Ecce Lignum

What does the image of the Cross mean for us?

Readings: Apocalypse 5:1-10

The following homily was preached to the student brothers during Compline. You can listen here or read below:

As I was browsing through YouTube a few days ago I came across a satirical video and in this video there was an interview of a young lady who had been rescued from a fire. The interviewers say “firefighter X has given his life to save yours, what are you going to do with with your life?” and you just see the look of horror on this young lady’s face as she she has no idea how to answer this question. Then it’s revealed that the council is going to pay for a massive statue of the firefighter to be placed in the front bit of her house, so that every day she will be reminded that she has to do something meaningful because someone died for her. Then as I was there wasting time on YouTube I kind of looked up saw my crucifix and went “oh dear, I should probably do something useful with my time!”

But what I thought was interesting, was that if we take the cross to be an image of a similar sort, then the cross fills us with shame because we never live up to the expectation that God has for us: “we all fall short of the glory of God.” And I thought, what’s wrong then with this image of the firefighter saving the life of this young girl? There are two things: he first one is that this idea that you have to then live up to the expectations of the firefighter, negates the idea of sacrifice being a free gift; the second is this that the firefighter’s death is a tragic loss, whereas the death of Christ is not a tragic loss.

I’m going to propose another analogy.

Imagine that we are a bunch of peasants and we’re trying to protect our land against a strong, well-trained army. We’ve just got no hope of winning against them. Millions of people are dying. People are starving and there’s no hope. Or so it seems. So, the king comes, not with any sort of finery but dressed as a peasant. This is a king powerful in war, one who’s able to single-handedly defeat the armies. But what he does instead, is in order to give us hope, he comes as a peasant. He tells us that this is what he’s going to do, and he does it. He goes into the enemy camp still dressed as a peasant. The enemy thinking that it’s just another one of these peasants, puts him on a tree and hangs him up there as a symbol for everyone looking on. The enemy celebrates. But while the enemy doesn’t expect it, this person comes back to life, slays the enemy generals, a bit like Judith does, and comes back revealing himself to the peasants. The Peasants see that the one who has gone into the enemy’s camp is in fact their king!

The king does something spectacular. He says, not only have I defeated the enemy for you, but I promise you, that when I go back to my castle, I’m going to prepare thrones for you. And the time will come, when I’m going to come back and get you, take you with me, and make you kings and queens with me.

Now, for all of the peasants, the sign of this man hanging upon the tree is not a sign of tragic loss but it’s the pledge, it’s the hope they have that they will be rescued, that they will reign with their king.

And so, my dear brothers and sisters, this is how we should see the cross. The cross is a reminder that the Lamb who was slain has already won the victory for us. It is not a tragic loss of life, such that we have to painfully live up to an expectation of something we can never really live up to. Rather, it’s the guarantee that the victory has been won.

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive glory and power and honour.”

Amen

Image: ‘Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’ by Hubert and Jan van Eyck; located in Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.