CRUCIFORM LIFE
Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity
The Rev. Marq Toombs+ Curate
The Collect. Keep, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle. Galatians 6:11-18; The Gospel. Matthew 6:24-34
In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.”
These are not just poetic words, they are prophetic words, spoken and written by the Christian pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer not long before he was imprisoned by the Nazis and executed.
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.”
In a therapeutic age like ours, that is not what we expect to hear – especially at Church, not even from the pulpit.
No, many people would much rather hear, “When Christ calls a person, he offers him a way to happiness and gives him a chance to discover his best life now.”
But half-truths and whole lies never saved anyone.
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.”
This is the truth. It’s a way of saying that when Christ calls you, he requires you to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him all the way to the end of your life.
In other words, the cross must become far more than a status symbol or religious decoration; it must become a spiritual declaration and sacramental demonstration of our faith in Jesus Christ.
Now, the trouble is that we have a bitter-sweet relationship with the cross, don’t we? It’s sweet to focus on the cross at Church. It’s bitter to focus on the cross in the rough and tumble of daily life. Why? Because in this life one distraction after another just keeps on coming. Over time the cross seems less important, less necessary, less crucial. Other things seem more relevant and practical.
O, you foolish Christians! You silly Anglicans! Who has bewitched you? Who has “cast a spell on you”? (St Jerome — see also The Message).
It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The story of the cross was “written out in graphic detail beforehand” by the prophets and the apostles. You have heard it and seen it for yourself!
What happened to you?
It’s so easy to lose focus and look away from the cross and to lock on to other things.
In this age of entertainment and distraction it is so easy to amuse and amaze ourselves to death with trivial matters.
To break the spell, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, I want to portray the cross in all its graphic details and turn your eyes on Jesus:
[Selected from Isaiah 52-53]
“The Lord has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
he shall be high and lifted up,
and shall be exalted.
14 As many were astonished at you—
his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
15 so shall he sprinkle many nations.Kings shall shut their mouths because of him,
for that which has not been told them they see,
and that which they have not heard they understand.
2 For he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.4 Truly he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
[we have been bewitched, charmed,
distracted, enchanted, and fascinated
by the gods of lesser things];
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.”
Do you know what that means?
“It means the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.” Galatians 1:4
So Turn again and Take up the cross and treasure it in your heart and life.
The cross is your defense against the dark arts.
The message of the gospel breaks the spell and saves you.
The cross is your defense against the dark arts.
The sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist deliver you from evil and keep you safe.
The cross is your defense against the dark arts.
That is why crossing yourself in prayer and contemplating a crucifix can ward off the devil and help you re-center your heart and life on Jesus.
As Martin Luther said: “The cross puts everything to the test. It puts to death our wisdom and our righteousness. It is the supreme demonstration of God’s love, and the supreme condemnation of human pride.”
“My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19): Wake up! Come back to reality. Turn your eyes on Jesus! Take up your cross and follow him.
The Cross shapes your relationship with God:
As the Scripture says, we have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer we who live, but it is Christ who lives in us. And the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. Galatians 2:20
St John Chrysostom said, “these words allude to Baptism and our subsequent manner of life whereby our members are put to death. By saying Christ lives in me, he means nothing is done by me, which Christ disapproves, because we have been delivered from sin.”
The Cross shapes your relationship with Sin & the Spirit:
As the Scripture says, Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Galatians 5:24-25
The flesh must die that the Spirit may thrive.
Basil the Great said, “We crucify the flesh by being baptized in the water of baptism, which is a likeness of the cross and his death, his entombment and his resurrection.”
Then, as baptized Christians we keep on crucifying the flesh by turning away from it and taking up the cross and trusting in Jesus again and again, world without end.
The Cross shapes your relationship with the world, the flesh, and the devil:
As the Scripture says, May we never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to us, and we to the world. Galatians 6:14
As baptized Christians who participate in the Body and Blood of Jesus our posture and position towards this world have changed, is changing, and will change.
We must now live in the world with a sense of holy detachment and holy disinterest.
The cross teaches us ‘to care yet not to care’ (TS Eliot) about politics, sports, and religion — ‘to care yet not to care’ about money, sex, and power – to hold all things in an open hand not a closed fist.
As an old hymn goes:
Forbid it Lord, that we should boast,
save in the cross of Christ, our God.
All the vain things that charm us most,
we sacrifice them to his blood.
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die” in order that we might truly live.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
