Holy Cross Day

The Venerable Ralph Leavitt, Honorary Associate Priest

In the book For All the Saints we read of the origin of Holy Cross Day. The emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the state religion, ordered that a grand church be built on the site of Christ’s death, on Gol’gotha, the hill outside Jerusalem. In the excavations for this church, the labourers discovered a large beam, and the authorities soon decided that it was a remnant of the very same cross upon which the Lord had been crucified. Portions of the beam were enshrined near the altar of the new church when it was dedicated on this very day in the year 335. Ever since then, Christians in both the East and the West have celebrated Holy Cross Day on this date.

What impresses me about this account is that 1,690 years ago, as Christianity was becoming the world’s most prominent religion, people knew that it was important to keep the Cross, the symbol of the power of God, at the front and center of the church. They did this because they longed to know their risen Lord and the power of his Holy Spirit in the church. The Cross remains today as the symbol of that power and occupies the same position in this church.

Onto our scripture today, the word that really sticks out to me in the Epistle reading today is the word “foolishness”. Paul writes of a world that regards both God and the Cross as being totally foolish. The culture thinks that God is foolish, and so is the Cross.

At first we bristle, God foolish? The work of the Cross, foolishness? Huh. Of course that must be wrong.

But let’s ask the question again; “Is God foolish?” Is God lacking good sense and judgement? We had better go to the Bible to check this out.

Let’s look at the people God chose to bring forth his Kingdom:

God chose Abram and Sarai, two people who were childless and 100 and 90 years old. God calls them to be the parents of a great nation with descendants as numerous as the stars. “Can a hundred-year-old man father a son?” Abraham asks himself in Genesis 17:17, “or can Sarah, who is ninety, have a baby?” They both thought it was pretty funny and ended up naming their son Isaac, which means “laughter.”

As the leader and liberator of His people God chose Moses, who was afraid, slow of tongue, not eloquent, and stubbornly refused God’s requests at the beginning. He had nine excuses why he could not serve God. When God called, Moses was on the lam from Egypt where he was wanted for murder.

As the King of His people God chose David, the youngest and most inexperienced son, and a man who would commit adultery and have people murdered.

When God needed someone to be the mother of Jesus, the logical choice would’ve been a woman with lots of experience and a proven track record of good parenting. Instead he called Mary, who was young and lowly and without a husband.

The disciples were not much better, particularly Matthew, a tax collector who cheated and committed fraud. And Peter, who had a better plan for Jesus than what God had laid out. Jesus’ response, “Get behind me Satan”. What a choice!

And finally God chose Paul, the very man who persecuted Christians.

And last but not least, let’s be personal for a moment, God chose me, and God chose you, to build up His kingdom.

Hummm…it seems to me that the Bible shows us beyond a doubt that God chose very foolish people. To have picked these people seems to show God’s lack of good sense and judgement. Perhaps God is foolish.

Well, so much for the people, perhaps God’s action in the Bible might show otherwise. Let us concentrate on God’s action.

God created Adam and Eve and put them in paradise and gave them free will. And in less than two pages of the Bible, Adam and Eve sin. Things go so wrong, God floods the earth and kills everyone but Noah and his family and the animals. Sounds like God is correcting a mistake.

Things still go wrong, and God sends his only Son to earth to take on flesh, and live among us. And we kill him. Kill him on a cross. Doesn’t seem like that was a very good plan either.

It seems like God’s actions also show God’s lack of good sense and judgement.
Perhaps God is foolish.

Certainly to our earthly ways of doing things, God is foolish. But Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, puts this foolishness of God in the right context. He says;
“God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Quite an insult I would say. God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom? Let’s wrestle with that for a while in the context of the Cross.

Let us figuratively stand under Jesus’ Cross. The Cross, of course, is the quintessential symbol of suffering, for on the Cross our Saviour died. On the surface, it is all foolishness. Killing God.

But of course, we have to look beyond the Cross to find the truth. We have to know that Christ died, taking our sin with him, forgiving us, and allowing us to once again be in relationship with God the Father. God allowed suffering and death, but for a reason, a redemptive reason. God allowed it so that death would not longer have any hold over God’s people. God’s people were set free in and through Jesus’ death. That is the power of the cross. And when viewed that way, you can see immediately that God’s foolishness and weakness are indeed wiser and stronger that human wisdom and strength. God might be foolish, but thank God for that, for in his foolishness he has saved us all.

It is in the shadow of the Cross that we come to know that God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. It is through the Cross that we come to know God’s power. Paul tells the Corinthians as he tells us today, “the message about the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” How is the power of God shown to you in the Cross?

Do you view the Cross as a symbol of sacrifice? The theologian Athanasius argued that Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross had a permanent effect, not like sacrifices that were made according to the Law in the Old Testament, but rather this was a permanent sacrifice for the sins of all people. This interpretation ties the New Testament to the Old Testament. Christ’s death on the Cross was a perfect and effective sacrifice. When we see a crucifix, with the body of Jesus on the cross, we can relate to his sacrifice for us. It is very powerful, and we are saved.

Another way of thinking of the power of the Cross is to view the Cross as victory. The Cross seen as a victory over sin, death, and Satan. The theologian Irenaeus picks this up by viewing Christ’s death as being a ransom paid. That word “ransom” implies liberation; being set free, victory. And the victory of Christ actually creates victory in us. Have you seen the cross with Christ on it, but with his hands extended upwards? This cross is “Christus victor”, Christ victorious. And we are saved.

A third way to understand the power of the Cross is to see it as a vehicle for forgiveness. Anselm of Canterbury felt that God on the Cross redeems humanity, that God aimed to restore the rightness of the world. Right relationship. In Christ we are certainly forgiven our sins. Here I think of the Jerusalem cross. There is the main cross, but there are also many other smaller crosses. Perhaps these are the ones that we have to bear, and in Christ we receive forgiveness.

A final way to understand the power of the Cross is to see it as a moral example. Augustine of Hippo felt the Cross was a “demonstration of the love of God toward us”. God’s everlasting love and example to us to follow him. To walk his way, for his way is the Way. Maybe here you can imagine a Celtic cross, with the circle in the middle, a symbol of eternity. That is what God wants, an eternity with us. And we are saved.

Of course these four ways to understand the power of the Cross are not exclusive to each other but overlap all over the place. They are impossible to separate. Sacrifice, victory, forgiveness and moral example. And at the center of it all is Christ himself. For, as Paul tells us today,“Christ (is) the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Yes, it is through the lens of the power of the Cross that we begin to see clearly, that what we judge to be foolish is actually wise, that what we see as weak is actually all powerful.

Darn it. That crazy apostle, that persecutor of Christian has it right again. “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
We can do nothing else than enter what could be called the paradox of our faith. For as Christians,

“We see unseen things; we conquer by yielding;
we find rest under a yoke; we reign by serving;
we are made great by becoming little;
we are exalted by being humble;
we become wise by being fools for Christ’s sake;
we are made free by becoming Christ’s slaves;
we possess all things by having nothing;
we wax strong by being weak; we triumph by defeat;
we find victory in glorifying our infirmities;
and we live by dying.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.