The house in Seattle where I grew up happens to sit on the top of a hill. For those of you familiar with the landscape of the great Northwest, you know that many people can make such a claim, as that city set between the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges is filled with steep as well as sloping inclines. From our hill, however, is a special sight. There on the top of another hill just about three miles away is the domed roof of a church. White and ribbed it looked to me as a girl like pictures of a European cathedral and on its top rested a large cross. From the window of my bedroom I could see that cross. It was centered perfectly between the swayed sashes of my curtains.

It's been over twenty years since I lived in that room but the image of what I now know as Holy Names Academy is still clear in my mind. I've come to appreciate how the daily sight of that cross played an important part in the development of my faith. It came to be a sign of God's presence in my life. Each time I entered my room, it was there before me. Like an icon hanging on the wall, that Christian symbol was a relevant part of my growing years in a way it might never have been otherwise. I was Protestant, after all, and we don't typically hang crosses on our walls, as we know so well, just as we don't necessarily wear them around our necks.

We all have a personal history with the cross. Some of our memories might be positive, others negative, but no matter how this image entered our lives I'm quite certain it had some degree of influence. For some of us like me the cross may have become an inspirational building block, revealing God's presence in subtle ways; for others the cross might have been less constructive or even harmful, conjuring up feelings of being judged or even excluded. From both the public and private perspectives this sign of Christian life has impacted so many of us in the world since Constantine made it the central symbol of our faith back in the fourth century. And so I wonder, what has it meant to us? How do we sense God working through this historical sign?

Theologian Cleland McAfee called the cross, "A throne of God's revelation." Appreciating the ways this symbol sheds light on the new life we receive through Christ's death and resurrection we may often associate it with the theological underpinnings of our faith. As we heard Jesus proclaim in our Scripture reading last week we know that if we truly want to be disciples we must take up the cross and follow in his way of sacrifice and compassionate living (Matthew 16: 24). The cross, conveying the power of God over even the clutches of death, invites us to leave the ways of the world behind in order to enter a more spiritual existence, one that places faith over reason, hope above despair and love over the endless pursuit of power, possessions and personal security.

But as much as the cross helps us to transcend our earthly existence I believe it also encourages us to more fully engage with the realities in our day-to-day lives. For it's "at the foot of the cross" as we often sing during Lent that we're invited to meet God in our greatest humanity, as this is the place where Christ was most fully human himself. Witnessing the suffering of Jesus through the crucifixion we realize that agony and affliction are not mysteries to God. Through Christ - the One we believe to be God incarnate, God in completely human form - we see that our Creator knows the excruciating side of life: the darkness of betrayal and rejection, bodily humiliation and harm. The words we hear Jesus utter on the night before he dies are so real, as he cries out in desperation, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew 26: 39). We see so clearly in this moment that human like us Jesus did not want to suffer. Yet because of his full humanity he, again like us, suffered.

Athanasius, the saint born at the close of the third century, once wrote that God through Jesus Christ "became what we are that He might make us what He is." Appreciating the power of the cross as it signifies God's experience of suffering and ultimate transcendence over death leads us to understand that this image is a healing sign. Writer Georgia Harkness calls the cross "God's way of uniting suffering with love," illuminating the fact that through the experience of human trial God is not beaten down and neither are we. As we know, though killed that day on Calvary, Jesus is resurrected and hailed as the Christ come Easter morning. In all his humanity he remains divine, leading the way to a reality of healing and hope for all our lives.

It's this kind of grace that makes our Christian beliefs so incredibly unique. The concept of God in human form - it's almost unfathomable. The fact that this God-made-human is willing to suffer is nearly unbelievable. And then, finally, the way God transforms that suffering into the miraculous and life-giving redemption of the resurrection seems simply too good to be true. But this is the grace we know in our Christian convictions. The God we come to trust through Jesus Christ is one who leads the way through human suffering and sadness, making the cross not only a sign of our history but also a powerful signal of our healing.

"The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1: 18). Paul's words to the Corinthians are as relevant to us now as they were to members of the early church back in the first century. For just as those men and women faced challenges as they sought solace and inspiration from their faith, so we, too, need to be encouraged to embrace the truths of our religion despite the many other conflicting messages that surround us. The cross as a signal of healing and Christ as our Savior in suffering does not easily align with the teachings of our time. That's the way it was for this early church community as well. The Christian gospel has always run contrary to "popular" belief and "modern" information. Even back in the fifties of that first century the message of the cross appeared to be mere "foolishness" to many.

And so Paul asks, "Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of the age?" Writing to a group mixed in background and perspective Paul addressed Jews and Gentiles alike, the learned as well as the illiterate. Located in a port city of prosperous trade, this Corinthian church was as diverse as the population around them. The Jewish converts brought hope for a powerful and political messiah that would put an end to their oppression. The Greeks among them looked for a teacher of renown, wise and thoroughly educated. Instead, the teachings of this faith gave them the son of a carpenter, a modest Christ, lover of the lost and outcast, crucified, then, like a criminal. None of it made sense. As Paul says, the radical way God chose to break into the world was "a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Christ is the power and wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1: 23-24)."

It's never been easy or logical to practice the Christian faith, but as James Denney, the Scottish theologian, noted at the turn of the twentieth century, "The kingdom of God is not for the well-meaning but for the desperate." For all the ways the teachings of Christ run contrary to our intellectual advances and scientific discoveries they remain filled with ultimate truth, helping us to make sense of the senseless, filling us with hope when we're hopeless, giving us the assurance that no matter what comes our way God will be by our side. Like those men and women living in Corinth we're offered the chance to stand up in the face of doubt and despair to proclaim "Christ crucified" as we hear in our reading today. It isn't perfectly logical and yet we learn to trust it makes perfect sense. In the shadow of the cross we grow as disciples and as Christian community.

Henri Nouwen, theologian and devotional writer, explains this process of growth in a work titled "The Wounded Healer." Describing God's transforming presence in our private as well as public lives he states, "[Christ's] appearance in our midst has made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross." He then goes on to describe how in the light of this intersection we're healed through the sharing of our own suffering:

"A Christian community is therefore a healing community not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision. Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength; Community arises where the sharing of pain takes place, not as a stifling form of self-complaint, but as the recognition of God's saving promises."

Taking up the cross as a signal of our healing we come to realize, as Nouwen makes clear, that we're not alone in our pain but rather strengthened to share it with God and our community. We come to trust, as in the words of Paul Claudel, that "Jesus did not come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with his presence." It's with this trust we're able to take up the cross ourselves, made less fearful of suffering and despair so that we can help others in pain: the poor and oppressed, the ill and the dying, the lonely and the bereaved. As witnesses of the crucifixion and believers in the resurrection we are moved to enter the human experience as fully as possible just as God did in Christ.

So in this year 2001 let us leave behind the foolishness of the world and take up the cross as a testament to God's loving presence in our lives. Let us embrace it as a sign of our history and as a signal of our healing. Whether we place it on a hillside, wall or window may we hold the cross high, giving thanks to God and inspiration to others. May we boast of nothing less.

Let us pray.

Eternal God, how grateful we are for your presence in this world. How thankful we feel you came to earth in Christ. Through the inspiration of your teachings and Spirit we're offered such merciful healing and comfort. Thank you, O God, for your eternal care. Amen.

For 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. For it is written,

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord."