Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

From the Old Testament of the Day: So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. [Numbers 21.9]

From the Epistle: For the word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. [1 Corinthians 1.18]

From the Holy Gospel: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." [John 12.24]

Today, on this 17^th Sunday after Trinity, we observe the Feast of Holy Cross Day, which occurs on the 14^th of September on the historic Western Church Calendar. The source of this feast day takes us back to A.D. 327, to Jerusalem. The Church of Christ throughout the world at that time was in a period of great peace and joy.

I.

The Roman Empire had a staunch Christian as Emperor, Constantine, who defended and extended Christianity since his rise to power in 313. Of first concern to the Emperor was the heresy of Arianism which was on the move in many parts of the Church. Arias was a bishop who taught that Jesus is the eternal Son of the Father but the Father only was truly God. This seemingly innocent effort to make sense of what the Church had come to call "The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity," was taking ever stronger hold in part of the Christian Church. The bishops seemed powerless to stop and reverse the tide of this heresy, so the Emperor stepped in, met with Bishops in Rome, and then called an Ecumenical Council – the first of its kind – for 325 in Nicea. In heated exchanges, both in the meetings and on the streets of Nicea, the forces of orthodox Christianity finally held the day, and the Arians were excommunicated for their heresy.

The fact that such a council could be held, that a peace could be brought to the Church, and the Emperor was personally supportive of the Church brought great joy everywhere, and it stirred up interest in excavating the holy sites in Jerusalem, which had long been buried in the rubble of enemy conquests of the holy city. In 327, the church of the Sepulcher was recovered, and on September 14, 327, the ancient cross buried in its ruins was brought out of the church and paraded through the streets of Jerusalem. Thus, began Holy Cross Day, a happy day in Church history, but is it a helpful day in Church history?

The answer is, "Yes, indeed," for it is the Holy Cross that marks and makes testimony of the place where Christianity is founded, secured, and focused, and that place is the Holy Cross.

The cross was, and remains, a sign of agony and of killing; it is a sign of death. And for that reason, the cross is a focus and message that many in Christianity are tempted by the devil to move beyond. You hear phrases like: "Yes, the cross was necessary, but after Good Friday comes Easter – so we should move beyond the bloody cross to the glorious resurrection and all the happy thoughts found there!" This is tempting, it is pleasant, it is even exciting, but it is wrong, as wrong as is the Arianian heresy about Jesus being just near-God. Listen to what St. Paul teaches you concerning the holy cross for you and for your daily life and for your moment by moment awareness:

St. Paul couldn’t make it any clearer, or any more important: You live daily in the cross of Christ, or you are not a part of Him. Yes, there is the resurrection, and by it Christ demonstrates the truth and the centrality and the power of the cross, for it was there, as St. John cites Jesus, "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth – and in context He is clearly speaking about being raised on the cross – when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to Myself. – And then St. John says, "He said this to show by what kind of death He was going to die." No wonder that Jesus Himself says to you: "Whoever does not take His cross and follow me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses His life – that is daily, in the cross – whoever loses His life for My sake will find it."

II.

There is no doubt, if you take seriously your Bible for what Jesus says is its central theme for daily life, that your life is to be lived under the cross. What does that mean? It means that the issues of the cross – of sin, of our continued sinning even as Christians, of the cost of redemption, indeed of the purpose of Church and of Christian living – these issues of the cross should be your source of both repentance and peace, both Law and Gospel, and what should concern you day by day: You live by the dying of Christ. Daily, you "put to death" the things of this life. And you live in humble, chastened gratitude for the gift of forgiveness of sins and the blessing of new life, a life not that you produce, but a life that God brings forth in you, through the cross of Christ. This is how we are taught to live lives of love by living lives of service to others, living lives bound to the cross, moment by moment. As Jesus puts it concerning this daily life: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

III.

But, what you hear from popular Christianity is not this message at all. Rather, it is the message of conquering this or that, gaining this or that, giving in order to get, and promises such as: "God wants you to prosper, God wants you to have happiness, God wants you to become great, God has a wonderful plan for your life!" Tell that to the apostles, as they experienced not only the daily cross that you and I face, but their own real, bloody crosses!

This abundant life theology, so popular today, even among some Lutherans, is garbage! It is wrong, and therefore it is spiritually dangerous!

Your life is not a state of glory – that comes when Christ come. Your life is in the state of the cross, with Christ who is there for you and for your forgiveness and for your peace, all as you hear His tender call to us sinners, redeemed by His Holy Cross: "Take up your cross, and follow Me!"