Between Black, White, and Blood: The Cross as an Answer to the Age of Superficiality

This blog was originally posted by Diego Gomes to his blog - www.diegogomes.blog please visit for more articles and reflections.

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As human beings, we often have a tendency to frame things as simply “black or white.” We naturally seek logical patterns behind the events of life, which can be deeply frustrating—because life, quite often, isn’t logical. And many times, it simply doesn’t make sense.

The truth is, we tend to flee from the “gray areas” of life, from its nuances, because we crave the simplicity of absolute certainties—tidy, easy-to-grasp conclusions. Many times, we don’t want to deal with different angles of the same situation because we don’t want to feel confused. But peeling back the layers of reality often forces us to see the deeper complexity beneath the image, the façades, and appearances.

Some personalities—perhaps the exception rather than the rule—have the tendency to see beyond the surface and analyze the depth and complexity of human life. As someone who lives this way—constantly—I can testify: it’s exhausting. To be honest, in such a complex time across the world, sometimes all I wish for is to be a little ignorant, comforted by the illusion that everything will be fine without me needing to get involved or take responsibility.

But isn’t it often our unwillingness to take responsibility that becomes the “paint” covering the façades of our so-called certainties? Sometimes masking our ignorance, other times our religiosity. Beneath what looks like an unshakable faith, there can be nothing more than an empty tomb of religion, covered with a carefully brushed coat of white paint.

Our increasing difficulty as a society to tolerate opposing views—and the growing aggression towards those who think differently—is making us more and more intolerant. The seed of hatred grows easily in the soil of ignorance. We are becoming more hostile to each other, quick to reach verdicts and demand instant certainties, canceling people along the way and destroying lives as collateral damage in our flattened culture.

We are living in a complex moment globally, where disastrous geopolitics are causing democracy to hang by a thread in some of the most powerful nations on Earth.

Environmental and climate crises paint an increasingly tragic scenario for already fragile human life on this planet. Wars and rumors of wars no longer haunt us as ghosts of the past, but rather as a present-day threat and a dark omen on the horizon.

It’s as if we were at the epicenter of a silent storm, where chaos disguises itself as routine and the absurd becomes normalized day after day.

In such a complex world, we cannot afford to be a complacent and—often irrelevant—church hiding behind a façade of “spirituality” that’s really just escapism. There should be a clear line between the hope we hold for eternity and the apathy that keeps us from engaging with the reality of the time and place in which God has positioned our lives.

There’s a character in the book of Esther—her uncle Mordecai—who serves as a kind of mentor in her journey. He delivers one of the most powerful lines in the biblical narrative, and my personal favorite when it comes to purpose:“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

Esther surely had her challenges to face—just like we have ours. In the Christian life, there will always be giants. There will always be those who hide in fear. But there will also always be ordinary men and women who are willing to offer their small stones into the hands of a powerful God, to be used as His instruments in complex times.

I began this text talking about nuance, because I see that we are increasingly losing the ability to respond to life’s complexity. I’m not even forty yet, but I remember a time when people read and watched the news—when I sat around the adults’ table listening to conversations that flowed from pop culture to global economics in a surprisingly engaging way.

Today, we live in the age of social media, with information instantly available in the palm of our hands. But with convenience may have come laziness: we no longer want to read more than a paragraph, watch more than a minute, or verify facts. Have you noticed how often it’s Christians who spread fake news online? Sometimes even electing leaders based on them.

Our frenetic scrolling through social media feeds hides a widespread anxiety that’s leading us into collective alienation. I still remember the early 2000s, when I first came to faith (back in the early days of the digital age), and the pastor of the Presbyterian church I attended taught us to begin each morning with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

God’s Word has always been and will always be relevant. Its power goes beyond information—it transforms. In this era of opinions, yours and mine don’t matter as much as our arrogance leads us to believe. God’s opinion is the only one that can confront the lies of the 21st century, expose the ideological agendas behind modern culture, and more importantly, truly transform human life.

Have you stopped to consider the urgency of our mission? In a world drowning in bad news, we are the only people who carry a truly Good News—one that can breathe hope into the most broken heart, revive faith in the most discouraged soul, flood light into the darkest of minds, share grace with the most desperate, and fill love into the most empty.

All of these—hope, faith, light, grace, and love—are not feelings that social media can generate, nor experiences that can be bought. They are not abstract ideas or consumer goods—they are a person: JESUS.

We have the only news that can change the world: because of Jesus, we have peace with God. Our past does not have to define us, because through the cross, we have access to forgiveness—and beyond that, to new life! The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives within us and can make all things new. There is no limit to the redemptive power of the cross.

In a society fractured by hatred, we are bearers of the ministry of reconciliation—capable of bringing true peace to the nations. Not the fictional “world peace” of humanist propaganda, which depends on political deals (always tied to agendas), but eternal peace with God: the peace of a forgiven conscience and the freedom to live a transformed life.

The world lies in the power of the evil one—and perhaps we are living in the darkest of times, because although we have access to more information than ever, we’re still lost. And it is in this very age that we need to shine the light of Christ through a transformed life. Maybe we don’t have the influence to set global headlines or speak to large crowds, but we can “season” our everyday conversations with the flavor of God’s Word.

We can influence those around us—not by presenting Jesus as a curious historical figure, but as an intimate Friend we simply cannot stop talking about. A Friend many of our friends don’t even know they desperately need.

Don’t let the voices of this age distract you from your only mission as a Christian: to love and serve God as an intimate Friend, and to love and serve others by preaching the gospel and making disciples.

I started this text hesitant—conflicted by the doubts of a heart reflecting on the nuances of this multicolored century we live in, within a humanity that seems to see only in black and white. But as I wrote, the words began to form, perhaps, in a tone of urgent red.

Red like the blood that was shed on the cross—giving meaning to our very existence, and which should give meaning to our congregations and religious activity. Red like the fire that must reignite the flame of mission in our hearts. Red like a stoplight—reminding us it’s time to reevaluate how we are living in the society we are part of.

I close with a question: in a world full of contrasts and nuance, what story is the image of your life telling?

If the answer isn’t the cross of Christ, then maybe—it’s time to start again.