Holy Cross Day – September 14, 2014
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Numbers 21: 4b-9 + 1 Cor 1: 18-24 + John 3: 13-17
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God who created us, Jesus who redeemed us, and the Spirit who enlivens and enables us. Amen.
When I was in junior high school my Social Studies teacher used to show us films about historical events called “You Are There.” They were very dramatic, as they would say things like….On December 7, 1941, the Japanese war planes flew into Pearl Harbor and unleashed bombs on the American navy…and YOU ARE THERE. I always thought that I didn’t actually want to be at some of the historical tragedies and travesties, I would just rather be in my school with my friends.
But for a moment we are going embark on a version of You Are There. The year is approximately 300A.D. and Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, has sponsored an archeological dig in and around Jerusalem, to look for the cross Jesus was crucified on – what is now called the True Cross. When they found a likely cross, it is said that they laid it on top of the corpse of a dead woman, who came back to life. And so, they declared this to be the True Cross, the one Jesus was crucified upon. Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepluchre where they found the cross and they began to distribute little pieces of it all over the world – to churches, and to people, and to cities, and to rulers.
It’s been noted that with as many pieces of the “True Cross” that claim to be in existence it’s almost miraculous that the cross never grew any smaller in size!
People began wearing their pieces of the “True Cross” around their necks for protection and blessing, and that is the origin of wearing a cross around one’s neck.
When you stop to think about it, displaying the cross seems a strange practice. After all, it is simply an ancient form of capital punishment. It is the instrument of death for many thousands of others besides Jesus. And yet, it is the sign of our faith.
As I mentioned in my mid week update this week, if you have been in my office you have seen the wall of crosses there. Currently there are XX of them. Each one tells a story. Each one is precious in some way, in part because they were almost all gifts to me from someone who has been a part of my faith journey. Some of them came from some of you and I am so grateful.
As I’ve mentioned before, the collection of crosses started with one that my father made for me for my ordination. It’s created out of carpenter’s nails soldered together….the carpenter’s nails, of course, carry a double meaning because Jesus was born into a carpenter’s family and he was nailed to a cross. This cross is so lovely – and yet, the nails are so hard and sharp- they are very visceral reminders of the pain Jesus endured on our behalf.
Our text from 1 Corinthians today says that the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. When I consider what it means to be a perishing people, I think it means to be without hope. To have no place for one’s fervent expectation. And yet, Paul says, the message about the cross is the power of God to those it reaches. Paul doesn’t say the cross itself, but the message about the cross….at once foolishness and powerful.
The Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, Elizabeth Eaton, has written that she wonders if the church is a bit embarrassed by the foolishness of the cross. She writes: “The foolishness is not just that the brutal and humiliating crucifixion of Jesus is actually the way God’s love was manifested, but that Gods love is so complete. This is the overwhelming simplicity of God. God loves us completely. There is no way or any need to dress that up. It just is.”
We live in a time and culture that values complexity over simplicity; it demands knowledge over knowing. But Scripture says that God will destroy such wisdom and discernment. That God has made worldly wisdom foolish.
I’ve just returned from the Bible Belt – from Alabama specifically, located in that section of the country where you can be sure that the vast majority of the people you come in contact with every day would identify as Christian. Jewelry in the shape of the cross is sold in almost every store that sells jewelry. Most gift shops have a large selection of Christian merchandise. I was reminded of a time when in order to avoid persecution Christians used a simply drawn symbol of a fish to identify themselves to other Christians. This cross, gifted to me by the 2012 confirmation class, contains the fish symbol within it. It reminds me that our identity comes from Jesus’ death and resurrection. That his death was the vehicle for our salvation. Sometimes the death of an idea or a dream or a hope is actually the vehicle by which something else comes to life.
This cross was brought to me by some of you who traveled to an entirely different region of our country, where the landscape and the culture are very different from what we know. It reminds me that Jesus died for all people. I know that this is a very simple idea, one that we learn from our earliest days in Sunday School. But it is one that is the very foundation of our faith. Jesus died for everyone. Yes, the Swedes AND the Finns….the Germans, too! The Native Americans and the Africans and the Icelandic folks as well. The Aussies and the French and the Russians. Such broad love. But the real challenge is when we are reminded that Jesus also died for the despicable and depraved, the criminal as well as the victim. This is what I am reminded of when I see this cross.
This passage from 1 Corinthians ends with a reminder to us of the upside down nature of God, of the way that God is known, not in the powerful or the wise or the noble…but in the weak and the lowly and the despised and, yes, in the foolish.
And that brings me to the last cross I brought with me today. I made this cross on internship, as a Vacation Bible School project with a group of high school students. We started with a collection of tiles – on the back of them we wrote of the things in our lives that were hard, things about ourselves, people who had disappointed us, struggles we had within ourselves or our families. Then we placed those tiles in linens that reminded us of swaddling clothes and we smashed them with a hammer. We then very carefully took some of those pieces and glued them onto a bare wooden cross a man in our congregation had made for the project. Some chose to only place one piece on the cross. Others covered their whole cross with broken pieces of tile, so that no wood showed through. Others put pieces at the corners, or where Jesus hands and feet would have been. I put mine where I thought his body might have hung. But what we learned – and I learned with them – was what we all need to be reminded of over and over again. Our brokenness was taken to the cross and made perfect in Jesus. This Jesus who Paul called wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.
One of the students in that class left his cross bare, with only wood. When we shared why we had chosen to complete our crosses in the ways we did, he said that it is the empty cross that sings out resurrection to him. The resurrection of Jesus after three days. And the resurrection to new life for all of us. Free from our past, free from our struggles, free from our enemies…..
Sisters and brothers, this is the foolishness of the cross – the beautiful Divine foolishness that becomes for all people….all people….the power of God. And it is this simple: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Thanks be to God. Amen.