If somebody unfamiliar with Christianity walked into any church today and looked around, one of the first things they would notice would probably be the cross. There may be one on the wall, one on the altar, and quite possibly several hanging around people's necks. The cross is everywhere in Christian life.
And it might be worth pausing for a moment and remembering how extraordinary that really is. The cross was originally an instrument of execution. It was a symbol of shame, suffering and death. Nobody in the Roman world would have thought of wearing one as jewellery any more than we might wear a tiny electric chair around our necks. It was a brutal reminder of human cruelty and human power.
And yet today, all over the world, Christians gather not to hide the cross away but to celebrate it. We sing about it. Some mark themselves with its sign. We place it at the centre of our churches and at the centre of our faith.
Why? Because God took what seemed to be the ultimate sign of defeat and turned it into a sign of victory. He took what appeared to be the triumph of evil and transformed it into the means by which the world could be saved.
That is the mystery at the heart of Holy Cross Day.
Our Gospel reading (John 3:13-17) takes us back to a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus is trying to understand who Jesus really is and what he has come to do. In the middle of that conversation Jesus refers to a rather strange story from the book of Numbers (21:4-9).
The Israelites have been travelling through the wilderness. They become impatient and started complaining. They forgot how much had already been done for them and become fixated on all that they think they lack.
It is a story we can perhaps all sympathise with… We can receive countless blessings from God and yet find ourselves dwelling too much on the one thing that is going wrong. Gratitude comes naturally on some days but on many others, complaint seems to come much more easily.
Going back to the reading from Numbers, the people lose sight of God and the consequences are serious. Poisonous serpents spread through the camp and many people are bitten. Eventually the people recognise their need and turn back to God. Moses prays for them and God provides a remedy. But not an expected one!
Moses is instructed to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole. Whoever has been bitten is to look at it and live…. It is a strange story and perhaps one that raises as many questions as it answers. Yet Jesus sees in it a picture of his own saving work.
"Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up."
In other words, the bronze serpent was always pointing beyond itself. It was a signpost preparing God's people for something greater that was still to come.
The people could not cure themselves. They could not remove the poison flowing through their bodies. They could not rescue themselves through determination, good intentions or hard work. They had to look to God's provision.
And that is exactly the situation of humanity before God.
We live in an age that likes to believe that every problem has a solution if only we work hard enough. We rightly celebrate education, technology, self-improvement and human achievement, yet none of them can solve the deepest problem of the human heart.
The Bible of course calls that problem sin. It’s not a fashionable word, but it remains accurate. We know what it is to hurt people we love. We know what it is to act selfishly. We know what it is to ignore God when it suits us. We know what it is to carry regrets and failures that no amount of positive thinking can simply erase.
That brings us to those famous Biblical words that have probably done more to introduce people to the Christian faith than any others: "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."
Notice where the story begins. It isn’t with our love for God or our search for God. Not even with our obedience to God.
It begins with God's love for us!
God so loved the world. Not God so loved the respectable or the religious or the successful. God so loved the world.
The world in all its brokenness. The world in all its rebellion. The world with all its pain, confusion and failure…. God loved the world enough to enter it.
That is what Paul celebrates in the words we heard from Philippians (2:6-11). Jesus was in the form of God, yet he emptied himself and took the form of a servant. Jesus stepped into our world and lived among us. He embraced all the limitations of human life. He experienced weariness, temptation, sorrow and grief. He walked our roads and shared our struggles.
More than that, he humbled himself even to death on a cross.
The heart of the Christian faith is not that we climb our way up to God. It is that God has come down to us.
And he has come all the way down. Down into the mess of human life. Down into suffering. Down into rejection. Down into death itself.
That is one of the reasons why the cross remains such a powerful source of comfort. It reminds us that God is not distant from human suffering, not detached from the realities of life.
The Psalm (22:23-28) today says that God has not hidden his face from those who suffer but has heard their cry and the cross proves that.
Whenever we are struggling, whenever we wonder whether God understands what we are going through, we can look to Jesus crucified. There we see God who knows what it is to suffer. There we see God who knows what it is to be abandoned, rejected and wounded, God who enters our pain rather than standing at a safe distance from it.
But Holy Cross Day is not simply about comfort. It is also about invitation.
The Israelites had to look at the bronze serpent and that sounds quite simple – no complicated rituals and no list of achievements to complete or tests to pass - simply look and trust.
And that remains the invitation of the Gospel. Look to Jesus. Trust him. Receive the forgiveness he offers. Receive the life he promises.
John's Gospel repeatedly tells us that eternal life is found through believing in Jesus. Not earning it. Not purchasing it. Not proving ourselves worthy of it.
Receiving it. Trusting him.
For some of us, that may be a reminder we need to hear again. We may have been Christians for years, yet it is surprisingly easy to drift into thinking that our relationship with God depends upon our own performance. We begin to imagine that God loves us more on our good days and less on our bad ones.
The cross tells us otherwise. The cross tells us that salvation begins and ends in grace. The love that saved us is the love that sustains us.
And perhaps for some people, Holy Cross Day is an opportunity to look afresh at Jesus. Not merely as a good teacher or an inspiring figure from history, but as the Saviour who gave himself for the life of the world. Because the wonderful thing about today's Gospel is that it finishes not with condemnation, but with hope.
"God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
That is the message of Holy Cross Day.
The cross is not God pointing an accusing finger at the world. It is God stretching out his arms to embrace the world. The cross tells us that however far we may have wandered, there is a way home. However burdened we may be by regret, there is forgiveness. However uncertain the future may appear, there is hope.
When we look at the cross we don’t simply see what human beings did to Jesus. We see what God has done for us.
And perhaps that is why Christians have always been drawn back to the cross. We never outgrow our need of it. We never reach the point where we can say that we have moved beyond it. The newest believer and the oldest stand in exactly the same place, dependent on the same grace and trusting in the same Saviour.
The cross remains at the centre because Jesus remains at the centre.
So today, as we celebrate Holy Cross Day, perhaps we might take away one simple challenge.
Take time this week to look again at Jesus.
In the busyness of life, in the pressures of work, family and responsibilities, it is easy for us to be distracted… But the invitation of today's readings is to lift our eyes again.
Look to Jesus and remember that you are loved.
Look to Jesus and remember that you are forgiven.
Look to Jesus and remember that your life is held in the hands of God who gave himself for you.
And then, having looked to Jesus, let’s help others to see him too.
There are many people around us who carry all sorts of worries – some wonder whether their lives matter. Many have little sense of God's love for them. And we see them day by day…
They will see how we live. They will hear how we speak. They will notice whether there is something different about the hope we carry… The Gospel does not ask us to have all the answers. It simply asks us to point people towards Jesus.
That is what the bronze serpent did in the wilderness. It pointed people to God's provision. That is what the cross continues to do today. It points us to God's saving love revealed in Jesus.
So let us leave today thankful for the cross, confident in the love of God, and ready to follow wherever he leads.
And whenever life becomes difficult, whenever faith feels hard, whenever doubts begin to creep in, let us remember the simple invitation at the heart of today's Gospel:
Lift up your eyes and look to Jesus. Trust in his love. And live. Amen.
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