The light of heaven: Light from the darkness of the cross 2/15-16, 2020 Carroll First UMC

  The light of heaven: Light from the darkness of the cross

2/15-16, 2020 Carroll First UMC

The cross is one of the best-known symbols in the world. Upon seeing a cross, just about anyone, from any country in the world associates the cross with Christianity. It is by far one of the most universally recognized religious symbols on the planet. It has not always been so.

  In the early days, Christianity was illegal. Displaying a cross was dangerous. The anchor became the primary symbol for the faith. We see it in the Bible in Hebrews 6:19. We see it inscribed on tombs in the early catacombs until about 400 AD. The anchor is a reminder that Jesus is stability in an ever-changing world.  It is a symbol of our firm hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ who is our anchor in all the storms of life.

   Do you know we have an anchor stained glass window? It is the same age as the Jesus window, 119 years old from the previous building. It is found on the landing as you go upstairs to the third floor. You can also see it lit up at night if you drive Adams street.

   This window is a rose window, but it has an anchor and a cross in it.

 It looks like maybe too many people have touched it over the years, but it says, “Faith, Hope, and Charity.”

 See how the anchor contains a cross?

We also have a hidden cross in the sanctuary… OK, it isn’t hidden, but you must be very observant to see it. Where is it?

 Yes, up there above the Jesus window is a cross in the brick. There are crosses everywhere in the church.

 That brings us to what I call the cross window. This beautiful window presents the cross in three different ways. Individually, the symbols are simple. What I find interesting is the relationship between the three symbols. I am sure they can be interpreted a variety of ways and I will only share one today. I’d love to hear how you interpret that set of images. Let’s start by looking at each symbol separately.

 First let’s look at the symbol on the right. We see a Bible, some leaves, and the cross.

Most prominently we see the Holy Bible. The Bible reminds us that Jesus is the Word of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word took on flesh and dwelt among us.”

Then we see the vine. Do you member what our first thought should be when we see a vine in a stained-glass window? “I am the vine; you are the branches.” Jesus came that we might “have life and have it abundantly.” He is the vine; we are the branches. If we abide in him (the Word) we have life, and apart from him, we can do nothing (we have death).

Look at the Bible again. What color is it? Purple. Purple represents one of two things Christ’s suffering, or the sovereignty and royalty of God. Think about the altar cloths. In lent, we use purple to remember suffering. In Advent we use purple to welcome God’s mighty act in becoming Jesus Christ. Given that the purple Bible is on a cross, I’m going to guess that in this case it points to Christ’s suffering.

Jesus suffered on the cross because he met some broken, sinful, evil, and unjust people and they tortured and killed him. The world in which we live is a broken, sinful, evil, unjust, and oppressive place. Why? Because we are broken, sinful, evil, unjust, and oppressive people. We are sinners, and we have turned the world into something very different from the world God intended in the Garden of Eden. God’s ultimate answer for that was to be born among us, live among us, and die for us. Whether you say, he died to pay our penalty, he died to ransom us from hell, he died to be our sacrificial lamb, or he died to show us just how much God really loves lost sheep like us… they all come down to “Jesus died for us.” That is one of the fundamental meanings of the cross. It is reminder that Jesus died for us, and the empty cross reminds us that God raised him from the dead so that we might be raised to eternal life in him.

I think this symbol, then, is about remembering. Remembering that Jesus lived to bring us life. Remembering that Jesus died to bring us eternal life. Remembering the whole good news of Jesus Christ. It contains the story of how God saved us and is saving us. We remember because that’s what disciples do.

Let’s turn to the middle window. I see this as the discipleship window. This is the way we should be living today.

The crown in the window of course reminds us of a king. We need to live as though Christ really is king in our lives. We need to live like we really mean it when we say, “Jesus is Lord.” We need to take our comfort, our desires, our ego, our prosperity out of the driver’s seat of our lives and subject them to our lord and master Jesus Christ.

If we do that the palm branch makes more sense. When Roman warriors came back from battle victorious palm branches were laid at their feet as a sign of victory. Remember the triumphal entry into Jerusalem in which people waved palm branches and shouted, “hosanna! Save us! Hosanna!” I think this palm branch reminds us that Jesus has already won victory over all the sin, evil, and oppression in our lives. It is not enough for a disciple to say, “Jesus is Lord.” A disciple must live as one who knows that the battle is already won by Jesus. Because of Jesus, we are no longer victims of sin. We are saved people. We need to live as saved people because that’s what disciples do.

