September 14, 2025
Earlier in the Prayer of the Day we prayed “to those who look upon the cross, grant your wisdom, healing, and eternal life.” To those who look upon the cross, grant your wisdom, healing, and eternal life.
There are plenty of crosses to look at in this space. When the processional cross passes down the center aisle at the beginning of worship or at the sending, we look upon it and bow in reverence. The cross on the altar and in the chapel provides focus. The assembly looks upon the sign of the cross made by the Presiding Minister at the final blessing (also called the Benediction) and we make the sign of the cross, first traced upon our brows in baptism, many times during worship and even daily.
Crosses are worn around our necks. The cross is usually attached to prayer beads. Crosses have even become fashion statements without any particular religious connotation.
Crosses are ubiquitous. They’re everywhere!
So which cross to we look upon for wisdom, healing, and life?
If we’ve been in the church for any length of time, we may take these gestures for granted or we are so accustomed to them that we forget that what we gaze upon and use in worship and prayer is rather peculiar. We’ve made the cross pretty but by doing so we forget what it means and the one to whom it points. What we forget is that this sign or symbol is a rather peculiar one to use in devotion, prayer and worship. Peculiar because the cross was an instrument death. The rich paradox for Christians is that what was once an instrument of death brings life.
While in the wilderness, Moses instructed God’s people to place a poisonous serpent like the ones that were on the loose infecting and killing God’s people and to put the snake on a pole and lift up high. These were the instructions he received from God. If bitten by one of these snakes, the people could gaze before the cross, be healed and live.
This story is rather peculiar, isn’t it?
Yet Jesus thought it was important enough to recall this story in his conversation with Nicodemus and Jesus likened it to the cross that he would eventually die upon. Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of man be lifted up.” So, just as God’s people looked upon the serpent for healing, those who look to Jesus lifted high on a cross will live.
It wasn’t until after the fourth century when Christians felt comfortable using the cross as a primary symbol. When Constantine legalized and legitimized Christianity the cross became a common symbol. Prior to that, early Christians resisted using the cross as a public display because it could endanger them. Criminals were put upon crosses to experience a humiliating and painful death. For the Christian community to display the cross would likely get them into trouble.
The origins of this day came at a time when Christians could finally display the cross freely and safely. Holy Cross Day came to being at the dedication of the Church of the Resurrection built by Constantine on this day in the year 335. The church was built over what is believed to be the place where Jesus was crucified. There’s a backstory here. According to legend, Queen Helena, the mother of Constantine, participated in a massive excavation like an archeological dig over this site and she discovered what she believed to be the true cross on which Christ died.
According to this legend, Helena had uncovered three crosses and when she placed one of them on a corpse, the corpse came back to life. Helena conceded that it had to be the true cross on which Jesus died. It wasn’t before long that the “true cross” was on display in Jerusalem and it is reported that pilgrims would line up to reverence the cross on Good Friday and once they came to the cross, took a splinter of the cross home with them as a holy relic. As a fondness for relics grew, superstition grew and the signs and symbols of faith began to lose their significance to practices that became ends in themselves.
Today is a good day to remember what we often forget and I think the church began to forget after Constantine normalized the Christian faith – that the symbol of the cross is an offence to our reason. Today is a good day to reclaim the peculiarity of the cross or foolishness of the cross and the foolishness of looking upon a sign of death for wisdom, healing and life.
Jesus spoke, in John’s Gospel, of his impending death and resurrection in one fell swoop as a means of life. He called it his hour of glory and that by being lifted up he would draw all people to himself. That’s quite a promise! The means by which Jesus will draw all people to himself is a cross. Peculiar.
Instead of softening the peculiarity let’s reclaim it and speak the radical and bewildering truth that the cross is, as St. Paul wrote, a scandal. It is a scandal to our reason and sense of propriety.
So, listen again to Paul’s words from today’s second lesson:
The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Since the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe … we proclaim Christ crucified, foolishness, a stumbling block, but to those who are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
No, it doesn’t make sense. Yet God’s foolishness is greater than our reason or logic and God’s weakness is greater than human strength. None of us can really explain this mystery. Christians have tried to do so in a thousand different ways and with only a modicum of success. More importantly, we are called to live under this mystery and proclaim it to be a rich symbol of God’s passionate love for the world.
Countless believers have looked up the cross for wisdom, healing, and strength and continue to do so. Knowledge of how this has happened in the lives of saints is a good way to explore the holy cross.
Let me cite one example: St. Francis of Assisi.
When Francis prayed before the cross, a crucifix at his home church in San Damiano, he received a call that would change his life and the life of many Christians. Through this fixed gaze upon the cross, God gave Francis this message: “Rebuild my church.” Francis did just that.
Following his conversion, Francis renounced his former life. He gave up his father’s wealth and embraced a life of poverty. Those who were inspired by him did the same and soon a movement of monks was born known as the Order of Franciscans. As his love for Jesus deepened, Francis grew in his love for the poor and for lepers and beggars. And, as is widely known, Francis preached good news to all creation, including birds of the air and creatures inhabiting the earth and he did so with great joy.
Giving up wealth, becoming poor, befriending all of God’s creatures and suffering humans. What a foolish thing to do! Many regarded Francis to be a “holy fool.” He was ridiculed for his crazy behavior. Many thought he was downright mad. Ah, but Francis knew that God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God’s weakness is greater than human strength and lived under this mystery.
Today our stewardship emphasis begins. I wonder what it would be like for you to take the next couple weeks to really ponder and discern your financial commitment for the new year by taking to heart today’s scripture that Jesus came not to condemn the world but to love the world and that through living under wisdom of the cross we see that what the world regards as foolish is God’s wisdom and through faith we know it to be a supreme expression of God’s love. Giving money away, being generous, investing our time and resources into the mission of the church, recommitting ourselves to following in the way of Jesus who turns our schemes of personal gain on their heads.
We have a wide swath of saints, like Francis, whose lives are examples of living under the wisdom of the cross, not only those from ages past but those who are now your sisters and brothers in Christ. We may look to them to learn what it means to follow Jesus when it comes to generosity, living simply and with great regard for the poor and the earth, and living in the way of peace.
There is a beautiful hymn that ponders the communion of saints and their witness and lives before their death. It’s called “Who Is This Host.” Some of the words from one stanza says this:
On earth their work
was not thought wise
but see them now in heaven’s eyes,
Before God’s precious stone
they shout their shouts victory cries
On earth they wept through bitter years
Now God has wiped away their tears
On earth their work was not thought wise.
Friends in Christ, don’t be bothered if your witness seems foolish and silly or even weak. It’s okay. What you do in faith is the wisdom of God and the power of God. Look upon the Cross on which was hung the salvation of the world. See, listen, ponder, and pray the most amazing love of God who, in Christ, gave himself up for us.
Amen.