There are some words in the English language that are so familiar that they tend to lose some of
their impact. One of these is the word “Cross.” The Cross is the most identifiable symbol of the
Christian faith. We wear it around our necks, we adorn our churches and other facilities with it, and
when burdened we speak almost unthinkingly of “carrying our cross.”
We speak of something being the “crux” of a matter, meaning that it’s a very central point. And the
word “crux,” of course, is Latin for “cross,” the cross being, really, the central point in Christianity.
Historically we sometimes see the Cross used almost like a talisman, possessing a power of its own.
And indeed, from early in Christian history we see evidence of its power. For example the early
Desert Fathers and Mothers report that, in spiritual battles, the mere display of the Cross often
caused unclean spirits to flee.
It’s the power of the Cross that I’d like to focus on this Good Friday evening. It must first be said that
there are many apparent ironies in the Christian faith. Jesus took it upon himself to upset many of
the conventional expectations of the people of his day. He spoke of the last being first in God’s
kingdom. He spoke of the meek, the grieving, and the persecuted being blessed. He confronted
those who tried to act a certain way in their own power to achieve a kind of outward godliness. His
kind of leadership displayed the humility of the prophet Isaiah’s suffering servant, rather than the
more temporal and military images of the Messiah.
And the event we observe today can be the most perplexing to those who haven’t had the privilege
of seeing the world from within Christ. After all, the Cross was an instrument of torture. It was a form
of execution so fearsome that even the secular Roman historians were reluctant to record the
details for posterity. It was the ultimate in pain and humiliation, reserved for those who were at the
bottom of the social rung and for the worst of the worst criminals. Its horror was portrayed with
sickening accuracy in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. After proclaiming himself to be
the Messiah and the Son of God, Jesus was plummeted down to just about the deepest level of
suffering and humiliation possible for a human being.
Sunday we heard Paul’s words to the Philippians: “Though he was in the form of God, (he) did not
regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a
slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and
became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” I think it’s safe to say that most of
us in 21st Century America have an aversion to suffering. We tend to avoid it at all costs.
Apparently pointless suffering is seen as a pitiable tragedy. We have a lot of trouble seeing how it
can be in any way productive. Yet we embrace the Cross as a symbol of our faith. For us it’s a
symbol of love, and redemptive sacrifice, and ultimately, victory. For Good Friday is followed by
Easter Sunday.
In W. B. Yeats’ poem “Easter 1916”, he writes of the sacrifice of those who died fighting to gain
Ireland’s independence. He uses Easter imagery with his well-remembered refrain, “a terrible
beauty is born.” This is a great refrain for Easter, as something of unimaginable beauty and noble
power has come out of a humiliating death. And without that death, these would not have been
possible. This gives us a clue about the power of the Cross. This power, of course, doesn’t come
to completion until the Resurrection. Yet in itself it accomplishes something that nothing else could
in human history.
Really the power of the Cross manifests itself as redemption, reconciliation, and relief. These aren’t
easily understood by 21st Century ears and minds. Yet they’re expressed confidently in Scripture
and have been held as central Christian doctrine ever since. The word ‘redemption’ refers to a debt
having been paid. Webster’s Dictionary lists one definition as: “to free from captivity by payment of
a ransom.” In the Christian faith we believe that our worst human captivity is to sin and death—that
our individual sins and our collective sin nature somehow have separated us from God, and that
separation has left us in a realm that it’s best not to be in. We’ve literally cut ourselves off from the
giver of life. In the spiritual economy of God’s creation, sin matters a lot. We’re heavy on the debit
side of the ledger and sparse on the credit side. This of course is only a crude metaphor that can
only point to a spiritual truth that transcends our understanding. Perhaps the Hindu idea of a karmic
debt comes a little closer.
But unlike in Hinduism, God’s love has made it possible for us not to have to try vainly to work our
way back to God. For He sent His only Son to pay our debt—to die in our stead to bring the
accounts back into balance. That’s the redemptive power of the Cross. It cleans the slate entirely
so that, when we trust in Jesus, our sins are removed from us. The debt is paid. But that’s not all. It
would have been just great if redemption of sin were the only thing accomplished on the Cross. But
listen to the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his
Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that
we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his
Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba!’ Father! So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child
then also an heir, through God.”
