Jesus said to Nicodemus: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who 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 might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3.13-17)
As occasionally happens on the annual liturgical calendar, a particular feast supersedes the ordinary Sunday celebration, the readings for the day focused on the feast rather than on the regular Sunday selections. Such is the case today when the Roman calendar celebrates the Feast of the Holy Cross, always found on September 14th, at least for the Church of Rome.
According to an ancient tradition, the feast recalls the discovery of the cross of Jesus in the year 326 C.E. by Empress Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. As the story goes, she was making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem while excavations were underway to ascertain the location of Golgotha, carried out by Bishop Macarius who was following an order from the Emperor himself.
During the excavations, three crosses were discovered, believed to be the cross of Jesus and the crosses of the two thieves who were crucified alongside him. Upon the discovery, it was decided to construct a church atop the site. Nine years later in the year 335 the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated on September 13th in Jerusalem over the sites presumed to be Golgotha and the tomb of Jesus. The next day, September 14th, a part of the holy cross was brought and placed inside the church.
At the time, one-third of the cross stayed in Jerusalem, one-third was brought to Rome and placed in the Basilica Santa Croce, and one-third was taken to Constantinople. Over time, pieces of the cross were distributed across the empire as relics and by the start of the fifth century were venerated far and wide. Already before the mid-6th century the Feast of the Holy Cross was observed in Jerusalem and written records show that the day similarly was observed in Rome by the start of the 7th century.
In other words, it has been around for a long time. And while Passion Sunday and Good Friday both provide similar meditations on the crucifixion, this feast differs in that it draws our attention to the object more so than the event. It is with good cause. The cross stands at the center of Christian belief and doctrine. As Saint Paul wrote to the community in Corinth after he had started a community there in 51 C.E., “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Of course, there are any number of approaches that we might take in understanding better the significance and the importance of this feast, but the lectionary has chosen to point us to Jesus’ conversation with one of the leaders of the Pharisees named Nicodemus that we find in Chapter 3 of John’s gospel. It is considered the first of the seven major discourses in the gospel and often carries the title of the “born again discourse” because of Jesus’ emphasis that those who follow him must be born anew.
A small part of that discourse is offered to us today, no doubt because Jesus draws a parallel between his own crucifixion on the cross and that of the bronze serpent on a staff that Moses raised before the Hebrew slaves in the desert who were suffering, the object allowing any Hebrew who had been bitten by a serpent to be healed by looking at the pole.
The parallel works well, the evangelist wanting to impress upon his reader that just as the Hebrews gazed upon the bronze serpent and were restored to health, so also the person who believes in the Son of Man will be saved. Hence, we hear Jesus saying today, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
The cross, then, reminds us of the salvation that comes to believers in the God-made-flesh who “pitched his tent among us” and who called us to believe in the light rather than in the darkness. Those who believe in the victory of Christ will find themselves sharing in his eternal life as they have shared in his life and ways here on earth.
As a result, John, unlike the other evangelists, puts a decidedly positive spin on the cross, finding in it Jesus’ glorification, his death becoming the ultimate verification of his divine sonship, a son who followed his Father’s will to the end. The cross is the completion of his purpose upon the earth, fulfilling the mission that was given to him by the Heavenly Father. It is for this same reason that Jesus’ final words from the cross in the Gospel of John are, “It is finished,” after which he bows his head and hands over his spirit to the Father.
Already here in Chapter 3 of the gospel in the dialogue with Nicodemus, we find this same positive interpretation of the cross, spelled out to us in one simple sentence, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” Admittedly, the verse is quoted so often that it has lost much of its shock value, but its power cannot be overstated. Already in the 16th century, Martin Luther said the verse contained the whole of the gospel in short form.
It is important, I think, to see again the juxtaposition that John puts before us with the cross of Jesus and the love of God. He wants us to understand that the cross, a hideous and ugly means of execution, was the ultimate sign of the love of God for us, a God willing to suffer the loss of his only Son so that we might have eternal life.
