Holy Cross

 

September 15, 2024

 

John 10: 11-16

 

+ This morning, we have the red on.

 

It’s on the altar.

 

Deacon John and I are in the red.

 

We usually put the red on for the Feast of Pentecost.

 

Or for the feast of a martyr.

 

But no, we’re not commemorating a martyr.

 

But, sadly, we are commemorating something not all that pleasant either.

 

This morning we are commemorating probably the one most important symbols of who we are as Christians.

 

We are commemorating the feast of the Holy Cross.

 

Actually, yesterday was the Feast of the Holy Cross.

 

But we transferred it to today.

 

We’r enot really supposed to do that.

 

But, my thinking is this: if we don’t, most everyone will miss this important feast, since we don’t have a Mass on Saturday here.

 

This isn’t the first time we’ve transferred a feast like this.

 

The last time it happened, someone scolded me on Facebook, referencing a priest who is somewhat well-known on Episcopal social media, who in a post went on and on and on about how clergy who transfer a feast like this are in danger of violating their ordination vows.

 

Clergy, of course, promise to confirm to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church.

 

So, according to this priest’s argument, any clergy who transfer the feast is in violation of rubrics (those italicized instructions we find in the book of Common Prayer)  which, as we all know, must be faithfully followed to the letter since they are obviously commandments from God on high.

 

(They are NOT).

 

The priest referenced was actually someone I once knew and actually admired at one time.

 

But a few years ago he decided to cull his expansive Facebook friends list and. . .well. . .guess who didn’t make the cut (though about 200 of our mutual friends did)

 

I responded to the person who referenced this priest by saying that if I wasn’t good enough to be this priest’s Facebook friend any more, his opinion on this issue meant nothing to me.

 

Besides, I went on, he wasn’t my bishop—or anyone else’s for that matter, though it seems anytime there’s a bishop’s search in the Church, this guy’s name appears on the list.

 

So, I really don’t care what that priest thinks about this or any other issue.

 

But. . .you all get to benefit from your heretical priest’s flagrant “breaking” his ordination vows. . .though, who knows? I may get defrocked for it.

 

The late , great Father John-Julian of the Episcopal religious order, the Order of Julian or Norwich, wrote about this very important feast in his wonderful book, Stars in a Dark World, which we occasionally use at our Wednesday evening Eucharist. .

 

He writes:

 

“It is noteworthy, I think, to see that the Church celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross not with the penitential purple of Lent or the mortal black of Good Friday, but with the brilliant passion red of celebration and honor! And the propers of this feast do not dwell on the bloody death of Christ but on rather upon the wonder of the utterly holy [instrument], because the executioner’s instrument has been exalted as the means of the salvation of the world. The salvic resurrection of Christ transformed the gross and ugly Cross of death into the most enduring symbol of life and hope.”

 

Now, we probably don’t really think about the Cross as an object too often.

 

We find of take it for granted.

 

We see it every Sunday.

 

We see the cross on the churches we pass every day.

 

We probably wear the cross around our necks or hang it on the walls of our homes.

 

For us, of course, the Cross is more than just two pieces of wood bound together.

 

For us the Cross is our symbol.

And more than that.

 

We have essentially been branded with the cross.

 

Each of us were marked by the Cross in our baptism.

 

And as a result, it is ingrained into our very souls.

 

And we have been told by the One we follow that to truly follow him, we must take up our own cross.

 

Again, not pleasant to do.

 

But it is essential.

 

Look at how deceptively simple it is.

 

It’s simply two pieces, bound together.

 

For someone who knows nothing about Christianity, for someone who knows nothing about the story, it’s a symbol they might not think much about.

 

And yet the Cross is more than just another symbol in our lives.

 

The Cross is what truly defines as Christians.

 

We are followers of Jesus.

 

And to be a follower of Jesus means to follow him not only in the nice, sweet times of life.

 

But it also means following him to the very  darkest shadows of Golgotha.

