The Paradox of the Cross and the Queerness of Jesus

Ish Ruiz

Today’s reflection is from Ish Ruiz, Assistant Professor of Queer & Latinx Decolonial Theology at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California. He is the author of LGBTQ+ Educators in Catholic Schools: Embracing Synodality, Inclusivity, and Justice, and a co-editor of Cornerstones: Sacred Stories of LGBTQ+ Employees in Catholic Institutions. 

Today’s readings for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross can be found here. 

It was hard growing up queer and Catholic in Puerto Rico.

When I realized I was attracted to other boys, I entered a period of spiritual crisis. Because of my education and what I was taught in church, I thought my queer identity was a cross I had to bear. My job, I believed, was to suffer because of my queerness and try to follow Jesus as best as I could. For years, I carried that burden. But over time, I learned that my queerness was not the cross. The cross was something else entirely.

Through therapy, spiritual direction, and a lot of dancing at gay bars, I realized that my queerness was not a cross. My real cross was the social intolerance I encountered in society and throughout my upbringing. The cross was exclusion fueled by narrow theology and rigid, outdated teaching. The cross was also the racism I felt, even within some queer spaces, as a brown, queer Puerto Rican. The cross was the attempts — subtle and direct — to make me feel shame for who I was. That was the suffering I carried. That is my cross.

I also realized that my queerness is a gift from Jesus that allowed me to bear those crosses of intolerance and oppression. My queerness gave me resilience, imagination, creativity, joy, and connection with others who have been marginalized. It gave me a way to stand in solidarity with all who carry heavy burdens. Far from being my curse, my queerness became a source of life, a lens through which I could see Jesus more clearly.

Today’s Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is about this paradox: the very instrument of torture and humiliation — the cross — becomes the sign of God’s victory and love. The liturgical readings today invite us to reflect on that mystery.

In the first reading from the Book of Numbers, the Israelites complain in the desert, and poisonous serpents strike them down. God instructs Moses to lift up a bronze serpent so that those who gaze upon it may live. That strange and almost unsettling story foreshadows the Cross. In the passage today from the Gospel of John, Jesus Himself makes the connection explicit: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” The very thing that causes death — the serpent — becomes, when lifted up, the means of healing. And the very thing that was meant to humiliate Jesus — the cross — becomes the source of salvation.

Paradoxes such as these are not foreign to queer people. Many of us have been told that our identities are a curse, a shame, or a sin – and many of us internalize that death-dealing message and believe it wholeheartedly. Yet when we embrace who we are as beloved children of God, our lives become signs of grace. When we lean into our queerness and lift up our queer joy, the very parts of ourselves that others rejected become the instruments of our healing and our greatest gift to the world.

St. Paul captures this mystery beautifully in today’s passage from the Letter to the Philippians: “Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, humbling Himself to the point of death — even death on a cross” Jesus’ life is an example of how we should embrace the fullness of our humanity, rejoice in who we are, and – when we come face-to-face with death – remain steadfast in our love in order to re-emerge victorious.

This is why I can say: Jesus is queer. Not necessarily in the sense of sexual attraction or identity, though perhaps he was queer in that way (but who knows?). Jesus was queer in the sense that He knows what it is like to live differently, to be misunderstood, to be marginalized, to be excluded by the religious authorities of His day, yet still remain steadfast in who He is. Jesus queered the norms of power, purity, and belonging by challenging oppressive assumptions of the time. He showed us that God’s love does not conform to human categories of respectability or decency. To proclaim Jesus as queer is to proclaim that He understands deeply what it means to live on the margins and – most importantly – to turn that marginality into grace and salvation.

Herein lies the hope of the Cross. The Cross does not glorify suffering for its own sake. It names suffering for what it is: unjust, cruel, imposed by direct and systemic injustice. The Cross shows us that suffering is not the final word. Resurrection is. Life is. Love is. To exalt the Cross is not to say, “Suffering is good.” It is to say, “Through our lives, God will transform even this.”

For me, this means that my queerness is not the cause of my suffering; rather, my queerness is the Spirit’s gift that helps me endure and even transform the suffering caused by exclusion, racism, and shame. My queerness connects me to the mystery of the Cross, where God’s love meets human pain and opens up new possibilities.

—Ish Ruiz, Pacific School of Religion, September 14, 2025