Curate's Sermon, 17th September 2014 - Holy Cross.
May I speak in the name
of God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
“When I survey the
wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count as
loss, and pour contempt on all my pride”.
Most of you I am guessing know these opening words from the famous hymn by Isaac Watts – a stirring anthem written some 300 years ago and yet thanks to its usual firm attachment to Good Friday still well known even today. And I would say, and I think we would all agree, that these are still rather apt words to hear so many years later and on this day especially, given that this is the day that the Church of England keeps as the feast called Holy Cross Day. And I certainly should agree I suppose given that I chose this particular hymn to open the service of Holy Communion that I have just attended at St Mary’s Church in Whorlton just along the road from here.
And yet I know just
from comments made to me in recent days that for many people the sentiments
expressed in this hymn and especially in the opening line just do not sit
right. I know from words said directly to me that just as some see Good as a
bizarre description for the Friday that we remember during Holy Week, so too
are some people incredulous that the words wondrous and cross can and are connected
in this hymn – and indeed are connected in any way at all. And unsurprisingly
then the whole concept of Holy Cross Day is also one that some dismiss totally.
And perhaps the reason is most simply summed up by a statement that goes something
like this - “why on earth should we be venerating a lump of wood – and
especially one used for such a barbaric act?”
Why indeed – and I
agree that on one level this would appear to be a very good point.
Because yes, the cross
upon which the Prince of Glory Jesus died was certainly like all other crosses
at the time, a brutal and hideous method of killing criminals used by a coldly
efficient military regime. More than this it was purposely a very public
and slow method of disposing of those people who opposed the might and rule of
Rome in the first century. A visual warning to others that if you try anything
or do anything against the superior strength of Rome then here on a lump of
wood with your life slowly slipping away from you will you find yourself.
And death was most
certainly slow if you were crucified – it was due to your own weight crushing
the wind from your lungs that you eventually died thanks to suffocation. And even
if you were lucky enough to have your cries for mercy heard by the soldiers down
below, the method of speeding you to your demise was through them breaking your
legs so that the terrible pain would see you being unable to hold yourself up,
bringing suffocation on more quickly – some merciful act.
Crucifixion was and is
then a truly terrible end – and not quite the doddle that the old man in Monty
Python’s The Life of Brian claims that it is if you have seen that film. And this
is a fact brought home by the iron constitution you need to be able to cope
with watching the crucifixion scene in any modern film or TV adaptation. And if
you haven’t seen the worst of the bunch Mel Gibson’s gore fest The Passion
of Christ, I advise you not to do so on a full stomach – or at all if you
are below 18.
Seen in these terms then
I would agree that this event, this cross is hardly the thing of wonder this
Feast Day would suggest and certainly not a thing worthy of veneration. And also is
it any wonder then that people like Terry Jones, one of those Python’s
responsible for The Life of Brian could express the view that for them to
wear a cross around your neck seems almost as macabre as wearing a guillotine
or an electric chair.
But this is of course
the point. As Paul suggests in his first letter to the Church in Corinth taken
and thought of simply in these terms the cross is anything but wonderful and
Holy – indeed it actually appears foolish, pointless and wasteful. Also as
the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, the cross is not only foolish but
also shameful.
Christ then through His
being placed upon the cross is undeniably enduring both a painful and shameful
death – the death of a criminal. And here again we find perhaps an
argument against this feast today. Isn’t the injustice of the cross alone a
reason to sweep it under the carpet, to forget it and ignore it. Christ faced
all this pain, all those things so hideously described in glorious Technicolor
by Mel Gibson and others and He didn’t even deserve it! As the Bible makes
clear it was on the false testimony of Judas and others driven by their own
self interest that Jesus was found guilty – and then thanks to political
scheming and blackmail that this most hideous of death sentences was passed and
carried out. A huge miscarriage of justice, then.
