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"The Cross"
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church - The Rev.
George Smith
Good Friday
April 10, 2009
By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
Last Sunday while leading the adult forum, I suggested that
a helpful way to go through Holy Week is to choose an image,
a word or a question as both a companion and a lens for the
seven day journey. I followed my own advice and chose two symbols,
lenses or partners, if you will, for the week – those
being the cross and the tomb. They are rather obvious choices
and both bulky and awkward, physically and emotionally, to carry
around, but so be it. My focus and reflection for you tonight,
not surprisingly, is the cross.
Over the week I have seen with new clarity and surprise that
there are crosses everywhere. Not just in the church building,
but everywhere. The first thing to notice is that you can’t
get anywhere in a car without the cross unless all you want
to do is go straight. Try that sometime. Right, left, left,
right, intersection after intersection. It’s a given that
if you want to go somewhere, you need a cross. Crisscross is
the nature of transportation. You also can’t build anything
without a cross – whether it is a model airplane or a
skyscraper. It is easy to see a giant cross in the ultra-modern
Burj al Arab office tower in Dubai, which looks like a cross
between a sail and a penguin stuck nose down in the sand. A
fundamental principle of building is the cross. As Christians,
we might say that these apply to our faith and lives as well
- that we can’t go anywhere or build anything without
the cross. I would like to think this is why we have created
so many kinds of Christian crosses. There are plain crosses,
crucifixes (crosses with the crucified Jesus on them), and corpuses
(the crucified body of Jesus without a cross behind it, as in
our chapel). There are all manners of Christus Rexes –
Jesus presented with a crown and royal robe in front of the
cross. There are crosses of every imaginable size and material
– from earrings to a 19 story sheet metal white cross
in Groom, Texas. I suspect that most crosses are made out of
wood, but they are also made out of almost any material, including
brass, glass, plastic, rock, precious metals like gold, platinum
and silver, diamonds and sapphire, and the more unusual materials
such as jell-o and seaweed. A cross amid vines and other decor
embosses the exterior north wall of the chapel. The floor plans
of many churches are crosses. There are crosses of oil, ash
and thumbprint smoothed across the forehead. Invisible crosses
are motioned over torsos, lips, graves and incense. Up, down,
left, right, and sometimes right to left.
Regardless of size, material or presence or lack thereof of
Jesus, the cross is bursting with meaning. In the apophatic
via negativa tradition, it is probably easier to start with
what the cross is not. Just as God is not light and God is not
darkeness, the cross is not a good luck charm. It has no power
to bring you special favors and will definitely not ward off
vampires, werewolves or other goolies. I suggest you’d
be much better off trying garlic. The cross will not prevent
natural disasters or disease from striking you. The cross is
not a quick fix but a sign of what is not fixed. In the catophatic
tradition, naming what God is, the cross is a door – both
opened and closed. It is black and white, shouting and silent.
It is both life and death. It represents the human form, as
an open-arm embrace and as agonizing suffering and death.
Some churches are trying to appeal to the non-churched and
non-Christian population by banishing crosses from their walls,
windows and stationary. The cross is a seen as a turn-off for
those seeking God and spirituality. But I have to wonder if
there is some kind of bate and switch at these churches –
because ultimately, the cross comes out, as we have seen tonight.
The story of Jesus pivots around the cross – and to omit
it leaves Jesus drifting into meaningless. And to omit the cross
removes a profound symbol of us.
If we are the image of God, the cross, which reflects the
human form, is an image of the image of God. It is two times
removed from God, but twice as close to God’s heart. However,
in our hands, the cross was created as an instrument of terror
and control, designed to mutilate and destroy the human figure.
Although terrible and horrific, the crucifixion of Jesus was
in fact less gruesome than many, where those on crosses remained
suffering and dying for weeks, often unrecognizable as human
at death, with the dead form remaining indefinitely in plain
sight for all to see. Golgotha, a hill outside the walls of
ancient Jerusalem, was a place that could be seen, an ideal
place to plant crosses and conduct crucifixions to remind the
people of Roman’s power and ruthless punishments. But
Jesus’ death on the cross transformed it from stark terror
and evil to a something else - symbol of human brokenness that
is claimed by God – that all human suffering, pain and
evil is touched with God’s very body – for all to
see.
Today, the cross may be a turn-off, and that is because we
live in a society that thrives on cover-ups – hiding problems
through complicated accounting schemes, make-up and well-manicured
lawns. What this behavior says is that things that look good
are good. I’m not saying that things that look good aren’t
good, but it ain’t necessarily so! Perhaps what we need
more than ever is the cross – to expose and lance the
wounds we carry, both individually and as a society.
The cross points to an event that occurred 2,000 years ago,
and at the same time draws us into the reality of the present
and invites us to place our brokenness upon it – for us
as individuals, our broken dreams, rejection, wounds, disappointments,
pain and failure.
Over our society and world, the cross hovers above and points
toward the hidden, forgotten or ignored places of pain. I ask
you to consider, as one glaring example, the prison system in
our nation. Parade magazine devoted its cover and lead feature
to this problem two weeks ago. You also may have seen a Frontline
report called “The New Asylums” which first aired
in 2005. Now, Senator Jim Webb from Virginia has sounded the
alarm about the serious problems of a prison system that has
grown like a cancer in recent years, quietly out of sight of
most people yet sapping lives and futures from every walk of
life, and in particular the black population. The United States
accounts for 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the
world’s prisoners. The prison population has quadrupled
since 1984, mostly for drug and non-violent offenses. Although
there is no statistical difference in drug use among racial
groups, drug laws have had a disproportionate effect on the
Black community. Blacks are 12% of the U.S. population but 74%
of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Over 2.3 million
Americans are in jail – that’s 1 out of every 39
people. Prisons are overcrowded and places of violence, abuse
and hate, reinforcing and perpetuating behavior problems of
inmates. The Parade magazine puts it this way: either we are
home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something
vastly counterproductive. Meanwhile, dangerous gangs continue
to thrive in our cities and towns. Senator Webb has introduced
legislation calling for a National Criminal Justice Commission
to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system. May
this knowledge of this effort grow and may it succeed.
The cross exposes our brokenness, whether it is the size of
a peanut or an office tower, gold or plastic, but Jesus is there,
whether as king, peasant or not visible at all.
By your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Our brokenness
is not magically healed or fixed but called out, wounds and
all, into God’s embrace. And the result of this, what
it means is revealed at the tomb, and that will wait for Sunday
morning. But let me give you a hint – it is good news.
Amen.
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