Planting Seeds at the Cross – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
Holy Cross Day
There is a fundamental and inescapable absurdity to what we celebrate today.
Part of this is the simple fact that we celebrate today something that was once a tool of state execution. The cross was a brutal presence in Jesus’ world, and in Jesus’ life. It reveals a world that was broken and unjust. In this respect, the cross of Jesus is an enduring testimony to the brokenness and injustice that persists – and has persisted throughout the centuries – in our world and our hearts.
The world, despoiled and dominated, cries out for healing. The Cross planted into the heart of creation bears witness to all the ways in which this world, because of our actions and inactions, has gone off-kilter.
Our human societies suffer in their greed and in their need; in their conflict and violence; in their fear and their uncertainty. The Cross planted into these structures bears witness to all the ways in which our relationships have gone astray.
And we ourselves. The Cross planted into our very hearts bears witness to all our personal and silent sufferings, to our sins and guilt, to our shame and grief. The Cross bears witness to all that slowly distorts us and turns us inward.
We were not created to suffer, to be in pain, to grieve, but we do. We were not created to hurt or fail or fall, but we do that as well. The Cross bears witness to all this. But that’s not the end.
The absurdity of the Cross is that this instrument of state execution has become a testimony to God’s unfailing love; God’s unfailing love, despite it all, for us and for this world. Jesus’ singular life and death, Jesus’ singular Cross, offers us a beautiful promise: that our suffering, pain, and grief are not the end of the story, but rather that Jesus’ love has supplanted them.
The beautiful promise that when we suffer, we do not suffer alone. Jesus is there with us. In that place of suffering, Jesus plants his love as a seed that he assures us will grow and help us be made whole.
The promise that when we are in pain, we are not alone in that pain. Jesus is there with us, bearing that pain alongside us. Jesus plants his love as a seed that he assures us will grow and help us be healed.
The promise that when we grieve, we do not sit alone. Jesus is right there with us, consoling us. Jesus plants his love as a seed that he assures us will grow and help us rejoice.
Jesus plants these and so many more seeds of love at the foot of his Cross, that this world and our lives might be transformed as completely as his Cross was. Their growing is the promise of new life in Jesus, and their flowers adorn Jesus’ victory wreath, crowning his triumph over all that deforms our world and our lives. Jesus has already won this victory in the eternity of God’s present. We creatures living in time hope for and will come to know this victory in our future. But that doesn’t mean we are powerless in our human present. We, too, can plant seeds.
We have power to seek reconciliation and to offer forgiveness, to do our part in making whole the ripped fabric of our communities.
We have power to show compassion and empathy, to be with others in their hurt, to do our part in the healing of the wounded.
We have the power to rejoice in the goodness of all that God has made, to do our part in attending to a universe of fellow creatures that call out for help.
We have the power, in other words, to become like Jesus. To bear the Cross planted in our very midst and to respond, not in fear or apathy or despair, but by becoming more and more like Jesus. Drawing on Jesus’ light to become children of light. Receiving Jesus’ love and bearing that gift of love to the world. Planting seeds at the foot of the Cross that will bear the graces of new life.
Amen.