Look up. You see that big cross hanging over the choir? It’s kind of hard to miss, isn’t it? We’ve raised that old rugged cross the first Sunday in Lent for the last twenty years, and there it remains through Ascension Sunday. It’s big and bulky and kind of ugly in a pure aesthetic sense, not nearly as lovely as the cross we keep on the Lord’s Table year round, but even that is an odd centerpiece when you think about it.

The cross, of course, is the primary symbol of our Christian faith and the heart of its central mystery. It is one of the few universal images we share with Christians of all kinds around the world and across the years. You will see one somewhere in most churches, though some intentionally refuse to hang any crosses anywhere because they see them as a kind of “graven image” that might keep people from focusing on the inner reality of Christ’s living presence. Other churches hang crucifixes, crosses with the image of the suffering Christ upon them, while some churches prefer empty crosses emphasizing the resurrection. These church crosses are wood and some are gold or silver and some are decorated with other symbols or even precious stones. Many Christians wear a cross around their neck. They also come in a range of styles and consist of various materials, from wood or pewter to precious metals set with rare gems. Part of the church makes the sign of the cross when they pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It’s a part of their culture like some sort of secret hand shake. I’ve always liked that gesture and quietly wished we Baptists practiced it, too, because it embodies Christian Trinitarian prayer in a distinctive way and reminds you you are called to carry the cross and you under the cross and you are covered by the cross, whether you choose to wear one or not. But isn’t it typical of us Christians that we have frequently fought with each other over what kind of cross to use and when to use it?

Look up at that old cross. The cross has become so commonplace in Christian culture, we forget what a scandalous symbol it was at first. In the Roman world, the cross was a symbol of shame and violence, of humiliation and execution. The sight of a cross on the edge of a city sent chills down the spine of anyone who passed by. The cross was a means of execution reserved for the worst offenders: runaway slaves, traitors, and rebels against Roman authority. No matter how evil the crime, Roman citizens were spared the indignity of death by crucifixion. It was beneath them. So at first, people reacted to Christians embracing a cross as their special symbol the way we might react to some weird cult worshipping around an electric chair or wearing a lethal injection syringe as an icon of their god. It was weird!

Look up at the cross. Why would we choose such a negative image? The marketing department argued for other choices. The boat was one of the early contenders. Noah’s ark, the stilling of the storm, fishers of men, and all that. So much more positive. So much easier to sell. The net casters union preferred the sign of the fish, ??T??S in Greek, whose letters were an acrostic for `Ihsou/j Cristo.j Qeou/ `Uio.j Sw/th/r (Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter): "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior"). Those symbols would have been easier to take, but the cross won out.

Look up at the cross. Why would they go with something like that? Maybe it was the simplicity. Two lines intersecting – you see that everywhere you look, in nature, in art, in architecture. You can’t escape it. What’s more, anybody can make it. You don’t have to be much of an artist to put together a cross. But it wasn’t the simplicity, I think. I think the cross won out because the cross is the story, you know?

Our text today from the Hebrew Bible is a curious tale from the time of the Exodus when the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness are complaining against God. Again. This is the second generation after they left Egypt. Their parents complained against God, griped about the manna, criticized Moses, worshipped the golden calf, wore out God’s patience until God said they could all die and the next generation would be allowed to enter the promised place. Like their parents, instead of trusting God, these children of Israel are griping and whining and complaining again against God and against Moses. God, at the end of all patience, sends poisonous snakes into the camp. As Phyllis Tickle describes it, “snakes in the tents, snakes in the breadbaskets and the cooking pots, snakes in the bedrolls and snakes in the cribs.” Gives me the creeps just to think about it. Somebody did a study just a few years ago of what people fear most. Snakes were number one, followed by spiders, followed by public speaking. (Tell me about it.) Snakes, snakes, everywhere! The people beg the same Moses they have blamed to please, O please intercede, and Moses prays to God in behalf of the people. God tells Moses to hammer a serpent out of brass, and set it on a pole in the middle of the camp. Moses tells the people, “When you’re bitten by a snake, look up. Look up and see the brass snake. Look up and see God’s provision for you. Look up and you will live.”

It’s an amazing story, with the surprising ironic twist that the very thing which is killing them turns out to be the thing that saves them. The therapists, psychologists, and seminary trained pastoral counselors in our congregation would want us to explore the depth dimension of this story. The snakes don’t go away. They’re still crawling all over the camp. People still get snake bit along the way. You can’t just run away from your problems because ninety per cent of your problems are crawling around inside you. But when you face your problem courageously, take responsibility to participate in your own healing instead of denying it or fearing it or whining on about it, you can be healed. They children of Israel, the children of the people of the Exodus still have to live with the snakes, but when they look up and trust in God, they are saved. Writes Tickle: “Eighteen months later, it was these men and women who saw the Jordan part before them and who walked across its dry bed to claim the land of milk and honey promised them by God.” This speaks to me because our church is about eighteen months away from celebrating our centennial.

