"Two Crosses - One Love"
The cross of Good Friday and the cross of Easter Sunday
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, April 2, 2006
Text: Matthew 27:32-44
At approximately this time last year, as I was walking through the Plaza de Armas in the middle of Santiago, Chile, I saw a cathedral, which stood out in the way that many of the great cathedrals in Milan or in Florence or in Paris stand out. It was a magnificent structure! As I approached it, I realized this was the famed Metropolitan that dated back to 1745. There had been cathedrals in that place for 200 years before that: One had been burned down in 1552 by the Mapuche Indians, another had suffered from an earthquake and another one just simply disappeared over time. This great cathedral has stood like a monolith in this great plaza for 250 years. What made it striking was that it had two great spires, and on top of one was a beautiful cross.
What struck me on that sunny morning with the heat on my back was that next to the cathedral was a modern bank building, the likes of which you would see on Bay Street. It had a glass exterior and when the sun hit it, it reflected the light and all the other buildings around it, but most specially the Metropolitan Cathedral. I stopped for a moment, because I could see the cross on top of one the steeples being reflected in this building. With the light reflected upon it, the cross seemed even brighter against the stark, clear glass. Subsequently, I found out that artists and photographers have depicted that same view, for the cathedral shines to be about twice its size against this building and you do not see just one cross on the top, but two. When you have seen it, you never forget it.
As I read my Bible, I realize that all the way through the New Testament, there really are two crosses. I see two crosses. I see the first cross, which is the cross of Christ himself, and when I look at it, I know so much about the person who was crucified on it. Through the gospels, I know something about his birth. I read about his miracles: turning water into wine and healing the lepers and the lame. I read of him bringing the outcasts into the kingdom and showing the love and grace of God. As I look at his cross, I think of all who were called to follow him, and what their testimony would mean in the years to come.
When I look at that cross, I think of Jesus' trial and I am given considerable details about it in the different gospels. When I look at this Jesus, who was crucified on this cross, I know something about the nature of those who wanted to put him on trial. I know a bit about those who were there when he died. I know his mother was present. I know about his friends abandoning him or betraying him before he was put on the cross. And I know about those who gambled for his clothes just as he was being crucified. Oh, I see the story and I see the man. I notice that those who were crucified along with him reviled him and mocked him, and yet he later offered salvation to one of them. Yes, I see one cross - the cross of Christ - and I know an amazing amount about it.
Yet, we find another cross in Matthew's Gospel: the cross representing the two thieves on either side of him. We think of them as two crosses, but really, symbolically, they are one. They are the thieves, the robbers who were crucified along with him, but they represent people who have no name, and of whom we know nothing. We might speculate that they were followers of Barabbas; maybe they were the terrorists of their time. Maybe they weren't actually robbers and thieves, maybe they were just people who had provoked the ire of the leaders of the time - who knows? We don't and we can only speculate. Many books have been written about it, but none of them are based on any evidence - just conjecture. Were their families there? Were their spouses? Were their children? Were their friends? Who knows? But there was another cross represented by the unknown, by the thieves. The first cross was not a solitary cross standing on a hill. It was a cross with another cross - the cross of the unknown in society, the criminals. I see two crosses when I read my Bible!
The first cross I see is a temporal one, the cross of a man who died in the flesh, a man who was nailed to a tree that had been made to look like a cross; a man whose side was pierced; a man who held his head up in agony and cried out in despair, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I see the cross of a man who was dehydrated, asking for a drink before he died.
Now, I know as I read the front cover of Maclean's magazine this week, that some people question the veracity of the death of Jesus, but the preponderance of evidence points to a man being crucified and dying. If you do not think that nailing a man to a cross and piercing his side leads to death, I would say that you are living in a fanciful world. There will always be those who believe the myths that Jesus simply swooned, who make up their own ideas and profit from them, but the preponderance of evidence we have through history is that Jesus was crucified and died. This we know: There was a temporal death on a temporal cross.
What about the second cross? It is the cross that is eternal! It is one thing to say that Jesus died, to list all the facts, to go through all the history, but it is another thing to say, as the apostle Paul said in the Book of Romans: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It is one thing to have a cross where a man died temporally, in time and space, and it is another to impute to that cross the salvation of the world, the release of sin, the bearing of the suffering of the world. The New Testament writers interpreted the whole of that day and that event in the light of Old Testament scriptures that they knew. In the light of the sacrifice of one for the many the death of Jesus, then, was not a death like all other deaths; it was a death that would have eternal consequences. It might have occurred in time and in space, but for 2,000 years it has continued to have an effect.
When I look at the Bible I see two crosses: The first cross is temporal, the second is eternal. The temporal cross that is of Good Friday. The account of his death and suffering is very clear and very obvious: It is what Mel Gibson tried to illustrate, although in a gory and amplified way, in his movie a couple of years ago. We tend, I think, to see Good Friday in this way, but there is something more about it than simply looking at the emaciated Jesus being crucified. There is a testament to death and its reality. No matter how much we try to avoid that reality, it is there; it is part of being human; it is real. It makes us cherish life a little more, as long as we do not avoid the fact that death is inevitable.
There is a parable that has been around for a long time. Let me put it in the modern idiom: One day. a man decides to walk over to Tim Horton's to get a doughnut. He is particularly impressed because he has taken advantage of the IPO, is now a shareholder in the company and he is feeling good about life. As he is walking along the road with his coffee and doughnut, suddenly he sees a figure coming towards him - it is Death. Death glances at him, but keeps on walking. Deeply troubled having seen Death, the man contacts a wise man and says, “I have just seen Death. What does it mean? What should I do?”
