My preference would be to just embed videos of my homilies here, but we have hired a new digital production coordinator at St. Paul’s and are still ironing things out. The audio is a bit blown out on this one, sadly. But if you can find a comfortable listening volume and you prefer the visual (and noticing where I riff from my manuscript), you’re welcome to visit our YouTube account here (and I’ve linked to where the Gospel reading begins). For the rest of us who like to parse words, I’ll paste below. This one was a little more meandering, a bit more “vibey” and emotional rather than having a definitive thesis.

Lately my preaching has been taking on a…I dunno, more dour tone? I always try to finish with what I think the Good News of the Gospel is. I think I’ve just been more convicted lately that much of Anglicanism in general is more ritualistic social club. I don’t think that’s true in every individual Anglican parish, of course. But when was the last time you heard a homily focused on sin? And my last one on judgment. Based on the feedback I get from parishioners, these are things we need to be reminded of, but have fallen “out of style”, as it were.

There is a balance to the Christian life; in fact, I think this is one of the most compelling elements of it. God’s mercy and judgment, love and rebuke, etc., are not binaries, are not opposite sides of the same coin. They are indivisible characteristics of who God is, and to neglect any of these attributes is to present a false God. But anyone who has been in a pulpit knows that it is difficult to do this sort of formational teaching in a 15-minute homily. So, you build a huge, beautiful portrait—over many weeks—with the hope that folks are compelled to be the fullest version of a human that God has created them to be, and to not create barriers for others to do the same. I think that’s why we do this. I think that’s the church at her best.

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Feast of the Holy Cross
Numbers 21:4b–9; Psalm 98:1–5; John 3:13–17
St. Paul’s Westdale
14 September 2025

I’m a history guy, and while I do serious research and writing and whatnot, in this instance I’m going to try not to bore you, but rather ask you to journey with me for a little while. Today is the Feast of the Holy Cross. You might have no idea what this day is actually about—and that’s fine.

Historically this day commemorates three related events that aren’t mentioned in our readings. First, the discovery of the True Cross of Christ in the early fourth century by Emperor Constantine’s mom, St Helena. You might remember Constantine as the guy who made Christianity the one legal religion in the empire at that time. Anyway, legend has it that she oversaw excavations in the Holy Land, and found the actual cross that Jesus was crucified on; and this was apparently verified because there were two other cross found on the same site. You find three crosses, and you probably hope one was Jesus’, so how do you figure that out? Easy. A woman who was on her deathbed was brought to the site. They made her touch each of the three crosses; the third one miraculously restores her health. So there you go. And on that site, Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That’s the second main thing commemorated on this day. The third is the rescue of, apparently, this same True Cross from the hands of the Persians when they tried to conquer Jerusalem in the early 600s, so nearly 300 years later. That’s a long story for another day.

Now, you can probably detect already the skepticism in my voice in recounting this history; or maybe your skeptical spidey sense is tingling. There’s no way they found the actual cross of Christ. It’s much more likely that other political criminals were hung from the same cross until it had degraded enough over time that the Romans pulled it down and trashed it—I would imagine they’d use the wood for fire after it wasn’t stable enough to hold up bodies anymore. My brain says that these quote-unquote “discoveries” were likely motivated purely by politics. After all, the idea of the cross was used by Constantine as a powerful rallying flag before the major battle that defined his ultimate victory over his opponents as he vied for control of the empire. One of the days just before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, where Constantine would defeat Maxentius to claim the throne, he has a vision while marching with his army. He sees a cross above the sun, and with it sees the words (in Greek), “in this sign, conquer.” And he did. Fascinating.

I’m a bit bothered by this, to be honest with you, because in our Gospel reading, Jesus seems to have a very different idea about what the cross would mean for him and his followers. Really in either of our readings, there’s nothing about the cross serving as a political symbol, certainly not a military symbol. So: what do I actually think about the cross, regardless of the historical reasons for the establishment of this feast day?

I only read a few verses from John 3, including perhaps the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, but since this day only comes around once a year, I want to spend a little more time in the larger context of those verses. In our heads, or at least in mine, in the context that our brains construct, if I asked you where and when and who actually utters those words (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), I wonder how many people would guess correctly. So, if you’ll allow me, I want to read the whole passage (3:1–21). Partly to add some drama, but partly to help reframe our idea of what the cross really is about.

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 “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.

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

So the context here: Jesus and Nicodemus are hanging out having a late-night chat, at whatever place Jesus was staying in Jerusalem after the wedding of Cana and after throwing out everyone from the Temple. Maybe he’s sitting outside the house he’s staying at, or maybe they’ve taken a walk through the city. This is a heart to heart; a Pharisee, Nicodemus, probably witnessed or heard from the other leaders what Jesus had done, and so he comes to him secretly, in the dark. This isn’t a public grandstanding moment when Jesus is shouting for all to hear. It’s a quiet conversation, one where relationship and rapport is built.

