Today the church at which I serve has it’s Name Day — the day that bears the same name as the church. As such, it’s kind of a big deal. Though it isn’t really THAT big of a deal. Let’s call it a mildly big deal.
John 3:13-17; 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; Psalm 78:1-2,34-38; Numbers 21:4b-9
In my mind, today is one of the top 5 important days in the church year for us. Sure it isn’t worth as much celebration as the more obvious — like Christmas, Easter, or Good Friday — but there is something special about celebrating the feast day that involves the name of this congregation: Holy Cross Day. It shows great foresight and wisdom on the part of those who selected Holy Cross as our name — with the intent of proclaiming the cross of Christ in our city and the surrounding area.
To the predominant culture around us, the cross is symbolic only of the death of Christ and because of this, its use is lessened, as they do not want to focus on His death, but rather his life. The cross is no more than the vehicle of Christ’s death, and has no eternal significance to them. This is the message of the culture around us — the cross is nothing special.
On the other hand, for the Christian, the cross is more than a vehicle of death. It is the fulfillment of prophecy and the place where our sins were forgiven. It is, according to 1 Corinthians 1:18, “the power of God.” German theologian, Jürgen Moltmann writes, “The death of Jesus on the cross is the centre of all Christian theology… All Christian statements about God, about creation, about sin and death have their focal point in the crucified Christ.” In other words, it’s kind of a big deal.
Now, to more people than just our LDS neighbors, the cross simply doesn’t make sense. Paul writes in our second lesson, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing… For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ …we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” We know that the cross, in its shame and weakness, God’s power is revealed to the world, that he loved us enough to die in our place.
When talking about the cross, Jesus references a fairly obscure passage in the Old Testament. He says, in our Gospel, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” I’ve talked about this event quite often, so maybe it isn’t quite as obscure to us as it would be to others.
The Israelites were wandering about in the desert, travelling from Mount Hor toward the Red Sea, in order to avoid the Edomites who had refused them passage through their lands and threatened violence if the Israelites tried. As was their custom, on their way the Israelites started to complain about God and Moses, “You brought us out of Egypt just so we could die out here. There’s no bread; there’s no water; this manna stuff is getting really old!” And so, God sent snakes to get bitey at the Israelites, and many of them died. Changing their tune, the went to Moses and said, “Moses, buddy, pal … look we kinda screwed up here. Whaddya say you talk to God for us and see what you can do?” So Moses prayed, and God said to him, “Make a snake, and put it on a pole, then whenever anyone is bitten by the snake, they can look to the snake on a pole and live.”
Now, given the Israelites standard method of doing what God told them to do, which was to complain about it, I’m reasonably sure they likely thought the whole exercise was a little silly. I mean a fake snake on a stick? Totally doesn’t sound effective. But the trick was that it worked, and anyone who was bitten by a snake and looked at the fake snake was saved.
So back to John’s gospel: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” All the Israelites had to do to be saved from the snake was look to the fake snake and live. In the same why, and by Jesus’ own words, for us to be saved from sin, all we have to do is look to Him on the cross, and we have life.
That’s a large part of why the cross is so central to our thinking. It is profoundly unique among every other religion I have encountered — because for the Christian there is nothing we can do to affect our own salvation. Christ has already done it for us. It’s so simply that it just sounds silly. We don’t have a set of rules to follow to the letter; we don’t have to be “good enough”; we simply look to Christ on the cross (which we can only do through the working of the Holy Spirit anyways but that’s a wholly different sermon) and we are saved.