And the wise man says, “Well, if you have seen Death, you will probably die tomorrow. Here is what I suggest you do. Get out of town immediately. Go somewhere else quickly.”
So to avoid death, he gets in his car and drives until he can drive no farther. He stops and gets out of his car in a new town, hundreds of kilometres away. He walks down the road and he is greeted once again by Death. This time, Death stops and talks to him.
The man asks Death, “What are you doing here?”
Death says, “I have come for you.”
The man says, “But I saw you yesterday in another town, a long way away.”
Death replies, “Yes, I know. I was surprised to see you in that town yesterday, for I hadn't come for you. I had come for somebody else. All along I expected to see you in this town, today, and here you are.”
In running away from death, the man had actually run right towards it. Rather than staying put where he was and living his life, he lived in fear and headed away from all that he had in the hope of escaping it, but he couldn't.
Good Friday, for all that it is about Jesus, is also a statement about death. It is the darkest day of history, that will forever be recorded in infamy, but it also reminds us and all of humanity that we are mortal creatures. You cannot run away from that mortality, no matter what you do.
When I look at the gospels, I see two crosses, not only the cross of Good Friday, but also the cross of Easter Sunday. If the cross of Good Friday is the cross of our death, then the cross of Easter Sunday is the cross of the victory of God over that death. If the cross of Good Friday stands as a reminder to us that we cannot avoid our mortality, the cross of Easter Sunday reminds us that God won a victory over it. When I look at the gospel, I see two crosses, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, a tomb that was prepared for a body, but a tomb that was empty, where death had been conquered.
When I look at the gospel, I see two more crosses. The other cross is the cross of Today. Studdert Kennedy, on a battlefield in Germany, saw a young, emaciated German boy who had been shot, and he felt the greatest compassion for this boy. He represented the enemy, yet here he was suffering and dying. Kennedy said when he saw this, his life was forever changed, for in this boy he saw something far more - he saw the cross. This is how he put it: “From that moment on, I have never seen the world as anything but a crucifix. I see the cross set in every slum, in every filthy, overcrowded quarter, and in every vulgar street that speaks of luxury and waste of life. I see him staring up at me from the pages of the newspaper that tells of a tortured, lost and bewildered world.”
Kennedy is right. I see the same crosses today. I see the same crosses when young, unidentified people are beheaded in Iraq. I see it when we have to bring soldiers home to be buried. I see it in people who are killed in Mexico. I see it when I visit hospitals where people are dying of cancer or AIDS. I see it in the injustice of having to live on the streets in poverty. I see the cross wherever there is brokenness in humanity; wherever there is mental turmoil or depression; wherever there is grief. There in the midst of it, I see again the cross. When people ask me the question, “Where is Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one, in this world?” I reply, “Look in those places, and you will find the cross all over again - Christ crucified in the midst of a broken world.”
There is no distinction as to where the cross is to be found. It cannot be avoided through wealth or power or influence. The philosopher Diogenes made this abundantly clear. He was once looking at a group of human bones spread on the ground and Alexander the Great came up to him and said, “Why are you looking at these bones?”
Diogenes looked at Alexander the Great and replied, “I am looking for the bones of your father, but I cannot distinguish them from the bones of his slaves.”
No matter who we are, no matter what our status, no matter what our lives, we cannot run away from that inevitability, from the brokenness of the world. We cannot make ourselves superior or above it. There is equality in death and there is equality in the brokenness of the world. No matter how great or wonderful or experienced or powerful or rich or glorious we might be, there is a cross and the cross is in the brokenness of the world.
Now, you might be saying “Oh, Andrew, this is an awfully depressing message.”
I would reply to you, “After all, this is Lent, there aren't many cheerful Lenten stories, are there?”
It might appear that the Lenten message is extremely depressing and dark, but it isn't, because I see another cross. And though I see the cross of the brokenness of the world, and though I see the sorrow of that brokenness manifested in the world around us, I see a light reflected on a building, and there I see a bigger cross. It is the cross of hope; it is the cross of solidarity; it is the cross of justice; it is the cross of forgiveness; it is the cross of Christ coming into the broken crosses of this world and healing them.
Many centuries ago, Portuguese settlers landed on the south coast of China by Macao. They erected, as was their custom, a big cathedral with a spire topped by a cross. It dominated the landscape, but as often happens in that part of the world, a tsunami came along and it began to wash away the hillside on the coast, and the great cathedral began to slip into the ocean. All that remained when everything had settled was the spire with the cross. That was all that was left.
Hundreds of years later, a ship was wrecked in those very waters. A number of men on the ship grabbed hold of bits of the wreckage. They bobbed up and down, disoriented, and didn't know in which direction to swim. They feared they would swim out to sea. Then finally, after the waves started to settle down, they could see one symbol in the distance: the cross on the spire of the church. They began to swim towards it and finally they reached land and some were saved. The man who recounted this story years later, Sir John Bowering, said that when he was in that water, the only thing that kept him alive was the sight of that cross. When he got home that night, he sat down and put pen to paper and wrote the words of this hymn we have sung here many times:
In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.When the woes of life o'ertake me,
Hope deceive, and fears annoy,
Never shall the cross forsake me,
Lo! it glows with peace and joy!
When I see the brokenness of the world, the sorrow and the sadness, I see another cross - the cross of Christ, the cross of Love, the cross that brings the two together. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.