And can any rational
human being accept such a thing – surely not, it offends us and disgusts us. I don’t
know about you but my heart burns inside me still when I think of those times
in my life – usually way back in my school days I want to make clear - when I
was accused of something that I hadn’t done, or even punished for something
without cause.
And our sense of
injustice for others can be just as strong as well. The
fabulous film The Shawshank Redemption with its slow passage of time for
the prisoners in an American jail in the last century is all the more pointed
because all the way through as 10 years, becomes 20 years, becomes 30 years you
know that the main character is facing this trial, is having his freedom taken
away for this huge length of time when he is not even guilty of the crime he
was imprisoned for.
And yet I cannot help
but think that actually this injustice, this wronging of Jesus, highlights exactly
why in one sense we should certainly be surveying the cross – wondrous or not –
today and indeed much more often. Because even if Christ Himself is
guiltless, the cross is still an event that takes place because of and for the
guilty.
Our gospel passage
today mentions Moses and the bronze serpent that this great leader of the
Israelites held above his head, and of course our Old Testament passage tells
very story being referred to. And as we hear in that reading from
Numbers, when the people of Israel looked upon the bronze snake held high above
them, they may well have seen the route by which God was saving them from the
jaws of the serpents that were killing so many of their number daily but also they
were faced with the truth that it was because they had turned from God that
these snakes were sent upon them in the first place. What was lifted up freed
them – and yet it also reminded them of their acts that led to this snake
needing to be held up in the first place.
And yes should the
cross be the true end of the life of Jesus and should it be the true end of the
story that we Christians follow and believe, then yes undoubtedly all we are
left with is injustice, stupidity, waste and shame. The
injustice of a world that has taken and destroyed the innocent for centuries -
the stupidity of a world that can treat people in this barbaric way – the waste
of a life lost tragically young in such a pointless manner – the shame of those
who can hold the gift of life so lightly that they can treat one another so
abhorrently. If the cross is the end of the story we are most certainly faced
with our injustice, our stupidity, our waste, our shame – the injustice,
stupidity, waste and shame that has and does mark humanity and its history. And
perhaps that in itself could be why we have this day today to think on why
Christ a human being was lifted up, and as a result of this why maybe we need
to change – personally and together.
However for me that
would most certainly not be enough – and neither is it for God and Jesus. The cross
is not and never will simply be God showing us or telling us that we have done
wrong – even if this is true. And our passage is in agreement with this, for as
it makes clear today the Son was not sent by the Father to condemn us but to
love us. But still we may ask how is this true? And still we may wonder why
today, why this feast, why is the cross Holy, how can the cross be wondrous?
Well because of course
the cross is not the end of the story, the Holy story within which the Holy
Cross is located does not end with this – and that is of course also the point. Because this
cross we remember on Holy Cross day is Holy because it is Christ upon it,
lifted up as our gospel passage says for our sake, for those who believe in
Him. For those who as our passage also says will receive eternal life because
the cross is not the end, but just a part that comes before the resurrection,
when Christ cheated and defeated death and won for us this most wonderful of
prizes.
A prize won because God
did not and will not condemn the world as He should, but instead used a
terrible sign of condemnation and pain created by us as part of the route to
this freedom and eternity in His presence that we really do not deserve.
When we survey that
cross then as the hymn suggests it is most certainly wondrous – not
because of what it is physically - simply wood and nails - not because of what
it was used for actually – to slowly and shamefully destroy life – but instead because
of what God and Christ used it for – used it for despite the bloody, painful
human things we perhaps rightly and reasonably find ourselves attaching to this.
Because they used this
cross as the way that Jesus would take our place, because they used this cross as
the manner by which He would briefly enter death, because they used this cross as
a stepping stone on the way to the defeat of death and His glorious
resurrection, because they used this cross most wonderfully and wondrously as the
route to our eternal life. Eternal life won then thanks to the glorious
lifting up of the Prince of Glory that we recall on this Holy Cross Day, the
day that we recall the Holy Cross upon which He died. Amen.