How Empty Is the Cross?

Abstract

This essay explores the extent to which the cross and Christ’s redemptive suffering in it are paradigmatic for Christian life. It does so though a comparative consideration of the bodhisattva path and the Christ/disciple path. Sympathetic Buddhist readings of the cross suggest three different kinds of emptiness are in play: no-self emptiness, Buddha nature emptiness, and conventional or samsaric emptiness. Reflection on these, and comparison and contrast with their role in the bodhisattva path, deepen a Christian theological understanding of the respects in which the cross is an exemplary realization and the respects in which its non-exemplary character is crucial to its salvific role.