The Reverend Kirk T. Berlenbach

Lent V, Year C

March 21, 2010

Do you wear a cross? Whether it is as a necklace or pin or earrings, at one time or another you have probably put on this symbol of our faith. But did you ever stop to consider just what it was that you are putting on? If you are like me, and wear one as a matter of habit- then you may not ever give it a second thought. Much of the time I forget that I am even wearing it. But earlier this week, as I was listening to the reading of a Lenten meditation, I was reminded of just how disturbing and powerful a symbol the cross really is.

At its most basic level, the cross is a symbol of death. As we are vividly reminded by crucifixes in movies like the Passion, a cross is a tool used to kill a human being. Simple to construct of two pieces of wood, the victim was fixed to it and then stood upright. Over a course of hours or even days, the crucified person slowly, and agonizingly, suffocated. What we wear on our necks is really quite grizzly. It as if we went around wearing a miniature electric chair or syringe used for lethal injection. In truth the cross is a bloody and offensive thing and yet we have inverted its meaning to become a symbol of our faith. For the early Christians who still lived under Roman rule and persecution, adopting the cross as a symbol of their faith must have struck the people around them as ludicrous or even offensive. The public must have looked at the Christians who wore the cross in much the same way as people viewed the early punk rockers in London who took to wearing a swastika on their sleeves, not because they believed in Nazism, but simply because it was the most offensive thing they could find.

When we think about it this way, the cross no longer seems like such a simple and casual thing to wear. Its very nature seems at odds with our claim to be a religion that celebrates life and freedom. Of course, many of us are already aware of the bloody reality behind the cross. Yet, in spite of this knowledge, they are everywhere. The cross has become so commonplace in our society that it has lost its power to shock or otherwise draw the casual viewer to reflect on its meaning. So how can we reconnect with the original and incredible power that the cross once had?

If we want to find out we must not fixate on its history but instead on the question of why the early Christians chose to adopt it was a symbol in the first place. They were not crazy nor did they worship death and unlike the London punks, they were not trying to offend for the sake of being offensive. Instead, when they looked at the cross what they saw was not just an instrument of torture and death but the most profound example of G-D’s creative love at work. The first Christians took the device that Rome used to inspire fear and turned instead into a symbol of life and of hope.

As illogical as it sounds that is exactly the kind of thing that G-D has been doing since the beginning of creation. Not only does G-D defy our common sense and accepted practices. G-D takes our standards, turns them on their ear and produces something that is the exact opposite of what we would have it be. Time and time again, deliverance came in a new way and through something completely unexpected- nowhere else is this more evident than in the symbol of the cross- which once stood for death has, through the grace of G-D, been turned into a symbol of life.

As Christians we need to understand that G-D’s affection for such transformation did not begin on Good Friday. G-D has worked in this way throughout history. In today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah we hear G-D articulate this motto. “I am about to do a new thing.” G-D is in the business of doing new things- of making old things vital and of finding ways which have never been conceived of before. In the passage from Isaiah, G-D speaks to the Jews who were taken in to captivity after the Babylonians conquered their nation. Their community had been held captive for so long that most of them lost hope of ever returning to their homeland. But out of their despair, G-D calls them back to life.

You see when they were first taken into exile, their homes and cities were razed to the ground. So even if they gained their freedom, what would their return to? Their last memory of their country was of a smoking wilderness. Their cities were now an empty wasteland and their once green fields lay dry and barren. Where they had once worked and played was now the haunt of jackals and ostriches. Hope for the life they had once lead had faded away into bitterness.

But G-D raises up these memories and turns them from the cause of despair into the source of hope. G-D will send water, and thus life, back into the desert of their homeland. Moreover, G-D’s promise is not limited to the land. In restoring the land, G-D also pledges to transform their hearts. For just as their former homes have become dry and barren, so too has despair turned their hearts into a desert. And so it was that G-D fulfilled his promise and by the hand of the Persian Emperor Cyrus, the Babylonians were defeated and Israel was allowed to return to their homes.

The wilderness of Isaiah and the cross of Jesus show us in no uncertain terms that G-D is not willing to be bound by our concepts of defeat and victory. Just as G-D transforms the beasts that now haunt Israel from signs of ruin into symbols of hope, just as the wilderness itself becomes a place of beauty, just as the cross turns from a instrument of terror and death into a symbol of life, we have to wonder just what sort of transformation G-D can accomplish in our hearts and lives, if we would only allow Him.

We are all in need of such healing. Wall have places in our hearts that have become overgrown. We all can point to events in our lives that do nothing but remind us of our failures. To us these wounds have become a constant in our lives- the shame and the pain the cause seem never ending and so we have given up on the possibility of a life without them. But G-D is not limited by our perspective- G-D is not bound by our rules and if we allow Him, G-D can take our defeat and transform it into victory… G-D can take our pain turn it into a source of joy. For G-D is not only our creator…. G-D is also our re-creator who makes the dead places in our hearts spring back to life and turns our mourning into dancing.

So ask yourself, what hurt from your past prevents you from feeling joy in the present? What failure of long ago keeps you from finding purpose or fulfillment? What terror keeps you from becoming the person you know you could be? What secret keeps you feeling like nothing good or green can ever grow in your heart again? What hurt or tragedy has forced your spiritual life into an exile from which you believe there is no return? Whatever your pain, it is precisely places such as these that the cross of Jesus stands and amidst the barrenness left by abuse, grief or addiction, it is there that the cross shines most brightly; as a testimony to the truth that there is nothing in our lives that G-D cannot transform.

If G-D can take the defeat of the cross and transform it into life, if G-D can take the wasteland of Israel and make it a beacon of hope, then what hurt, shame or sin of ours could possibility be beyond Him? As we approach the end of Lent, do not stop scrutinizing your heart, confronting your fears and naming your guilt. For it is out of our failures, that G-D creates life. Out of our defeats, G-D can bring us new triumphs. Out of our barren and wild places, G-D can bring forth new and abundant life. Once itself a thing of horror, the cross is now a symbol of our faith in G-D’s capacity to bring new life out of death and thus reminds us that there is nothing in our lives that G-D cannot transform. AMEN