A reading from the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus said to Nicodemus, no one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the son of man who is in heaven. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the son of man be lifted up. That all who believe may have eternal life in him. Yes, God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him may not die, but may have eternal life.
God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
That last sentence from Saint John is precisely the the message I would like to utter this morning. Today, there is controversy about the cross and the crucifix, just as there's controversy about everything. Now, I could care less about the mere superficialities of religion. Let people do what they want. But when there's doctrine concerned, that's another point.
Now, we're talking about symbols. And symbols have meaning and worth because of what we impute to those symbols. Unless you're dealing with the sacraments, And there's where there's a world of difference, because we say the sacrament when you pour water on that baby's head or whoever, that that is not merely a symbol, but that it is doing something in itself. As we say at that is from the very action that you're doing. But leaving the sacraments aside, which produce their consequences or their effects by their own worth, of course ultimately the going back to our Lord and savior, we're talking about these other things which we are surrounded with.
And the cross in the Christian life is certainly one of them. Now what's the difference between the cross and the crucifix? Well, here again we're dealing with words. But without being too arbitrary, we say one of the differences is a cross needn't be a crucifix. Meaning, that you can have a cross by taking two sticks of wood and putting one across the other.
That's a cross. The crucifix, at least as we use the word to distinguish it from merely a cross, we mean the cross with Jesus Christ on it. The son of God sacrificing himself for me. Now, that thing up there is a symbol. It's a I don't know what it's made of, wood and plaster or marble or what have you.
That's all that's up there. If it has meaning, it's because of what I impute to it. Or what its color, its shape may inspire me to imagine or to think or what have you. That's the reason it's We need symbols. Our lives are filled with symbols of all sorts.
Of all sorts. And anyone who downgrades the worth of symbols, it's it's there's no use arguing with them. It's so self evident. Symbols are mighty important, not in themselves, but for what they need. Now, you will have today a view of which supports the idea of the cross.
That is, simply configuration of wood or marble or bronze or brass or gold or whatever, without the figure of our Lord on it. Then you have the crucifix, which is what you see up there now. The idea of the simple cross is this, among other things. Is that it's for us to accept and put ourselves up there. Well, I that's fine.
I have no objections to that. But I don't think it's ultimate. Remember, the cross was a commonplace, ignominious way of of executing so called criminals, who weren't worthy of dying in a better, more decent, more dignified way. It was absolutely commonplace in the Roman as I say, about a half about fifty years before Christ. There had been an insurrection in Israel.
The Romans moved in and they executed so many of the insurgents by crucifixion that they ran out of wood. This is a this is a fact of history. So let's let's not it's remember, you're when you're talking about the cross, you're talking about an electric chair or hanging or the or something like that. Now to me, if this has any worth at all, it has worth and value and significance because of Jesus Christ on it. On it.
Not me, but him. Just within two or three days, I was discussing matters of religion with someone who thinks they want to return to their faith that they were originally got. And they said, you know, to think of God coming down and suffering for us is absurd. I said, you're absolutely right. It is absurd.
Who would have ever guessed it? But that's the point. God did not send the son into the world to condemn it, but that the world might be saved through him. Through him. Through Jesus Christ.
He didn't have to die on the cross. That was his choice. But what matters is not the cross but the savior. That's the way I look at it. I don't need the cross.
Whether we like it or not, we're going to carry some kind of a cross, believe me. And that's there's nothing new about suffering and pain. And there's nothing new about it being a great mystery either. But the point is this, not the suffering, not the cross, not the crucifixion, it's because of Jesus Christ, and not because merely of the son of Mary, but because it's the son of God. That's the point.
That That God became man and offered himself on the altar of the cross. Now you see, that's there is a there's a widespread a widespread tendency to forget the cross, to forget sacrifice, to turn the mass into merely a Eucharistic meal. Right? This is this is absolutely the tendency right now in in the Catholic church in this particular part of the world. I know about the last supper.
I'm aware of that. But the last supper has meaning because of Calvary, which it anticipates. And Calvary has has meaning because of the son of God dying on the cross. And we say the mass is the duplication, the repetition of that very same act. And we say that at that altar it is Christ the priest and it is Christ the victim.
How do you think I feel when I stand at that altar and say those words? Yet that's the That is the undeniable fact of the Catholic religion. And yet the idea of the mass of sacrifices being ignored, rejected, downplayed. And we're taught we talk about celebration. We talk about liturgy.
We talk about the banquet. We talk about the Eucharist. I'm not exaggerating this at all. I just read the documents on renew, and I find the same thing there. That's not the mind of the church.
Just read the just read the second Vatican Council. It stresses that the mass has two aspects. It is a banquet. It is a memorial service. Of course it is.
But what is stressed, and I'm talking about Vatican two and I've gone through those documents, is that the mass is the sacrifice of Calvary, not because it's a cross but because Christ is the priest, Christ is the victim. And that it is an authentic, real sacrifice. We're talking about the mass. That is the Catholic doctrine, and that's what the crucifix means to me. I see no particular value in a cross, unless Christ is on it.
Men and women down the centuries have carried their crosses, and some of them nobly, nobly, absolutely nobly. But what does it mean? What matters to me is that I have a savior. And that that savior is God. And as absurd as it sounds, as incredible as it is, that God became man and died by his own volition on the cross.
And that's what we call crucifixion or the crucifix. In the name of the father, the son, holy spirit. Amen.