Tuesday, September 9, 2025

The Great Contradiction (Reflections on the Feast of the Holy Cross 2025)

 
Sunday, September 14 is the Feast of the Holy Cross. On this particular Sunday we at Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia will welcome a baby girl (child of one of my former Confirmands) into the church family through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. We’re also going to give Church blessing to a couple previously married in a civil ceremony. I’m trying to keep these two events in mind as I share my reflections on this centuries-old feast day.

“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.” (John 3:14-17)

The Feast of the Holy Cross is one of those wacky little commemorates we only celebrate every once in a while, when September 14 happens to fall on a Sunday. It’s not one of your major Christian holidays, and I’d be willing to bet nine out of ten Christians in the US couldn’t tell you when it’s celebrated or why. Fortunately, you have your Old Religious Guy to enlighten you on this bit of ecclesiastic arcanum.

The Feast of the Holy Cross commemorates the dedication of a basilica built in Jerusalem by the Roman emperor Constantine in 335 CE. The story goes that Constantine’s mom, Helena, wanted to plant a church on the site where Jesus was crucified. When the builders dug around to lay the foundation—or so the story goes—they unearthed the cross on which the Lord died (or at least a few pieces of it. If you figure the wood would’ve been over 300 years old by that time and not in the best of shape!). Supposedly some marauding Persians stole this relic a few hundred years later.

It's natural (don’t you think?) to look with a certain amount of skepticism at this “cross discovery” story. It might also be a good idea to look with a somewhat more critical eye at the story of how the pagan Constantine became a Christian (He supposedly saw a vison of a cross in the heavens before a battle which allowed him to be victorious) and recognize that we have some good news and some bad news here.

The good news is that the Roman emperor not only made Christianity a legal religion but also popularized it and later made it the official religion of the empire. Pretty good news when you consider the empire which executed Jesus eventually came to love and embrace him. The bad news is that Christians went from being a persecuted minority to being a powerful majority who could gleefully go and persecute others. You know: launch crusades against Isalm, burn heretics at the stake, take land from indigenous peoples, declare pogroms against Jews—you get the idea. It was all under the shadow of the victorious cross.

Today we make crosses out of gold and wear them as jewelry. Rappers sport enormous jewel-encrusted crosses. Government officials proudly wear cross necklaces or cross lapel pins which are sometime overlayed by the American flag. We’ve seen the cross used a symbol of wealth and some Americans want to see it as a symbol of triumph.

I think they’re missing the point. The cross was never a symbol of triumph. It was a symbol of shame.

Peter Abelard, the 12th century French scholastic theologian and philosopher, believed in seeing the cross in all it’s ugliness. Think about it: executing a human being by impaling his body on a piece of wood and leaving him to drown in his own bodily fluids is as sick and depraved a thing to do as one could possibly imagine. Just think of what it would mean to be crucified. To imagine this kind of death should fill us all with horror. But this is the death Jesus willingly accepted. He chose to enter into all of our pain, hatred, abandonment, and shame. Looking to the cross must remind us of both our ability to inflict harm—weather by crucifying the natural world, our thoughtless words and deed, or our indifference to the suffering of others—and the vastness of God’s willingness to forgive and accept us.

When little Ryleigh is baptized, I will christen her with oil and tell her she’s marked with the cross of Christ forever. I hope this sign of the cross will be the sign which guides the rest of her life. She’s an adorable little baby now but just wait until she’s a teenager! I’ll bet every parent feels the contradiction of desperately loving someone who makes you totally nuts. That’s the contradiction of the cross—the sign of our wanton disobedience and God’s unconditional love.

All who worship with us on Holy Cross Day will start by coming to the baptismal font with little Ryleigh to make our confession and hear the words of absolution. In baptism we embrace both aspects of the cross: our sin and God’s love. I would remind Pete and Angie as they renew their wedding vows today that a marriage—if it is to survive—must also contain the aspects of confession and absolution, contrition and forgiveness.

The cross is not a spear or a battle axe used to defeat enemies or impose our will on others. It’s a strong piece of driftwood in the ocean of this chaotic world which we grab for dear life. It’s how we survive the waves of confusion and doubt swirling around us. It’s how we truly know ourselves and come to know how God knows us. It’s our vessel for compassion for ourselves and for everyone else.

Cling to the cross, my friend, and come see me again, won’t you?

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