If the first part of that passage sounds familiar, it may be because we’ve been saying that in our
Eucharistic liturgy for the past several weeks. [It’s amazing how much of the Bible comes right out of
the Book of Common Prayer!] The point is, we have in the Cross the opportunity not only for
redemption, but for reconciliation. This to such a degree that we become heirs, we become God’s
children, we are in God’s very family, and His Spirit lives within us. We who were estranged from our
Creator are estranged no longer. We live in Him and He lives in us.
And please remember this: the Cross has both a vertical axis and a horizontal axis. We’re
reconciled upward with God, but we’re also reconciled sideways with our neighbors. The power of
the Cross is such that not only is the burden of our own sins removed from us, but the burden of our
own unforgiveness as well. The power of the Cross and the new Spirit within us enable us to live out
the words that our Lord taught us: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us.”
I don’t know about you, but when I have unresolved emotions, or “unfinished business” with
someone, I’m not a happy camper. My insides are usually tied up in knots until things are resolved.
And when I leave it to my own power to bring things to resolution, I often struggle with self-
justification for my anger. I think of all the reasons I deserve to hold a grudge. It isn’t until I start
inviting God into the process that it occurs to me to ask for His power to forgive. And I still want to
argue with Him sometimes. But when I let Him, He empowers me to let go, He restores my peace of
mind, and He encourages me to work on the relationship until either reconciliation takes place or I
can let go with a mental act of forgiveness. This, too, is the power of the Cross.
And this is one of the real blessings of the Cross. Because when we’re redeemed and freed from
sin, and when we’re free to reconcile with our neighbor, we experience relief. [At least I hope we
do!] We experience freedom. Our mental and emotional energies are freed so we can get on with
the business that God created us for: “to glorify Him and fully to enjoy Him forever,” as the
Westminster Confession phrases it. All because, when Jesus died on the Cross He took with him to
the grave all that is dark and damaging to his beloved creation. All the sins, hatred, resentments,
and every other dark thing, including death itself, he brought to the grave to die. Good Friday isn’t
usually the day in which we focus on good news. But what makes this day dark, ironically, is really
the beginning of God’s good news for us. For the Cross, the instrument of death for our beloved
Lord Jesus, is the source of our healing and forgiveness.
This evening we’re going to have an opportunity to benefit directly from the power of the Cross. I’m
going to give us all a chance to reflect on where we need relief from any darkness that’s afflicted
us. I’d like the greeters to pass out the post-its and pencils now. Let’s each take two or three
minutes to reflect on burdens we may be carrying this evening. Burdens that we want to give away
to the Lord, for Him to dispense with through the power of the Cross. Any unconfessed
wrongdoings, any resentments against others, or even against God, anything blocking us from
doing something that God wants us to do, any other burdens we’d like to just leave with the Lord.
You might want to write these on the back of the post-it, under the sticky strip if you’d like to insure
confidentiality. When you’re done briefly writing this on the post-it, I invite you to come forward and
just attach it to the Cross.
When they’ve all been affixed to the Cross, we’ll pray for relief from these burdens, after which they’ll
be taken away and burned as a symbol of what’s already been accomplished through the power of
the Cross. So we now begin a few minutes of silence in which to reflect and record these burdens,
and to bring them to the Cross.
Let us pray: Dear heavenly Father, in your word you tell us that the Cross is foolishness to those
who are perishing, but to those being saved it is the very power of God. We thank you for that
power, and ask you to remove these burdens from your children now. Instill in us the willingness to
let go of them, give us the power to forgive, and grant us the faith to trust in your guidance and
provision. Through the light of your countenance draw our eyes to you and you alone as we await
the glory of your Son’s Resurrection. These things we ask through your Son, our Savior Jesus
Christ, who lives with you and the Holy Spirit in glory everlasting. Amen.
their impact. One of these is the word “Cross.” The Cross is the most identifiable symbol of the
Christian faith. We wear it around our necks, we adorn our churches and other facilities with it, and
when burdened we speak almost unthinkingly of “carrying our cross.”