When we get to verse 11, where our reading for today started, Jesus is talking with Nicodemus as a potential ally in the cause, and I think he sees Nicodemus’ curiosity and hunger which separates him from the rest of the Pharisees. He’s about to make a point that will change Nicodemus’ life forever, that will stand as the fulcrum on which the balance of his belief hangs. You can see it in the careful use of pronouns. “We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen”—Jesus and his followers—“but you”—Nicodemus and the other Pharisees—“do not receive our testimony. If I’ve told you”—Nicodemus and the other Pharisees—“about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”

A potent, loaded question, for sure—but then he drops the real bombshell: he came down from heaven, and he will be lifted up on the cross just like Moses lifted up the serpent, for all to see, as a spectacle of God’s love and the offer of forgiveness extended to all who look upon him. Whoever believes that this is true will have eternal life. Now, that’s a promise that would have been totally nonsensical just a couple hundred years ago, before the Pharisees existed. The Pharisees, in part, were the ones who popularized the notion of an eternal, joyous afterlife, which was essentially foreign to early Israelite thought, and certainly to early Jewish theology. It was the Pharisees who popularized the notion of resurrection, too. “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.” Ground-breaking wisdom shared in the dark, with one man: a Pharisee.

But he doesn’t stop there. God did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it. I don’t think Jesus came in his mission to supplant the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, the earthly courts of judges, nor Pilate or any of the other Roman secular judges. He’s not the first coming of Judge Judy. Again, we must think about him having this conversation with a Pharisee. They were known to overburden people with hundreds of distillations of the larger biblical law—for the purpose of judgment. They were motivated by garnering public attention from others for their piety—so they could turn their so-called holiness around and judge others. They wanted to gate-keep God’s kingdom from others through their own judgments of who was doing what rightly or wrongly. And they spent so much time doing these things that they neglected the poor, the widows, the justice and mercy to which all God’s people had been called by the prophets. Jesus is saying that the folks who see him for who he is will fall down before him, will relinquish their stranglehold on systems of injustice, will understand their sin for what it is, will see that the gates are now wide open.

But, sadly, the ones who refuse condemn themselves. We should not confuse the purpose of God’s mission with the effect of that mission. God’s mission is one of rescue. In many ways, the ship is sinking. And there are life preservers, and boats we can climb into. But God does not simply make a divine decree from the safety of a helicopter floating above the waters; his boots are wet and on the deck as he grabs our hands and pulls us on board to safety. In that imaginative portrait, I don’t want you to mistake the elements; I am not saying the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and man wouldn’t everything be better if God could just come down and airlift us out of it, and just let the rest of the world burn and be done with it and we can go on to paradise. No; resoundingly, no! God has descended from heaven and ascended again to save us from ourselves. But when someone doesn’t want to be saved, God does not force their hand. What did Paul say to the Corinthians? “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

The lifting of the serpent in the wilderness by Moses was an elegant—though temporary—solution to their problem with sin, with disobedience, with those who were perishing—in this instance, quite literally. Here a simple act of gazing upon a symbol of death worked to restore the relationship fractured by ungratefulness, by despair, and ultimately the making of an idol of what the people thought was best for themselves rather than keying into what God had told them was best for them. An act of foolishness saved the people! Thus, likewise, the lifting of Christ on the cross has a dual function: to remind the people who witness it of the love of God by the sending of the Father’s Son, that a way of mercy is once again made clear in the wilderness—but also that we are sinful creatures in need of rescue from ourselves to become more fully ourselves. Healing occurs at the nexus of confession and repentance, as one commentator puts it (Stubbs, Brazos).

There is a reason we are clothed in red today on this Feast of the Holy Cross; among other things, red symbolizes the blood shed on the cross—the blood we drink together at the table of the Lord. The blood of Christ that paid for our sins, to make relationships whole again. There is thus also a reason that we pray each week: Forgive us our sins, as we forgive the sins of others. It is necessary for us to look upon the elevated cross and remember why Christ came down from heaven, and why he is now seated at the right hand of God. In the present day, it is most fashionable to talk about the sins of the Church—of which there are certainly many! The sins of the imperial church, the state church that both legalized Christianity and sought to control it, reverberate ever on as we deal with what happens when the cross turned from a symbol of both weakness and triumph over sin and death into a symbol of power. It is less fashionable, less comfortable, to talk about our individual sins. Of the ways we have been bitten by the snake, but especially of the ways we have goaded that snake. Of the ways we have, just like the Pharisees, made it our business to judge and condemn, focused on earthly things.

But friends, the Good News of the Gospel is this: he has been elevated on the cross, drawing us near to him in the wilderness of this life, inviting us to sit with him as with Nicodemus in the dark, and he has offered us eternal life. How will we respond to the foolishness of the cross?

Amen.