On Our Way Through the Cross
September 15, 2024
Traceymay Kalvaitis
Numbers 21:4-9
… the people became discouraged on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it upon a pole, and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
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 everyone who 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.
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Today’s sermon is titled On Our Way Through the Cross.
The earliest followers of Christ did not wear crosses to distinguish themselves. Crosses were a symbol of torture, religious oppression, and death. The earliest followers used the symbol of a fish to communicate their affinity with the new movement known as “The Way.”
Some days I find it difficult to wear a cross. Some days I am so bewildered by how Christianity is being used, used to court political favor and, worst of all, to edify some as superior while others are oppressed. It is a very old problem, handed down to us through the millenia. Some days, more than others, I feel the weight of responsibility as I bow my head and willingly place the chain around my neck, the chain that carries what has become the symbol of Christianity. Most of the time, it would be so much easier not to be identified as Christian, but in 2018, after I was authorized to minister in the United Church of Christ, wearing a prominent cross became part of my own personal crusade to realign Christianity with the teachings of Jesus the Christ.
Today is Holy Cross Sunday and it is a day set aside in our church calendar to consider what significance the cross may hold for us 2,024 years after the death of our Lord and Teacher. There are a few similes for the cross that I’d like to offer for the time we have together today, in hopes that you may find, in one or more of them, a deeper meaning of this familiar symbol.
The first simile comes from the teachings of Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar. He offers us the cross as a transformer. We see transformers most often on the top of utility poles. Their function is to transform, or to change, the high voltage electricity, usually around 12,000 volts, into a voltage of 120 or 220 that we can use in our homes. The transformer changes what would be lethal and destructive into something useful and productive.
It was the destructive forces of hatred and fear that drove the Roman authorities to arrest Jesus and execute him on the cross. It was in his willingness to die that the hatred and fear were transformed into an example of a love so great and all encompassing that even as he hung, dying, he uttered the words, “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do” (Luke 24:34). Jesus transformed the destructive forces of fear and hate into the life-giving forces of forgiveness and acceptance. The cross reminds us that we need only ask for forgiveness of whatever we have done that may be separating us from living in alignment with God. We are not defined by our mistakes; we are defined by how fully we live in the grace of God in spite of our mistakes. That is the transformational power of the cross we celebrate today.
The second simile comes from our reading in the First Testament book of Numbers today. Moses is instructed to place a serpent on a pole and lift it up so that those who were bitten by serpents in the wilderness could look upon it and live. So Moses took what was an object of the people’s greatest fear and commanded them to face it in order that they may find life. There is a powerful lesson for us in this Friends, because nothing paralyzes us more quickly and more thoroughly than our fears, and among all the fears we carry, our fear of pain and death is paramount.
Jesus faced more pain that we are ever likely to endure in our lives. Jesus faced his own death even though he could have avoided it. He could have gone silent. He could have fled to other lands, but he did not. He continued to speak, to teach, to heal, and to show that love is more powerful than fear, more powerful than death. In that knowledge, Friends, we are liberated. We are set free and saved when we choose love over fear, when we choose kindness over hatred. We read in our passage from John today, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.” We can see the cross then as a liberator. Once a symbol previously associated with religious oppression, torture, and death, instead becomes a symbol of infinite love and abundant life.
The third simile I have to offer you today is cross as connector. This is how I most often think about the cross. To me the cross embodies the holy Trinity, the top representing God, the source of all love coming down to earth in the form of our teacher, Jesus the Christ. The cross piece, to me, represents the Holy Spirit that connects us all to one another, to the Divine, and to the unfolding miracle of creation we find in the natural world. This is cross as connector. Within the vertical and horizontal axes of this familiar symbol, we can imagine the entirety of our existence is captured…wherever it is that we come from, all that we experience here as living beings, and, upon our death, our return from where we came.
Finally, I offer you the cross as a blessing. The earliest recorded practice of blessing with the sign of the cross comes from the writings of the Greek theologian, Tertullian in his book De Corona, written in 204. It is an ancient practice. Last year, at an Association meeting for the United Church of Christ, a fellow colleague offered us the benediction, (benediction means “blessing”) and she made the sign of the cross. I felt something stir in me in that moment as she moved her hand through the air, tracing the familiar and beloved shape of the cross. A simple gesture imbued with so much meaning that it brought me to tears. After my ordination, I felt empowered to be able to offer you this blessing of the cross as part of the benediction each Sunday. But you don’t need me, or any other clergy to experience this ancient blessing. You may bless yourself (by touching your head) in the name of God the Father and Mother, (touching your solar plexus) Jesus the Son, (sweeping from one shoulder to the next) and the Holy Spirit. Our brothers and sisters in the Catholic church and in the Orthodox churches continue this ancient practice, but it is not the property of any one tradition; it is ours, too, if we wish.
In closing, I lift up these various ways to live through the cross, the cross as transformer, liberator, and connector; the cross as a blessing that invites in. I suggest wearing it, even under your clothing, as a reminder of what we as Christians aspire to…to be transformers…transformers that can witness hate, injustice, and violence in the world and still be a voice for kindness and peace; liberators who refuse to live in fear and separation, but instead create and share in love and unity; connectors who bring the reign of heaven and the light of Christ to earth in how we live. This is living through the cross. This is living in the love that is God. This is living in alignment with Christ. This is life abundant and life eternal, given to us because God so loves this world. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
God of sunlight and God of rain, we are here with all our complexities…our mix of hope and fear, trust and worry, health and illness, acceptance and resistance. Help us, Lord, to bring the disparities of our emotions ever closer together, so that we may move through the joys and challenges of our lives with equanimity, balance, and serenity. We pray your healing presence be with us and with all those in need. May we be ever attune to the ways we can serve, with sensitivity and effectiveness and in the spirit of Christ. This I pray with all my heart. Amen.
Benediction
I leave you with these words from the Apostle Paul in the book of second Corinthians, chapter 13 “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Amen.