 

And like him, following him, we too need to take up our crosses.

 

The Cross is what gives our faith its very essence.

 

The Cross, as much as it defines us, as much as it is symbol of our faith, is also, sadly, an instrument of torture and death.

 

To take up a cross means to take up a burden that we must bear, even though we don’t really want it.

 

To take it up is torturous.

 

It hurts to take up the Cross.

 

When we think of that last journey Jesus took to the place of the skull, carrying that heavy tree on which he is going to be murdered, it must’ve been more horrible than we can even begin to imagine.

 

And, without the resurrection, it would have been.

 

But the fact is, what Jesus is saying to us is: carry your cross now.

Carry your burden—whatever issues you have in this life--with dignity and inner strength.

 

Because if you carry you cross, then you are truly following Jesus.

 

By carrying our cross, we are following Jesus to the place he leads.

 

That place, is of course, the joy of Resurrection and Life.

 

That place is our eternity with the God of Jesus.

 

But the road there leads first through the place of the skull.

 

To face this reality, we find ourselves facing our fear of pain and death.

 

We sometimes allow ourselves to slip deeply into fear and despair in our lives.

 

As we all know, fear can be crippling.

 

It can devastate us and drive us to despair.

 

But, as Father John-Julian says,

 

“In a sense, the Cross underwent the first transformation of the Resurrection; and that same transformation has been part of the salvation offered by the Crucified and Resurrected One. Pain and death became resurrection and exaltation—and that has never changed. The sign of the Christian’s salvation is not some giddy, mindless, low-cost bliss, but rather an entry into the deeper parts of the reality of pain and death [and I would add, fear], soaked, as was the Holy Cross, with the blood of sacrifice and finally emerged, brought by God on the other side, resurrected, exalted whole, and in heaven.”

 

If we take the crosses we’ve been given to bear in this life and embrace them, rather than running away from them, we find that fear has no control over us.

 

The Cross destroys fear and pain and death.

 

The Cross shatters pain and death into a million pieces.

 

And when we do fear, we know we have a place to go to for shelter.

 

When fear encroaches into our lives—when fear comes riding roughshod through our lives—all we have to do is go to the Cross and embrace it.

 

And there, we will find our fears destroyed.

 

Because of the Cross, we are taken care of.

 

Because of the Cross, we know, all will be well.

 

The cross Jesus asks us to bear is not a frightening and terrible thing.

 

It was, at one time.

 

It was a symbol of defeat and death and pain and torture.

 

It was, for the people of Jesus’s day, what the electric chair or the hangman’s noose or even the lethal injection table is to us this day.

 

It was, for the people of Jesus’s day, a symbol of ultimate defeat.

 

On it, hung criminals.

 

On it, hung those who, by society’s standards, deserved to hang there.

 

On it hung the blasphemer, the heretic, the agitator.

 

But now, for us, it is a symbol of strength and joy and unending eternal life.

 

Through it, we know, we must pass to find true and unending life.

 

Through the Cross, we must pass to find ourselves, once and for all time, face-to-face with God. 

 

It is a reminder to us that God, in the end, always, always, always brings victory out of what seems like defeat.

 

God always turns around what seems like something terrible and transforms it into something life-affirming.

 

So, let us notice of this great symbol in our lives.

 

As we drive along, let us truly notice the crosses on the churches we pass.

 

Let us notice all the crosses that surround us.

 

When we see the Cross, let us remember what it means to us.

 

Look to it for what it is: a symbol of the power of God to overcome terror and death.

 

Let us look at the Cross and, when we see it, let us see it for what it truly is: a triumph over every single fear in our lives.

 

And more importantly, let us continue to bear those crosses of our life patiently and without fear.

 

If we do, we too will be following the way of Jesus, and that Way doesn’t end at the Cross.

 

Rather the Way of Life unending, Life Everlasting, really and truly begins at the Cross.