Sunday September 14, 2025
Holy Cross Day
Numbers 21:4b-9
Psalm 98:1-5
1 Corinthians 1:18-24
John 3:13-17
Here we are as the program year at the Chapel of St. James’ the Fisherman winds down; a time, for many, to begin another year of our regular lives, whether a return to school or work, closing up a summer house or simply going back to the usual errands, family life and day to day obligations.
Do you want to talk about or hear about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. No? Me neither. What about the 3 students shot in Evergreen, CO, one of whom, the shooter, is now dead by his own hand. Not that? Again, me neither.
It’s lovely up here, amidst the pines with the kettle ponds and beaches just minutes away, and it would be nice if the world and its woes didn’t intrude, and intrude so violently. But they have and they do.
Which is why it’s useful to mark this Sunday, as the church does every September 14, as Holy Cross Sunday.
The readings are peculiar: we get the strange story of the bronze serpent; a jubilant psalm, Paul’s testimony to both the absurdity and power of the cross, and Jesus in a conversation with a questioning Pharisee, giving us one of the most beloved, misused and misunderstood of his pronouncements. You know the one: It’s John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (so far so good) that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life (ouch-who just got excluded? Any non-Christian; maybe us if we’re feeling shaky in our belief).
Interestingly, it’s those venomous snakes who can help us start to unpack all this. A brief recap. The Hebrews wandering in the desert were complaining. That’s happened a lot. On this occasion, God sends poisonous snakes among them; many are bitten and die. Moses intercedes on the people’s behalf (another recurring theme). God says, OK, put a bronze snake on a pole and life it up so everyone can see it. Tell those who have been bitten to look at it (I imagine God saying, really look at it) and they’ll be safe. Strange but it works.
They look at an icon of the thing that most frightens them – that has the power to destroy them – and suddenly, its power drains away.
Doesn’t make any sense does it? Well, according to Paul, neither does the cross. Not to the Jews or the Gentiles (a term he uses interchangeably with Greeks). Where is the sign of God’s power? Surely not in the image of a man ravaged by pain, humiliated and hanging from a cross until he dies. Where is the wisdom? Surely there’s no wisdom in dying an ignominious and unjust death. Most of us are Protestant enough that we don’t keep a crucifix around, with Jesus bloodied body hanging before us. We prefer an emptied cross, as above the altar here. In Protestant theology it’s a sign that death is emptied of its power. But, frankly, I expect its also because looking at a dying, bloodied man makes us uncomfortable. As well it should.
But discomfort is a minor worry. If we look, really look, discomfort may give way to horror and horror to recognition. Then in that fearsome and fearful place we may begin to inch our way towards saving grace or, as Paul puts it, to embracing the foolishness of God.
I think I have some ‘splaining to do. And I need to acknowledge that I am grateful both to Jennifer Barshaw, a Lutheran pastor, preacher and professor and to Richard Rohr, a Franciscan brother, spiritual guide, author and teacher for providing me with some new insight into the absurdity and wonder of the cross.
Jesus himself talks about being lifted up, just like that bronze serpent. What did those in the wilderness see? That which most frightened them. When we look at the cross, that image of Jesus crucified and dying, what do we see? Certainly death inflicted in one of the most terrifying ways we can imagine. Perhaps such a death—for you or someone you love—is the thing that frightens us the most.
But if we keep looking, we will have to see something more, and maybe worse. Jesus didn’t land on the cross by accident, neither was he put there by one or two bad actors, whether Pilate or the chief priest. It was Rome, and Israel, and the police and the guards. And it was the disciple who betrayed him and all the others who couldn’t even watch with him in the Garden and fled when the authorities closed in. It was the empire and the religious leadership and his followers and, oh yes, that large undifferentiated crowd, a crowd in which we find ourselves every Palm Sunday when we read the story and add our voices to those shouting “Crucify him.”
If we see ourselves on the cross we are rightly shaken; see ourselves helping to put Jesus there and we are aghast. But we can and must see ourselves. Maybe we’ve lent our voice or our vote (regardless of party) or our money to those who deal in death—government often, religion with its hasty judgements, business where profit can trump all (Jesus did throw out the temple vendors after all). Maybe we didn’t do a thing, ruled by apathy, or a desire to disappear into the crowd or the fear that tells us to mind our own business. Whatever our part, there is no question that we have one. Every single one of us.
Good news? Yes, because if each one of us is indicted, each one of us can be healed, restored, saved (use whatever word you prefer). For God so loved the world, that through him the world (not some of it, not a special righteous few) might be saved. If we see the full horror and then seeing that God refused to let the horror be the last word. Not for Jesus and not for us. The death-dealing is true. Then and now. The resurrection is truer still.
The question is can we trust the depth of God’s love. Will we? That knowing everything we do, to ourselves, to one another and to the God we claim to follow, can we actually believe God loves us still and unreservedly.
That is what Jesus is talking about when he says that we must believe in him. Believe in such love. The word believe can also be translated as trust. Say belief and we quickly assume agreement with a proposition or intellectual assent. Not much evidence in Jesus’ ministry or in those he gathered around him that he was looking for that. Trust is the better translation.
So what about Charlie Kirk or the student who shot his classmates and then killed himself? They are in the hands of the God who made them and loves them, world without end. They have met the God made known to us in Jesus, who loves us even when we hate ourselves, others and God’s own self.
The greater challenge is for us. In a society looking to place blame, to scapegoat, to demonize some and beatify others, will we have the courage to acknowledge that everyone is guilty and everyone needs to be saved. It will call us to stand up against the lie that some are good and some are bad. That is the false wisdom of this and every age. We need to stand up against it and protest hatred in all its guises. But so too we must stand up for the foolishness of God. With our eyes on the cross, letting go of our judgments and believe, or better still, trust, that we and those we love –and those we do not—will be enfolded in Jesus’ his saving embrace.
Then, only then, will we sing a new song to the Lord.
The Rev. Brenda Husson
The Chapel of St. James’ the Fisherman
Wellfleet, MA