From Edexcel Religious Studies to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

As I rummaged around in my lesson plan powerpoints this weekend I came across one with the title Beliefs and Values (J1) Salvation History and the Trinity. (The powerpoint can be found on this website at http://www.slideshare.net/PeterEccles/gcse-religious-studies-edexcel-the-history-of-salvation-the-trinity ). I recalled how I had created this powerpoint to assist with teaching the perennially challenging topic of the Trinity. What shocked me was this was ten years ago and how time flies. Then I remembered how I had attempted to teach the topic in various ways so I stood back from the challenge and came to the conclusion that the revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is best understood by taking an overview perspective of the history of salvation. In this way the Father/Creator, the Son/Saviour and the Holy Spirit become much clearer when presented in terms of their operation in human history. I set to work and decided to keep the written information brief and generate as much artwork as possible in the time I had to prepare the lesson.

Perhaps the most satisfactory outcome of this approach was to find I could place the Incarnation at the centre of the process as something quite natural rather than forced. When dealing with teen aged young people, even in a Catholic faith school, the temptation is to surrender to portraying Jesus solely on the level of more familiar terms such as ‘friend’ or ‘brother’, similar to those promoted in the primary phase. I reflected that at best Jesus was being portrayed as our ‘model’ for living a fulfilled and wholesome life. But what about teaching the cross let alone trying to get sixteen year old minds round his divine nature?

In order to upgrade the learning outcome I gave the Y11 students A3 paper – one per student – and asked them to add details while we discussed the major ‘landmarks’ of salvation history. The paper had a timeline design with key moments in salvation history already marked out. The central part of the timeline was, of course, the Incarnation sending out ripples of divine impact into the past as well as the future. The ripples where the cue to my introducing the divinity of Christ whose presence and influence is both without end, but more interestingly, without a beginning either. To enhance this further, the beginning and end of the timeline employed the symbol were time stretches beyond the scope of the diagram and is best interpreted as A and Ω.

At this point the centrality in the timeline of the cross took on a new dimension and was exalted to a new level of significance. For a few moments it was possible to engage the students with the idea that the cross was of cosmic significance as it was the cross that was central to the unlimited, unconditional gift for the whole of humanity and creation as God became man, suffered and died. The cross was exalted to new level for the class, well beyond the mundane level of jewellery or even the tragedy of the first century historical event of the death of Jesus of Nazareth.

The students enjoyed the lesson, asked lots of questions and uttered a few "Oh yeahs!" "Now it makes sense" type noises which made me feel we were achieving something. I enjoyed it as well as there is something to be said for looking at the whole story rather than always fiddling with the pieces of the jigsaw.

Unless you would rather read the whole Bible you might like to have a look at this ...

14th September, 2014, Feast of the Exaltation of The Holy Cross