We speak of something being the “crux” of a matter, meaning that it’s a very central point. And the
word “crux,” of course, is Latin for “cross,” the cross being, really, the central point in Christianity.
Historically we sometimes see the Cross used almost like a talisman, possessing a power of its own.
And indeed, from early in Christian history we see evidence of its power. For example the early
Desert Fathers and Mothers report that, in spiritual battles, the mere display of the Cross often
caused unclean spirits to flee.
It’s the power of the Cross that I’d like to focus on this Good Friday evening. It must first be said that
there are many apparent ironies in the Christian faith. Jesus took it upon himself to upset many of
the conventional expectations of the people of his day. He spoke of the last being first in God’s
kingdom. He spoke of the meek, the grieving, and the persecuted being blessed. He confronted
those who tried to act a certain way in their own power to achieve a kind of outward godliness. His
kind of leadership displayed the humility of the prophet Isaiah’s suffering servant, rather than the
more temporal and military images of the Messiah.
And the event we observe today can be the most perplexing to those who haven’t had the privilege
of seeing the world from within Christ. After all, the Cross was an instrument of torture. It was a form
of execution so fearsome that even the secular Roman historians were reluctant to record the
details for posterity. It was the ultimate in pain and humiliation, reserved for those who were at the
bottom of the social rung and for the worst of the worst criminals. Its horror was portrayed with
sickening accuracy in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. After proclaiming himself to be
the Messiah and the Son of God, Jesus was plummeted down to just about the deepest level of
suffering and humiliation possible for a human being.
Sunday we heard Paul’s words to the Philippians: “Though he was in the form of God, (he) did not
regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a
slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and
became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” I think it’s safe to say that most of
us in 21st Century America have an aversion to suffering. We tend to avoid it at all costs.
Apparently pointless suffering is seen as a pitiable tragedy. We have a lot of trouble seeing how it
can be in any way productive. Yet we embrace the Cross as a symbol of our faith. For us it’s a
symbol of love, and redemptive sacrifice, and ultimately, victory. For Good Friday is followed by
Easter Sunday.
In W. B. Yeats’ poem “Easter 1916”, he writes of the sacrifice of those who died fighting to gain
Ireland’s independence. He uses Easter imagery with his well-remembered refrain, “a terrible
beauty is born.” This is a great refrain for Easter, as something of unimaginable beauty and noble
power has come out of a humiliating death. And without that death, these would not have been
possible. This gives us a clue about the power of the Cross. This power, of course, doesn’t come
to completion until the Resurrection. Yet in itself it accomplishes something that nothing else could
in human history.
Really the power of the Cross manifests itself as redemption, reconciliation, and relief. These aren’t
easily understood by 21st Century ears and minds. Yet they’re expressed confidently in Scripture
and have been held as central Christian doctrine ever since. The word ‘redemption’ refers to a debt
having been paid. Webster’s Dictionary lists one definition as: “to free from captivity by payment of
a ransom.” In the Christian faith we believe that our worst human captivity is to sin and death—that
our individual sins and our collective sin nature somehow have separated us from God, and that
separation has left us in a realm that it’s best not to be in. We’ve literally cut ourselves off from the
giver of life. In the spiritual economy of God’s creation, sin matters a lot. We’re heavy on the debit
side of the ledger and sparse on the credit side. This of course is only a crude metaphor that can
only point to a spiritual truth that transcends our understanding. Perhaps the Hindu idea of a karmic
debt comes a little closer.
But unlike in Hinduism, God’s love has made it possible for us not to have to try vainly to work our
way back to God. For He sent His only Son to pay our debt—to die in our stead to bring the
accounts back into balance. That’s the redemptive power of the Cross. It cleans the slate entirely
so that, when we trust in Jesus, our sins are removed from us. The debt is paid. But that’s not all. It
would have been just great if redemption of sin were the only thing accomplished on the Cross. But
listen to the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his
Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that
we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his
Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba!’ Father! So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child
then also an heir, through God.”
