stark, raw, ready; the second cross with a corpus on it; the third cross, empty. The first recognizes our capacity for cruelty, the second that the crucifixion of Jesus happened; the third says "never again."

At the end of Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled, one of Professor Heim's references, Bailie says, "Perhaps the anthropological role of the Christian Church in human history might be over-simplified as follows: To undermine the structures of sacred violence by making it impossible to forget how Jesus died and to show the world how to live without such structures by making it impossible to forget how Jesus lived."

At Mass on Palm Sunday, after the reading of St. Luke's passion, I made some brief homiletic remarks influenced, I know, by Professor Heim's February 28th presentation. I cited a prayer reported to be left by an anonymous prisoner of Ravensbruck concentration camp next to the body of a dead child. Its difficult petition surpasses understanding. Christians have a similar difficulty with the cross.

"O Lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits we have brought, thanks to this suffering -- our comradeship, our loyalty, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this; and when they come to judgment, let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness."

I ended on that April 8th Palm Sunday by mentioning that I had just called my senator in Annapolis supporting the Senate bill enacting a moratorium on the death penalty. An extended session was being held that very morning. I said to the con-gregation I couldn't escape making a connection between that issue and what I heard the passion account saying. Some told me afterward that they, too, clearly heard the cry of the cross' rejection of violence. It was an important beginning of Holy week for us.

Father Tillman is Pastor of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Columbia, MD.