It took the church nearly a thousand years before crucifixes became bearable for Christians in their worship.  There is some debate, but it seems that the medieval attention to the sufferings of Christ and making things as realistic as possible was the impetus behind the movement.  Until then, it was unbearable for people to look upon the cross.  If you imagine an electric chair suspended above our altars – or the gurneys that they strap people down to for lethal injection and you’d begin to experience the revulsion.  It was nearly a thousand years before we ‘could look upon him whom we have pierced”.   

John the evangelist was centuries before his time in understanding why someone might look upon a crucifix.  He tells us: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up…”  In looking upon the cross/the crucified, John draws upon a story from one of Israel’s less than stellar moments of faithfulness, recorded in the book of Numbers.  The people, “worn out by the journey”, complained against God.  According to the story, God sent serpents among them.  When Moses appealed to God, the ‘cure’ was to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole and have people look at it.  The very serpents that were the punishment for their sin and rebellion became the means of their healing.  By having to face the very sin and rebellion that caused their suffering in the first place, they come to healing.   

So what does John see when he sees the crucifix – when he goes back in his memory to those moments at the foot of the cross as his savior is dying?   He sees the sin of humankind that killed the very one who came to save and redeem us.  And in seeing the broken body of Jesus upon the cross, John sees his own brokenness, his own failure to love as God had loved.  John would have us look at the cross precisely in the same way – to see our sinfulness there - and, like the people of Israel in the desert - THERE to find, not the just judgment that we deserve – but the sign of a loving God who came that we might be saved.  “For God SO LOVED THE WORLD…”    That is what John saw when he saw the cross – the verdict that God passes on the world – to trust that there is a love that surrounds even at our worst, even in our deepest failure, even in our most horrid, human acts of sin and cruelty.   And that is the “verdict” by which we will be judged – light or darkness – do you believe in a love that can save you or do you not?   

I began this season of lent by telling you that a mirror is exactly the item that is LEAST like this season.  I stand by that call.  You see, John would have us not look into a mirror, but look upon the broken body of a man who gave himself for us so freely – there to judge for ourselves whether we have lived a life worthy of that love or not.  You don’t need to see YOURSELF – you only need to see love incarnate, dying upon the cross.  And in seeing that – I know I have a choice to make and a life to live, and a response of gratitude for the love that would endure that (point to crucifix) so I can know life.   

This fourth week of Lent I invite you to spend some time looking upon the one who was LIFTED UP for us upon the cross.  And though you can see many things there, including your own sinfulness – keep praying until you see what John sees there – the LOVE that redeems your from you sins and makes you sons and daughters of our God….