If the first part of that passage sounds familiar, it may be because we’ve been saying that in our
Eucharistic liturgy for the past several weeks. [It’s amazing how much of the Bible comes right out of
the Book of Common Prayer!] The point is, we have in the Cross the opportunity not only for
redemption, but for reconciliation. This to such a degree that we become heirs, we become God’s
children, we are in God’s very family, and His Spirit lives within us. We who were estranged from our
Creator are estranged no longer. We live in Him and He lives in us.
And please remember this: the Cross has both a vertical axis and a horizontal axis. We’re
reconciled upward with God, but we’re also reconciled sideways with our neighbors. The power of
the Cross is such that not only is the burden of our own sins removed from us, but the burden of our
own unforgiveness as well. The power of the Cross and the new Spirit within us enable us to live out
the words that our Lord taught us: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us.”
I don’t know about you, but when I have unresolved emotions, or “unfinished business” with
someone, I’m not a happy camper. My insides are usually tied up in knots until things are resolved.
And when I leave it to my own power to bring things to resolution, I often struggle with self-
justification for my anger. I think of all the reasons I deserve to hold a grudge. It isn’t until I start
inviting God into the process that it occurs to me to ask for His power to forgive. And I still want to
argue with Him sometimes. But when I let Him, He empowers me to let go, He restores my peace of
mind, and He encourages me to work on the relationship until either reconciliation takes place or I
can let go with a mental act of forgiveness. This, too, is the power of the Cross.
And this is one of the real blessings of the Cross. Because when we’re redeemed and freed from
sin, and when we’re free to reconcile with our neighbor, we experience relief. [At least I hope we
do!] We experience freedom. Our mental and emotional energies are freed so we can get on with
the business that God created us for: “to glorify Him and fully to enjoy Him forever,” as the
Westminster Confession phrases it. All because, when Jesus died on the Cross He took with him to
the grave all that is dark and damaging to his beloved creation. All the sins, hatred, resentments,
and every other dark thing, including death itself, he brought to the grave to die. Good Friday isn’t
usually the day in which we focus on good news. But what makes this day dark, ironically, is really
the beginning of God’s good news for us. For the Cross, the instrument of death for our beloved
Lord Jesus, is the source of our healing and forgiveness.
This evening we’re going to have an opportunity to benefit directly from the power of the Cross. I’m
going to give us all a chance to reflect on where we need relief from any darkness that’s afflicted
us. I’d like the greeters to pass out the post-its and pencils now. Let’s each take two or three
minutes to reflect on burdens we may be carrying this evening. Burdens that we want to give away
to the Lord, for Him to dispense with through the power of the Cross. Any unconfessed
wrongdoings, any resentments against others, or even against God, anything blocking us from
doing something that God wants us to do, any other burdens we’d like to just leave with the Lord.
You might want to write these on the back of the post-it, under the sticky strip if you’d like to insure
confidentiality. When you’re done briefly writing this on the post-it, I invite you to come forward and
just attach it to the Cross.
When they’ve all been affixed to the Cross, we’ll pray for relief from these burdens, after which they’ll
be taken away and burned as a symbol of what’s already been accomplished through the power of
the Cross. So we now begin a few minutes of silence in which to reflect and record these burdens,
and to bring them to the Cross.
Let us pray: Dear heavenly Father, in your word you tell us that the Cross is foolishness to those
who are perishing, but to those being saved it is the very power of God. We thank you for that
power, and ask you to remove these burdens from your children now. Instill in us the willingness to
let go of them, give us the power to forgive, and grant us the faith to trust in your guidance and
provision. Through the light of your countenance draw our eyes to you and you alone as we await
the glory of your Son’s Resurrection. These things we ask through your Son, our Savior Jesus
Christ, who lives with you and the Holy Spirit in glory everlasting. Amen.
The Power of the Cross
Good Friday
Good Friday
March 21, 2008
Fr. Dan Tuton
Fr. Dan Tuton