Divine Paradox
God gave his only son so that
he who believes in him might not perish,
but might have eternal life.
This Feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross
is a bit of a conundrum.
Why would we exalt the cross,
a tool of death and punishment?
It is a paradox, but it is a divine paradox.
It is a divine mystery that we need to sit with
and hold and carry attention for a while
and try to understand what is going on.
Bear in mind, we should not be pollyannaish,
and gloss over this, jumping too far
into how we see the cross today.
In the time of Christ, the cross was a not a symbol,
it was a tool of cruelty, torture, and punishment.
It was used to shame the families
of those who were considered to be criminals.
Understand also it was a tool of oppression.
The occupiers, in this case the Romans,
would put on the cross anyone
who they felt were resisting the Roman rule.
And they would put them naked
and hang them on the street
on their way into the city for all to see.
It was a psychological oppression
as well as a torturous way to die.
It was a brutal way to die.
People did not die right away.
They died over days, sometimes over a week.
And so it was a horrific way to die.
So then we have to ask ourselves:
Why does God allow this to happen to His Son?
And why the Son, who is also God,
allowed this to happen to Himself?
After all, Jesus only had to blink and
He could obliterate everyone
who had anything to do with His crucifixion.
He did not even have to blink.
All he had to have is a mere thought
that they did not exist and they would not exist.
But you see, that is the very reason why he did not do it,
because that would be dominating power with power.
To fight ugliness and violence with ugliness and violence.
That does no get us anywhere!
The cycle then just continues and continues.
The message of the cross is that he put a stop to that.
Instead, he takes all that hatred,
all that violence,
all that cruelty,
all that bitterness,
all that hatred,
all that war,
he takes it into himself and he holds it.
And on the cross, he gives it back in
the form of forgiveness.
“Forgive them for they do not know what they do.”
He gives back love instead of hatred.
He gives back kindness instead of bitterness.
He gives back gentleness instead of cruelty.
You see, in the end, it is only love
that is going to win against hatred or war or ugliness or violence.
That is the message that Christ gives to us.
That is the message he understood from the Father,
and that is what the Father had for us.
And that is why he did what he did,
and that is why we exalt the cross.
That all sounds great, and all you are nodding your heads
and saying, “Oh, yeah, that is great.”
But how do we learn that internally?
How do we internalize that message
so that when it comes to our turn
to receive any bitterness, anger, hatred,
that we do the same thing.
Because we are called not just to believe,
we are called to follow what Christ did.
The only way I know how to do this is
that if we can really internalize the immensity of God's love.
But that is to really understand that
God loves us no matter what we do,
and he constantly is loving us in good times and in bad.
When we are wonderful,
He is loving us, and when we are rotten little boys or girls
or whether we are rotten men or women.
He still is loving us into His being.
He is still drawing us into Himself.
Nothing stops that.
And that is the immensity of God's love.
Let me give you an illustration.
Let me try to explain this in a different way.
Let me do it by analogy.
Let's say, you had just one glass of water,
and that is all you had.
You had no tapwater. Nothing.
This is the only glass of water you had.
I come along and I ask you
if I can have that glass of water?
What would you say?
You would do a calculation in your head.
If you really like me, you might say,
“Well, I will give you some of the water,
but I need some for myself.” Right?
Now, if an enemy, somebody who you hate,
somebody who has done you dastardly deeds,
has not done anything but undefinable stuff to you.
If he or she asked for that water, what would you say?
“Go get your own.”
Let's just be honest.
We think in scarity!
We are human, right!
If on the other hand, you had not just a glass but a bucket of water.
Now I ask you now for a glass, what would you say?
You might say, “Yeah, I will give you a glass of water
as I have enough for both of us.”
If however somebody else who you did not like asked you
you might be less inclinded and say,
“Go get your own bucket.”
Let's face it,
we do stratify our responses based upon our relationships.
That is natural.
But what if you had a swimming pool of fresh water.
You would not even hesitate to give me a glass of water.
In fact, you probably would not have a problem
giving this glass to another person.
Although you might have a struggle with it
because they were not so nice.
Now let’s go one step more:
what if you had a whole ocean of fresh water?
You would gladly give it. Why?
Because you have so much.
There is an eternal source of it.
I do not have to be scarce with it
because there is an abundance of it.
My friends, that is all we have to understand
that we do not need to be scarce about God's love to others.
Why? Because there is an abundance.
We have an ocean of God's love.
And when we have this ocean of God's love,
we are called to give it away to everyone.
Not just our family and our friends,
but indeed, maybe most especially,
those who are not pleasant.
Those who actually do dastardly deeds.
That is what we are called to do.
We have to internalize that message.
We have to really listen to that mystery
because that is our call in everyday action.
Let me give you an account for an example.
What we heard this last week with Charlie Kirk
is the exact opposite of that abundance.
That is the scarcity mentality.
Whatever his disagreement with Charlie Kirk was,
or what he said, it does not matter.
The choice to use violence like that is the scarcity mentality.
It is the epitome of the antichrist,
what it means to be a non-Christian.
The absolute opposite of being a Christian.
Any response on our behalf to want revengeance
on the perpetrator is the exact same.
The hard part is that is when we want vengeance on him
for having done that, and there lies the issue.
Jesus does not do that,
and we are called not to do that.
We also celebrated 9/11 this week, the 24th anniversary.
Another epitome of the antichrist.
The exact opposite of what Christ would do.
To kill thousands of people makes no sense,
and to have maimed millions of people
psychologically as well as physically.
We have to be very clear what it means to be a Christian
is to follow Christ from the cross.
That is why it is we exalt the cross
because it is powerful, not just symbol,
but a reality in our lives.
When somebody does us harm in our daily life,
whether in small or larger ways,
our response is to internalize it, hold onto it,
and give back gentleness, kindness,
and forgiveness, and love.
Now that is hard work, my friends,
but that is our call every day of every week.
It is so hard that we come back to remind ourselves
and receive Christ's love once again at the table,
so that we have the strength to do it for ourselves
and to do it for one another.
That is the call, to swim in
this ocean of God's loving forgiveness.
That is the exaltation of the cross, my friends.
We are called, every one of us, to receive it
and to pass it on to all.
So today, let us remember in every interaction,
whether in person or in line,
Anything online to be careful of what
we take into our hearts and what we give back out.
Everything counts, my friends.
Everything counts.
So today, let us do what Jesus did to stop the violence,
to stop the ugliness, to stop the hatred with us,
and we give back different than what we have received. Why?
Because Christ taught us how to do it on the cross.
God gave his only son so that
he who believes in him might not perish,
but might have eternal life.