Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that ‘I Am.’ " - John 8:28

The contemporary German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann, wrote:

Since I first studied theology, I have been concerned with the theology of the cross.... It is the basic theme of my theological thought. No doubt this goes back to the period of my first concern with questions concerning Christian faith and theology in real life, as a prisoner of war behind the barbed wire.... Shattered and broken, the survivors of my generation were then returning from camps and hospitals to the lecture room. A theology which did not speak of God in terms of the abandoned and crucified One would not have gotten through to us then.1

These words were penned a few years after the catastrophe of World War II. They a…