Here, John flips the common understanding of the cross inside out. Whereas Jesus was condemned to die on the cross, making it an instrument of death, God used it as a sign of his great love, making it an instrument of life. Again, John leaves no doubt about his intention when we hear Jesus say, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
Of course, that presupposes that we want to be saved, that we are willing to believe and to move towards the light. Already in the Prologue to the Gospel, the evangelist tells us, “To those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by man’s decision, but of God.” Here at the start John has set the stage for the rebirth dialogue that we will see soon enough in Jesus’ exchange with Nicodemus.
For my part, I find three important messages that we may want to take with us today as we experience this special feast that draws our attention to the cross of Jesus. First, the rebirth that is the overall focus of Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisee is one that calls us from the darkness of this world to the light of God, or, said another way, we allow ourselves to be reborn as vessels of love, putting behind us the hatred that is so much a part of our world.
If we want to live with God, then we must live with love in our hearts, not hatred. There cannot be both–life with God and a heart of darkness. One or the other goes. So, if we want to know how close we are to God, then it will be found in the fullness of love within our hearts. If we have little room for love, then we have little room for God. It is all that plain and simple.
The second point follows. It also is a simple one. Love costs. If we are to see the cross as the ultimate sign of God’s love for the world rather than his judgment of the world, then we also cannot escape the hard truth that love is costly. Of course, this fact should not be difficult for us to understand. Love, by its very nature, implies going outside ourselves and to another, giving ourselves as a gift to that other, sacrificing our self-interest for the interests of someone else.
Self-giving is not painless. And therefore loving others carries with it great pain because we are dying to ourselves and to our wants. As Jesus bled on the cross, there was not a single drop of selfishness in his wrecked and broken body. He had given all to all. Nothing remained for himself, except the sure knowledge that he had done the will of God. The bottom line is–if it costs us nothing, it is not love.
Finally, these verses remind us that only those who choose the pain of the cross will find themselves with the God of love. In other words, if we cannot spend ourselves in costly love, sacrificing for others, then we will not be reborn into that new life that life with God promises to those who believe in him. In choosing to avoid the high costs of love, we also choose to remain in the darkness, content to live in a world based on mutual hatred.
In avoiding the costliness that comes with love of others, we also disallow ourselves the new life that comes to those who choose to live with God. Or, as Jesus would say in the other gospels, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” It is the conundrum of the cross.
The rebirth that Jesus offered Nicodemus and he now offers to us requires that we are willing to lose our life. If our self-interest and selfishness are always in the service of saving our own lives, then we will lose it, shriveled up and shrunk in on ourselves in the end, the umbilical cord between ourselves and the God of love severed by our many choices against love.
Yes, there is much to ponder on this special day, much more than meets the eye at first glance. It is also worth our while to remember that the feast often carried the title, “The Triumph of the Holy Cross.” That title would argue that the cross was not a sign of defeat, but was a sign of triumph. Not a sign of death, but a sign of life.
Obviously, most everybody standing around on that crucifixion day saw only defeat. After all, a dead man was slumped upon the blood-stained and sweat-soaked wood. But theirs was short-sightedness. Only a lone centurion standing before the cross saw what others could not see, his words penetrating the stone-cold and stone-dead silence of the moment as he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” Somehow, he was able to see triumph in the cross. He saw the victory of love over the hatred that cast a shadow over the place like a dark cloud.
The question, then, is what we do as a result of this feast. If we elect to shed the old life of hatred that holds us in its grip in favor of the new life of love, then we also will see the triumph of the cross as love takes hold of our lives, allowing us to empty ourselves of selfishness and greed in service to others as Jesus did on the wood of the cross.
On the other hand, if we choose to stay in the darkness of hatred, separating ourselves from others and distancing ourselves from their needs, then we will find ourselves always cocooned in the skin of selfishness, which carries with it over time the distinct feel of death, meaning we are no more than walking corpses, not living, breathing agents of God’s love.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 