What is it about the cross--what is it about this shameful, traumatic execution--that we call holy?

Maybe it's that "when we face and name our shame it no longer has power over us.  Because the lowest moment in our story, like the lowest moment in Jesus’ story, can actually become the moment that most deeply connects us to one another, a door that opens onto the holy.  That’s why at the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul announces that “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” (1:18).  Worldly wisdom would say it is foolish to take a degrading thing that we’ve done or had done to us and put it on display for others.  But God’s wisdom promises that doing so can liberate and connect us, sanctify us, in ways that are powerful and healing.  And that’s why we call the cross holy.  It reminds us that we are trying to live into Jesus’s statement that “the truth will make you free” (John 8:32)."

For more information about the life of the church where this sermon was preached, find our website at www.holycrossnovi.org or our facebook page under the name “Holy Cross Episcopal Church.” Or join us for worship, Sunday mornings at 8:00 and 10:00 at 40700 W. Ten Mile Road, Novi, MI 48375.