Cruciformity
THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
THE REV. MICHAEL KEITH TEMPLIN, ASSISTING
Last week on September 14th the church celebrated the Feast of the Holy Cross, a festival going back to the 4th century when St. Helena, the mother of St. Constantine the Great, found the True Cross of Jesus on her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It’s fitting that today we get the wonderful epistle from St. Paul to the Galatians, where he famously proclaims: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Beloved, we are living in odd times. Our nation is becoming less religious each year - and this is happening more rapidly. There are record amounts of churches closing in the west. You can see that religious fortitude and moral standards of our nations and within our churches are slipping (or perhaps in free fall!). Jesus says in our Gospel today, “you cannot serve two masters,” and St. Paul in our Epistle says “The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” This is true for all Christians, and yet, we have an infatuation with the world! We want to serve the world! We want to acquiesce to the world's standards of morality and sexuality, and we often worship it!
We want to look young, we want to be hip, we want to be liked, we don’t want to offend—but do we want cruciformity!? Do we want to be aliens in the world or sojourners in this world? But that is precisely what the Church is called to - we are the new society - we extend God’s kingdom to a dying world like God extended the Ark to Noah. The Church is the Ark of God. We offer salvation to the world by the proclamation of what Jesus has done for us on that glorious and holy cross. Beloved, what does it mean to have the world crucified to us? It starts, once again, with Jesus' assertion in the Gospel today that we cannot serve him and someone else.
Jesus is Lord: He is our Master and God, and we are to follow him and trust in him alone for our salvation…the first commandment is “have no other god but me.” This is the great reformation of Solus Christus.
St. Paul says that we add nothing to the Gospel! We cannot add Judaism to the Gospel as was the problem in St. Paul’s day, nor can we add our own works and merit to the Gospel (which are filthy rags in comparison to Christ), nor the merits and works of the Saints as was the Issue during the reformation. We must rely solely on the Cross of Jesus by faith and because of that atoning sacrifice, then we are called to good works. This is the great doctrine of Sola Fide.
Finally, we find ways each day to die to ourselves and to crucify the world. Maybe, instead of watching TV we read the bible. Maybe instead of calling our friends for our daily gossip hour, we call someone and pray with them. Maybe instead of the random impulse buy on Amazon, we take that same money and send it to the Board of Foreign Missions. Little things add up - no they don’t add to the merit of Christ - but they do make our actions and impulses more holy each day and find ways to serve Christ better (i.e., sanctification).
Finally, if you are living in a deadly sin - something you know will keep you from the grace and mercy of God - fight it. You’ll fail, most likely, many, many times, but God is with you in the triumphs and in the pit. Don’t let sin have mastery over you.
St. Paul lived a life in such cruciformity with Jesus, he carried wounds that he had attained by serving Jesus. Stoned, beaten, shipwrecked, hungered, imprisoned, all for the preaching of the glorious Cross of Jesus - eventually, he died to preach the cross to Caesar. If he can be faithful with such an immense burden of the Gospel, surely, we can find ways to live where Christ is Lord, and we are not in our daily lives - simply, yes, but faithfully.
For the great reformer Martin Luther, the Book of Galatians spoke to the very heart of the Roman Catholic controversy in the 16th century - what the Church battled there, was almost identical to the 1st-century issues with Judaism. He commented on our Epistle today in his commentary on Galatians and it speaks to the very core on our duties as Christians and, therefore cross bearers:
“just as slaves bear the distinctive tokens, the arms, and the colors of their masters, so Paul and every Christian carries in his own body the cross of his lusts and vices—not indeed in the way in which it is customary nowadays to picture on a wall or in paintings and books the distinctive tokens of Christ assembled on a shield. No, every Christian carries this cross in the body—and in my own body, not in someone else’s. What good will it do if you carry even in gold and precious stone, not only the distinctive tokens but also the very nails, yes, the very wounds and blood of Christ, and never express the living image in your body?”
See, we can process the treasures of the Church, relics of the saints, or even the Blessed Sacrament around. But it is for naught if we don’t truly carry Jesus in us. God help us to truly carry Christ in our bodies, to be crucified with Christ and to the world, may we also loving and truthfully share Jesus' invitation to take up his cross with others by evangelization and, finally, serve the one singular Master faithfully to the end. Amen.
