Here are some sermons from past weeks at NVLC.
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Question: Is wearing a cross worshipping a graven image?
1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 3:13-17
Pastor Julie Webb
Today, we celebrate Holy Cross Day. The story is that in the year 326 C.E., Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; while there, on September 14, she discovered what she believed was a piece of the True Cross, the actual cross on which Jesus was killed. (By the way, Helen is also called St. Helen, or
The very early Church had many symbols for its faith, but around the time of Helen’s find, the Council of Nicaea had embraced the cross as a central one. Why the cross?
Maybe that’s a tough question. It’s a complex symbol. So, today, in our worship, we take some time to contemplate the cross. And this year, we’ve invited you to bring a cross to share with the congregation. Several lovely and intriguing crosses have shown up in the office over the past couple of weeks, and more have arrived today. Are there any of you who’ve brought a cross, but haven’t brought it forward yet? Now would be a fine moment to do that.
I just know there must be a story, or a reflection, behind each cross we’ve brought. It seems a shame to keep all these stories silent, when others might be blessed by hearing them. Are there any of you who would be willing to say a few words about the cross or crosses you brought today?
Several members came forward to exhibit their crosses, explaining where they originated and what they meant to them.. . . Thank you. . . .
Today, I’m wearing a cross necklace that was made for me by a member of
When you’re a seminarian, and a pastor, you get given a lot of crosses! I have quite a collection, especially of cross necklaces. And the irony is that I don’t wear crosses very often. I’ve always had mixed feelings about wearing crosses: I mean, if people took to wearing tiny electric chairs around their necks, wouldn’t that seem kind of creepy? Yet the cross is just such an instrument of suffering and death. For Christians throughout the centuries, there has been such power and depth in this symbol—but do most people really take in that power when they put on the cross as jewelry, or stick it on their bumper, or tattoo it on their skin?
Last week, we officially wrapped up our summer sermon series based on questions from the congregation. One of the questions ended up going un-addressed, though, and I think it fits this week: Is wearing a cross worshipping a graven image? Does the cross direct our attention to something else, or does our attention stop at the image itself?
And, I would add, what about Good Friday, when we adore the cross together? Is that idolatrous? Do we worship the cross, or do we worship God?
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus tells Nicodemus that “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Humanity be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” The reference is to an ancient story about the Israelite people: after God freed them from slavery in
Think about it. There’s pretty profound wisdom here. To be healed, you had to look upon the source of your pain. Avoiding it wouldn’t help. Blaming someone else for your pain would not bring healing. Fear of the snake—even killing the snake, the cause of the pain, would not save your life. (On the recent anniversary of the September 11th attacks, what might this mean for us?)
To be healed, look at the cause of your pain and fear. Right there, in the center of the pain, in that place, there exists something else: the very loving power of God, a source of life that heals and saves. There are no shortcuts to get to that loving power: you have to face the pain, and the fear, and the sin.
“Jesus died on a cross for our sins,” we often say, in a kind of a rote manner, almost like putting on a cross necklace without noticing the strangeness of it. When I hear that phrase, I usually wonder what the person saying it really thinks it means. Do they mean that our God is an angry God, who demands a blood sacrifice in atonement for our sins, and then, like the cruelest parent ever, offers his own child as the sacrificial victim? If they do, then it seems to me that we have learned nothing from the prophets, nothing from Jesus, nothing about the nature of God. That kind of message tells more, I think, about our own blood-lust, our own nature, than it does about the Holy One.
“The only Son of God” is another phrase which, thanks in part to our Creeds, we often say without pondering what we really mean by that. In John’s gospel, it goes like this, “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son . . . .” God gave God’s only son—it’s a reference to the old story of Abraham and Isaac, when Abraham was challenged to give his only son as a blood sacrifice to God. In that story, the people of God learned that the Holy One does not require human sacrifice.
And yet, through the centuries, we continue to demand it. We want a scapegoat, a victim. We want someone to pay for the crime. When we feel pain, we want someone else to suffer. We want the position of strength, with someone else in the position of weakness.
So that is what God gives us. God gives us Jesus, and we execute Jesus on a cross. But this time, God does a strange thing. This time, it’s not what we think it is. It’s not a sacrifice to God; it’s a sacrifice to us. Bear with me, here: I know this is dense stuff, but it’s the whole crux of the matter. Jesus’ death is not a sacrifice to God; it’s essentially a sacrifice to us. You see, Jesus satisfies our demands: he lets us put him in the position of weakness, and suffering, and horrific death. He offers a non-violent act of love in response to our sinfulness. He lets us lift him up on a cross. [How awful!]
And God lifts him up; and God’s own self is lifted up. Gaze upon God there, on the cross. Look upon your own pain, and grief, and shame, and weakness, and sinfulness—look right into it. Right there, in that place, you will find the source of a love that heals.
This is where all words leave off, except maybe the word “mystery.” It is foolishness, a stumbling block, a thing that turns our world inside-out, this mystery of the cross. I think that is why, when Good Friday comes, we just have to kneel quietly and venerate the cross—and adore the one who, because of love for us, was lifted up upon it.
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Humanity be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
Pain and grief, shame, weakness, and sinfulness—these things don’t go away because of the cross, but they can be redeemed, for us. They can become the places where we actually see the Holy One’s power at work—not in domination, or might, or revenge. We see God’s loving presence in the little ones and the humble ones of this world, and in sinners, like us.
“And the cross,” says my friend Marcia, “becomes a symbol of life transformed by love.”
I don’t know—maybe, after today, I might feel a little differently about wearing crosses.