But wait how can the cross, the symbol of Roman torture and oppression, be part of this symbol of victory? Those of us in the church are accustomed to hearing the story of Christ’s victory on the cross and victory over the grave. But to outsiders it seems ridiculous. Paul says, the “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” It does sound foolish or unbelievable that the almighty, all powerful, all knowing, creator of heaven and earth; the God of yesterday, today and tomorrow would come as a baby in the flesh for our salvation. And it is even more foolish to say that he died on the cross to save us. But it is not foolish it is a story of love: God’s extreme love for us. Even the name Jesus tells us that “he will save his people from their sins.” (1:21) So even in the face of the cross, even surrounded by sin, we are victors in Jesus Christ. We need to live as victors, because that’s what disciples do.

Finally, we move to the last panel in this window. I love this image. I took the liberty of replacing the stained glass with what I see when I look at the window.

  We talked about the first window being a window of remembering what God has done in  the past. The second window is living the victory we have in Christ today. You might have guessed that this window has to do with the future.

Imagine a great storm and your boat is swamped and sunk. You bob around in your life jacket for a few days, but that is getting old and the odds of being saved are dwindling by the hour. And then you see this. This tiny safe spot in a whole ocean that is trying to kill you. You might have to share it with 300 or 400 seagulls, but it is land, it is safety. It is hope.

We float around in our lives, sometimes bobbing fiercely with the stormy waves that come. Waves of poor health, grief, the loss of a job, the loss of a relationship. Maybe you share the churning wave of mental illness with me, I know several of you face fierce wave of addiction one day at a time. Whatever your storm might be, we bob around going nowhere, having no hope of being rescued, no hope of finding land, just waiting to be swallowed up by the sea, or even worse by a shark.

Is that the way Christ wants us to be? No, we are disciples of the lord of hope. We are followers of the one who brought hope to a hopeless world. In Christ there is hope. For all of us who bob around aimlessly Christ is our hope for tomorrow an all the tomorrows to come.

Again, skeptics look at the cross and laugh. They think that is a stupid way for God to act. But for those of us who live spend our lives bobbing up and down in the dark cold sea, Christ is our only hope. We know that the love of God is greater than the skepticism of people. God’s vision is greater than the vision of any person. God’s weakness is stronger than human strength and God’s foolishness is greater than our wisdom. In him all things are possible.

We can’t see what tomorrow will bring… and that’s probably a good thing. But we always have hope because tomorrow is in Jesus’ hands. We always have hope because it is Jesus who calmed the storm. We always have hope because Jesus proved that God’s power to give life is greater than any power people have to take it away.

“Don’t worry about tomorrow” Jesus says, “Tomorrow will have enough troubles of its own.” I wish I was better at not worrying about tomorrow, or this summer, or next year, or 5 minutes from now. But in Jesus we have all the hope in the world. Nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Because just when we need it most, Christ appears as a small island refuge for us. Jus when we need it most Christ appears silhouetted with the sun of a new day rising behind him. We need never lose hope because he is not only the alpha… the beginning… he is also the Omega… the end. Jesus is first and last and everything in between, and because of him there is always hope. That is the way disciples live.

The cross the a most powerful symbol for us… The cross of remembrance, the cross of discipleship, the cross of hope. What a powerful message in that window.

 There is a tower called the FAIR ZE TURM tower. It just means television in German. Between the years 1965 and 1969 the tower was built to transmit television signals. Imagine the shock of the hard-line atheist-communist government of East Germany discovered that the 1200-foot-tall tower they bought and paid for was topped with a 105-foot tall cross. Well, it isn’t really topped by the cross, but the tiles that were used in construction reflect in such a way that much of the time there appears to be a cross on the sphere. The government was furious and embarrassed. The architect has always denied that he knew that would happen… but people call it the pope’s revenge on the atheistic, communist government that used to grip that nation. The government has tried everything to get rid of the cross, including painting the tiles with special paint, but the cross can not be removed.

 Kind of an amusing story, but in the tradition of Aesop’s fables it teaches that nothing is more powerful than the cross of Christ.

I am so thankful for our cross window that reminds us of what Jesus did for us. Shows us how we live as disciples and assures us that we can never be so lost that we are out of reach of the cross of hope.

May the cross in our window and the cross you bear on your heart be reminders of God’s great love for you in Jesus Christ.

 May the cross in our window and the cross you bear on your heart make you more loving and faithful each day.

May the cross in our window and the cross you bear on your heart be a sign of hope. Let it remind you that not even the tomb is the end of the story for God.

May the cross in our window and the cross you bear on your heart be just as bright, just as beautiful, and just as stubborn as the cross on the tower.