We wear it around our necks. We place it in the rooms of our homes, schools, and hospitals. We put it on the top of our buildings and people say, "That must be a Church. That person must be a Christian.” It is the best known symbol of Christianity. It is the cross. Why? Do we use the cross simply to remember the actual events that took place some 2,000 years ago? On one hand, yes; we remember the specific day in history when the God manifested his love for us by allowing His Son to die the most shameful death so that he could restore us to the life lost by our sinfulness. But the cross is more than a memory. It is the living call from our Savior to love as He loved, to love with a sacrificial love that holds nothing back. It is a reminder that his love can never be overwhelmed by the darkness of sin or death.
The cross, originally an instrument of the worst type of shame and torture, has been transformed by the Lord into an instrument of love. It is an eternal testament to the power of God; he can take the worst possible thing and turn it into a symbol of life, hope, and renewal. For this reason, We come to the cross this evening with a mixture of gratitude, awe, and sorrow. We will touch and kiss the crucifix as a concrete way of expressing these emotions to the Lord. We come and ask Jesus to help us love as He loved, to live in a way that puts others before ourselves. We come to the cross this evening and we give Jesus our sins, our pains, and our sorrows. We know in our hearts that we ourselves are in some way also culpable. Our own sins have, in some way, contributed to his Passion and Death. We experience a whole range of emotions from grief on the one hand right through to culpability on the other.
Each of us comes here tonight with our own crosses. Some are sick, battling illness, cancer, depression, or mental illness. Others are lonely, dissatisfied, overwhelmed or restless. Still more might feel rejected, uncertain about the future, separated from God. ”How am I going to make it through these difficulties?” many of you ask every day. God’s answer is found in the outstretched arms of Christ crucified. He invites us to come to the cross. Give your problems and challenges to the Lord and know that no matter what happens, as the mystic Julien of Norwich wrote, "All will be well.” For when everything is placed in the hands of the one who died for us, every challenge, every difficulty that life throws at us becomes a prayer united to the power and prayers of our Crucified Savior. Come to the cross! Unite the challenges of your lives to the cross. And know that the One who loved you, who loved us, to the death, will also love us to life.