It’s a great story and one of the few from the old Hebrew tradition John applies directly to Jesus. When Nicodemus the Pharisee comes to Jesus in the middle of the night, an honest seeker but with the usual academic’s bag of excuses, conditions, rationalizations, ifs, buts, and what-have-you’s, and questions, questions, questions, Jesus cuts to the chase and tells Nicodemus he needs to be born again. The sophisticated academic turns into an unsophisticated literalist. He just can’t get his head around Jesus’ metaphor of conversion. Nicodemus needs a whole new paradigm. Nicodemus needs a radical change of thinking. Nicodemus needs a radical change of being. Nicodemus needs to start over.
Typical of the fourth gospel, in the conversation which follows it’s hard to tell where Jesus stops talking and John starts talking about Jesus. But John explains what Nicodemus needs to do and why, what we need to do and how by referring to this great old story from the Exodus. He says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Nicodemus needs to look up. You and I need to look up. When we’re stuck in the muck of the messes we’ve made, we need to look up. When we’re pretending things aren’t so bad and we’re still in control, we need to look up. When we’re paralyzed by the details, confused by the conundrums, and bogged down in the details, we need to look up. When we’re running scared and whining out loud, we need to look up. When we’ve come to the end of our resources and can’t see the way forward, we need to look up. When we’re dog-tired, down-trodden, and snake bit by life, we need to look up and trust in God. And we’ll be saved.

Look up, John says. Look up to Jesus. Look up to the cross. When John says “The Son of man must be lifted up” he means the cross, of course. He means also the resurrection. And he means Christ’s ascension into heaven. He means the exaltation of the risen Christ to the right hand of God. And he means the adoration and worship of Jesus by God’s people. He means all of it, the whole story, Jesus “lifted up” so that we can look up and believe and be saved.

We don’t have time to unpack all the meanings of the cross of Christ in one sermon – or in one season – or in one lifetime. But I ask you to consider this today. The ugliest thing imaginable, a coarse instrument of torture and execution used by an arrogant, dominating, violent power to enforce its will against its weakest and least powerful subjects has become the means of God’s healing all humankind. The worst crime humanity could perpetrate and has always tried to perpetrate in a million individual and corporate and official ways – the murder of God – God has turned into the means by which we can be reconciled to God forever. That is why, in the Christian story, it’s never over. No matter how bad things may seem, it’s not over. No matter how hopeless things have become, we have hope. Even when death has won the day, and evil parties in the streets, we stay tuned. We look up. We look to the cross and we remember: our God can take the worst and turn it into the best. We know, after the cross resurrection waits. Glory waits. Jesus waits and calls us to come on.

When you read it in John, it sounds like so much metaphysical happy talk, but I’m here to tell you it happens all the time in the laboratory of real life. As a pastor, I have walked with people through some hard times. We have living testimonies of the cross lift right here among us. You are the living dead, the risen faithful. Can I get a witness? Somebody here could tell us of the cross of jail, everything lost in humiliation, no future left, and then by the power of God, a new beginning, a good and meaningful work, a loving community, a rich life after that death. Another might speak of the cross of addiction, and a new life after overcoming that death. Yet another might tell of the cross of divorce and the death of a relationship with its dreams and hopes, and the grave time that follows, but then a new life beyond and a second chance and rich life after that death was suffered. Someone else has learned that life can be even better than before, more precious and vital in spite of the death of a bad diagnosis. Someone else can tell us of losing a job or a career or suffering some failure they thought they could never overcome. And then they say, “But God had something even better waiting for me I had never dared to dream.” And do you know how many times this church has died and risen to a new level of mission and ministry?

We know these stories and they are real. They are new versions of the mystery at the heart of our central story. So we lift up the cross of Christ. We wear it. We preach it. We live it. And we create a church, the beloved community, a place for grace where people of all kinds who are snake bit, dying inside and dying for some good news and dying in their struggle to survive in a dog eat dog world can come and see. It’s not over. Look up. You see that cross? It tells us God can take the worst things and turn them into the best things. And God isn’t finished with you yet.

Sometimes, precious truths can become so familiar they lose their power. We repeat them so much we forget their meaning. They become buzzwords or pop slogans. I thought today about getting a rainbow afro wig and a big sign that says John 3:16. To quote one of the old saints of UBC, “need I say more?” We memorize it as children, we hear it a million times in the course of a life in the church, we repeat it so often it becomes rote. But it doesn’t get old. And from time to time, it takes on a new power in a new situation. All of a sudden we hear it again as if for the first time. We veteran Christians who think we know it all, we’ve seen it all, but who still have trouble trusting God and accepting grace and are prone to lapse into complaining against God and each other suddenly hear again those words which reach down through time and lift our eyes to the story of the cross. Just in case you’ve forgotten, just in case you’re new, it’s the first meditation in our order of worship today. Can we read it together?
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

O, let’s say it again.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

One more time?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

It’s true. God loves us. God isn’t mad at us. God loves us. Nothing can separate us from that love, not even the worst we can do, the worst that can happen, the worst we might do to each other, the worst others might do to us. God loves us still. And God wants to give us life, full, overflowing, everlasting. How do we know? Look up. Look to the cross. And be saved. Amen. May we pray?

Gracious God, loving Lord, comforting Spirit, sometimes we forget the story. Sometimes we fail to trust. Sometimes we get so bogged down in our stuff we walk around with eyes downcast and we can only see misery, disaster, sorrow. But we are your children, Lord. And you love us. Lift our drooping shoulders and strengthen our weak knees. Fill us with courage. Fill us with faith, hope, and love. We look up to the cross and remember. We look up to you and we are saved. Amen.