Sermon, Holy Cross Day: Christ Lifted Up

Readings: Numbers 21: 4-9; Philippians 2: 6-11; John 3: 13-17

Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘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.’ (John 3: 14)

Have you been watching the much-hyped BBC historical drama King and Conqueror about the relationship between Harold Godwinson and William, duke of Normandy, and the latter’s victory at Hastings in 1066? Slightly to my surprise, the series has a good deal to say about the role of the Almighty in determining the outcome of human affairs, and dwells on the significance of Christian faith to the main protagonists. William’s rousing call to his army before the invasion of England assures them that God as well as the pope is on the Normans’ side, and the last episode – in which Harold dies, as in the Bayeux Tapestry, with an arrow in his eye – is even called ‘The Hand of God’. A title which, probably, owes rather more to Maradona than it does to the Almighty.

But there is one story told of Harold that is not included in the drama which had direct relevance to today’s feast of the Holy Cross (Holy rood day in harvest as it was called in the Middle Ages). On his way south from Stamford Bridge to Hastings, Harold supposedly stopped at Waltham Abbey in Essex, of which he was patron. That church had a huge Black Rood: a life-sized figure of Christ on the Cross made of black marble to which Harold had a particular devotion. When he got to the church, Harold prostrated himself in front of the rood, with his arms outstretched making the form of the cross. While he prayed, the image of the crucified Christ – which had formerly been looking out straight ahead of him – bowed, we are told, his head as if in sorrow. This ‘pitiable, and incredible event’, the abbey’s chronicler asserted, was witnessed by the church’s sacristan. The sorrow of the crucified Christ at the sight of Harold was a sign portending the fate that was to befall him, for, of course, he never returned to Waltham alive.

Whatever we make of the story, it reminds us effectively of how Christ was portrayed on the cross in the early middle ages. Conventionally depicted with arms outstretched horizontally, Christ is usually shown looking ahead in triumph and in victory. This is the Christ of St John’s gospel (a very different Christ from the suffering figure whom we meet in the synoptic gospels, for whom the cross represented humiliation). John’s Jesus is the Christ who triumphs when as Son of Man he is lifted up on the Cross and so returns to the Father. He is Christus victor, Christ the victory, raised up on high for all to see. That this would be the theme of St John’s gospel is clear from early in his narrative, as we heard this morning. In his account of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, John was already demonstrating that the single greatest act of his Gospel would be Jesus’ decision to be raised up on the Cross. Jesus had to be lifted up in order that he might become the means by which humanity might gain access to God. 

The cross that Harold supposedly venerated at Waltham (which sadly no longer survives) was typical of monumental crosses of the period. Showing Christ fully alive and triumphant, these are sturdy crosses, of solid bulk, standing steadfast, trophies of Christ’s victory over sin and death. The medieval hymn, Crux fidelis, ‘O faithful cross, the one noble tree among all others’, speaks to this imagery. So does the famous Old English poem, The Dream of the Rood, in which the cross speaks of its role in bearing the crucified Christ: ‘I trembled when he embraced me, but I dared not bow to the ground, or fall to the earth’s corners––I had to stand fast.’ While the cross in the poem suffered the agony of the nails and was drenched in blood, it stood fast, still at the centre of the turning world. 

At Passiontide, we dwell on the suffering of Christ, reflecting on the impact of his pain and his death on us today as well as on those who watched at the time, perhaps above all on Mary, his mother. Yet this feast encourages us to dwell on the cross itself, on the cross as a symbol of victory. It celebrates the discovery by Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, of the empty tomb and cross of Christ in Jerusalem; the church of the Holy Sepulchre was built on the site and dedicated on this day in the year 335. Celebrated in the east from then onwards, the feast was taken up in the Western Church in the seventh century and became a popular part of medieval devotion just as crosses were common features of medieval architecture. You will be familiar with churches that have screens separating the nave from the chancel at the east end that often have a cross on erected on them, so giving them the name rood screens. 

Such crosses, raised up high, serve as a constant reminder of the central message of today’s gospel: Christ was lifted up, so that all who believe in him might come to have eternal life. Among the many hymns one might choose for today, I find myself thinking of that wonderful processional hymn, Lift high the cross. ‘Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim, Till all the world adore his sacred name’. One verse refers to today’s gospel reading: ‘O Lord once lifted on the glorious tree, as thou hast promised, draw us unto thee.’

Explaining the significance of that lifting up, Jesus reminded Nicodemus of how Moses had lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. The first reading recounted that story. The Israelites had rebelled against God and Moses in the desert, complaining about the appalling food, so the Lord had sent poisonous snakes to bite them. Realising their sin, they repented and begged Moses to seek relief from God; he told Moses to raise a bronze serpent on a pole so that all who looked on it would be cured.

Jesus’ own encouragement to see the first story in the wilderness as prefiguring, pointing towards, his own elevation has encouraged theologians from Augustine onwards to dwell on the link between the two images. ‘What is the serpent lifted up?’ Augustine asked. ‘It is the Lord’s death on the cross. For as death came by the serpent, it was now figured by the image of a serpent.’ Luther went further: ‘In this serpent, God thus prefigured his own son for the people of Israel. He was to assume the form of an accursed and damned man, yes of a serpent, and so become the saviour of the world.’ Or as another authority has written, ‘Just as that hoisted up serpent was one without venom, to counteract the poisonous serpents, so the man Christ was a sinless man, to counter the old serpent.’

How are we to respond to these images? What should we take away from these readings as we prepare ourselves to meet our crucified, risen and ascended Lord in bread and wine at the altar.

We should, I think, hold onto the victory, the triumph that is inherent in Christ’s lifting up and for this our epistle is helpful. Paul wrote to the Philippians to tell them to work together to ensure their future unity, urging them to have the same mind in them that was in Christ Jesus. Then he quoted a hymn to Christ probably already well-known in early Christian circles. It told how Christ, although in God’s form, had abandoned his divinity for his life on earth; humbled he ‘became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.’ As a result, ‘God has now highly exalted him and given him the name above all others, at which every knee should bow and ‘every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father’. (Philippians 2: 11)

To say that Jesus Christ is Lord (the Greek word is kyrios) is to assert unequivocally his divinity. To call him by the name above every other name is to give him the name of God who rules all things. As Luke wrote in Acts, ‘Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord (kyrios) and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’ (Acts 2: 36).

When we look upon and venerate the Cross, we see an image of the victory of the incarnate human Christ over the powers of death and hell, and a reminder of Christ’s promise of eternal life to all who believe in him. When Harold prostrated himself before that great Cross at Waltham praying for a victory that was to elude him, we must hope that he knew the comfort of Christ’s promise that all who believe in him will not perish but will have eternal life.

The prevalence of images of and writing about the cross in Anglo-Saxon culture gives us some comfort that he probably did know that. He may well also have known the Dream of the Rood in which the poet had the cross speak of its own salvic power

Now the time has come
that far and wide they will honour me,
men over the earth and all this glorious creation,
and pray to this sign. On me the Son of God
suffered for a time; and so, glorious now
I rise up under the heavens, and am able to heal each of those who is in awe of me.

Let us pray that we, too, may always be mindful of the significance of the cross as the location and sign of that one perfect sacrifice that Christ made for each of us and for the sins of the whole world

Almighty God, 
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the Cross 
that he might draw the whole world to himself: 
Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, 
may have grace to take up our cross and follow him; 
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 
one God, now and for ever.