Jesus spoke seven times from the cross:

"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
"Today you shall be with me in Paradise."
"Woman, behold your son; son, behold your mother."
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
"I thirst."
"It is finished."
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

Let us pray:

Holy one, God of amazing grace and steadfast love, as the shadow of the cross falls over this day and touches our life, bring us to deeply consider the pattern our days have been weaving that we might repent, turn back, turn around, turn away, and turn to you.  Guide us in choosing life over death, light over darkness, love over hate.  In the Spirit of Jesus the Christ, amen.

A frequently asked question is, "Have you seen the movie?"  Meaning Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ."  My response is, "No, but I've read the book and I like the book better."  The book which tells the story not only of how Jesus died, but how Jesus lived.  "The old, old story of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love."

The movie has stirred up an enormous amount of publicity and controversy.   Andy Rooney, who on Sixty Minutes called Mel Gibson "a wacko."  received thirty thousand letters and e-mails -- the biggest review response ever to a Sixty Minute segment.

Have I seen the Movie?  No!  Will I see it?  I doubt it.  Mel Gibson's investment of 25 million dollars is expected to return a profit of at least 350 million; he won't miss my six dollars and fifty cents.  I do not need to sit through a two-hour picture of a man being beaten, tortured and finally killed.

My major concern about the movie is whether it is anti-Semitic.  Next week after worship Jennifer and i will be leading a discussion of this issue.  On a positive note, the movie presents us with a wonderful teaching and learning moment about one of the central tenets of our faith.  In the past few months Jesus has appeared on the cover, in the pages and headlines of every national magazine and local newspaper.

Years ago, Richard Niebuhr commented on how easy we have made our religion:  "A God without wrath brought men [and women] without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministration of a Christ without a cross."

The fact is, crucifixion was a horrible way to day; so we find Saint Paul writing to the Corinthians: "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles."  The cross was a brutal instrument of torture and death.  It was so horrible that Roman citizens were never crucified regardless of the crime.  For the Jewish people it was incredible that one who died on a cross could be God's Chosen One.  For the Greeks, the first characteristic of God was apathy - the total inability to feel.  They believed God was incapable of all feeling.  A god who suffered was, to the Greeks, a contradition in terms.

So Paul writes: "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles."  The cross of Jesus Christ!  Still today a stumbling block to some, folly to others, an enigma to still others, a mystery to each of us.

As I struggle to understand the mystery of the cross, I begin with words of Jesus from the Gospel of Saint John: "No one takes my life away from me, I lay it down of my own will. . .when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself."  The miracle of the cross.  Tod took this instrument of torture and death and transformed it into a sign of victory, of forgiveness and reconciliation, love and hope.

The cross reminds us that we have been bought at a price.  You are no longer your own.  You belong to God.  God has named you, claimed you, and set you free from sin and death.  You are saved because you have a savior.  The cross is also a reminder.  It is a sign that the last word is with God and that love and life are finally victorious over hatred and death.  We hold before each other in our faith tradition an empty cross, a sign not of the suffering of Jesus, important as that may be for some, but a sign of God's victory in Jesus Christ.

The cross of Jesus was not the end but the beginning - not defeat, but victory.  The cross is also a sign of God's judgment upon our life and the life of the world, which is always an expression of God's love and of God's forgiveness.  The miracle of the cross is that this dread instrument of suffering and death - a stumbling block to some and folly to others - could be transformed by God's grace into an ageless sign of God's victory and forgiveness, love and saving power so that today, even if we do not always fully understand its meaning, still we are able to stand under it and sing:

Were the whole realm of nature mine
that were a present far too small,
Love so amazing, so divine
demands my soul, my life, my all.

In the cross of Christ we glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, was lifted high upon the cross so he might draw us all to himself.  Grant that we might find the courage to follow him each day, so that we might come at last to know more fully the cost and joy of discipleship.  In his strong spirit, Amen.