Sermon for Holy Cross Sunday, Trininty 17

Who here has been to the London Dungeon? Or to the Tower of London? Or even to the beautiful Warwick Castle?

Yes, I thought most of us would have been.

They may all be wonderful days out, but they also have something else in common. They all feature horrible instruments of torture. There you will find every conceivable device used over the centuries to inflict pain, humiliation and death on victims both guilty and innocent.

Sadly torture isn’t something just of ancient history. More recently, Birmingham was the manufacturing hub of the slave trade and produced all kinds of gruesome things. And we should be angry and not simply embarrassed or ashamed, that there are still companies in this country manufacturing torture equipment for sale abroad.

So if we all agree that torture is horrible and bad, what are we doing celebrating the cross, one of the most dreadful means of execution ever known? And how come we call it holy?

Gospel

This morning’s reading might be short but it is also includes one of the most well known and most frequently repeated pieces of scripture.

A really important Jewish ruler called Nicodemus has just visited Jesus in the night. In their long discussions it becomes clear that Nicodemus wants to believe in Jesus but is struggling to get his head around the implications for his Jewish faith. And so Jesus links himself with an ancient story about Moses. Just as Moses was guided by God to protect the rebellious people of Israel from an invasion of snakes by using a bronze serpent, so Jesus, guided by God, journeyed to the cross and in so doing revealed the means by which we too are protected and may receive eternal life.

John 3: 13-17

“No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Through God’s grace may these truths be known to each of us this day, Thanks be to God.

So far this morning then we have reminded ourselves that the cross is an instrument of torture, that the cross is a central symbol of the Christian faith but comes in all shapes and sizes, sometimes with Jesus and sometimes without, and that the gospel tradition reveals Jesus as capable of delivering salvation to his people in a very similar way to that of Moses in the Old Testament.

I think it is quite easy at times to forget the reality of Jesus’ death on the cross. It was a brutal, lingering death. The passion stories in the gospels tell us not only of the physical pain but the enormous emotional and spiritual struggles too – and let’s not forget the huge pain for his family and for God as well, watching and grieving.

Yet we know of course that the cross was not the end of the story. God in Jesus transforms the cross from the scene of execution to a symbol of resurrection. And in doing so Jesus shows us how we can be transformed too.

Many of us here I imagine wear a cross as a symbol of our faith – some of us may wear a crucifix with an image of the dying Christ on the cross, others may wear a plain cross, which for me signifies the risen Christ.

Whichever we choose, we are choosing to connect ourselves to this story of transformation – from death to life, from meaningless loss to meaningful gain, from confusion and despair to hope and purpose.

The cross makes sense as a symbol of Christianity, only because of what Jesus did with it. And what Jesus did was only possible because he was both human and divine.

Through Jesus dying on the cross, God in Jesus revealed the depth of his love for us and illustrated God’s undying commitment to us. A commitment that stretches beyond death and into resurrection.

But the cross represents more than this too. It also shows us the route back into a full and loving relationship with God.

God wants to love us into eternal life through an active faith in the life, mission, ministry and death of Jesus.

And so the cross is holy because it acts as a reminder that each one of us is loved to a depth beyond all human experience of love.

And it acts as a reminder of God’s invitation to us, to respond to such love, with all the divine love we can muster, and to pass on God’s love through our own lives and relationships.

And so on this Holy Cross Day, as we celebrate the symbol of the cross, and come together once again in the Eucharist as the community of faith, let us pray that each one of us may know afresh the depth of God’s love for us.