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PDF versionFourth Sunday of Lent
by Ed Hays on Mar. 20, 2009
A United Press release told the story of a hospital in a Midwestern city where officials had discovered that its fire-fighting equipment had never been connected to the city's water main. For 35 years the patients and medical staff had felt safe at the sight of those brightly polished brass valves and outlets placed throughout the hospital. Yet the security of all this expert fire-fighting technology was an illusion, for all of it was connected to an underground pipe that extended only four feet from the hospital before it stopped.
Most Christians feel just such surety at the sight of a cross – never questioning its effectiveness. The issue for us isn't whether images of the cross are connected to the source, but rather how we are connected to the cross. Are we linked to the cross only remotely, as a symbol that no longer speaks to us, or are we intimately united with it? During Lent, churches frequently put up large, rugged wooden crosses draped with purple cloths. The Roman cross, which was once a shockingly hideous image, can easily become impotent today, unable to move those who see it to greater zeal, heroism, or prayer. Perhaps our Lenten cross would be radically enlivened if, rather than using a long purple cloth, we draped it instead with a serpent.
In today's gospel (John 3:14-21), Jesus is compared to such a serpent intertwined on the cross. This shocking image comes from the time when the Israelites were complaining about their difficulties in the desert after their exodus from Egypt and were punished with a plague of venomous serpents.
They pleaded to Moses for help and God instructed him to make a serpent out of bronze and to place it on a pole. Any who were bitten and looked upon it were healed. The author of John’s gospel compares the healing salvation brought by Jesus being lifted up on the cross to the bronze serpent of Moses and his people in the desert.
The cross of Christ is a boundless source of healing if you are connected to it. This symbol of suffering is transformed in either the form of the Tau cross, which prophetically symbolizes that we now live in the reign of God, or the cross of Calvary by which Christ overcame death itself.
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Have you ever had a personal experience of being liberated or healed from some paralyzing illness or addiction and then realized that your healing was connected with the cross in your room or home? Consider the practice of consciously uniting your suffering, whether it stems for the crippling pain of arthritis or a throbbing migraine headache, to the source of healing – the cross. One simple ritual would be to touch your fingers to your cross and pray that united your pains with those of Christ will be a redemptive Holy Communion.
– from The Lenten Pharmacy by Fr. Ed Hays
Prayer:
O God, we confess that we have often questioned
whether we are truly worthy of your great love,
for we have so often rejected our own crosses.
We have judged them to be too heavy or too shameful,
or as terrible burdens from which to escape.
May we see that in your holy design for redemption
our crosses are joined to the cross of Christ
as holy instruments of our baptism
into his life, death and resurrection.
May we then gratefully embrace our crosses with joy.
This week's mantra:
I follow you O Christ because by joining my crosses to yours,
I help reconcile the world to God.
– prayer and mantra from The Pilgrimage Way of the Cross by Fr. Ed Hays
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thanks fr. Hays for your
thanks fr. Hays for your spiritual relections in the NCR. Gaining alot from it as a spiritual director in a major seminary. God bless.
thanks to Fr. Hay's
thanks to Fr. Hay's reflections
Thank you very much. The
Thank you very much. The medical sign is that of a serpent on a cross and we value the cross as healing.
Fr. Hays - you are a breath
Fr. Hays - you are a breath of fresh air and spiritual oxygen!
I'm just sitting here musing,
I'm just sitting here musing, so please be patient.
One of the books I'm reading for Lent is Fr. Hays' "chasing joy". This book is about finding joy by rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks in all circumstances.....carrying a song in the heart always.
As I read today's post, I felt uneasy about the cross carrying part, until I remembered that the sketch I did at Mass yesterday was mostly from the huge crucifix we have behind our altar. (But I drew Jesus with eyes open and looking, a huge heart, not quite a smile.)
Then I realized that in my own life, I haven't seen myself as carrying a cross, but hanging ON a cross. Up there with Jesus, only never having the relief of Death, never coming to Resurrection. Is this a subtle difference? Are we only required to carry crosses, not bear the suffering of being actually "nailed" to them.....is that Jesus place and not ours? Or, are we really supposed to endure our own crucifixion for as long as it lasts?
And, in either case, how do we keep the song going in the heart when the burdens are so perpetually oppressive? Is it possible to become numb while carrying crosses/being on crosses.....numbness in the "holiness"? If so, then does it negate the experience of our crosses?
(I know, I think too much.)
I am generally turned off by
I am generally turned off by the sight of all the "beautiful" crosses for sale today. I think they should be ugly and horrible to look at. They should not, in my humble opinion, be encrusted with jewels and ribbons and brightly painted colors. The crucifix has no place in the "Precious Moments" collections. The cross of Jesus Christ was his electric chair, his gurney for the lethal injection, his noose. It is a terrible injustice to Jesus' death to treat it as if it was merely a decoration or a piece of jewelry. Now, in defense of the "beautiful" crosses, if the cross has an image of the Risen Christ, perhaps it can be transformed into something beautiful. If there is no corpus on it, perhaps the cross can be the cross of the Resurrection. I will have to consult my expert theologians about that one. I'm interested to hear what others have to say. I'm a student. Still learning.
OH my, Thank you! The timing
OH my, Thank you!
The timing of your message is inspired and inspiring as I struggle with yet another crisis of a son who suffers from a brain illness...the words "heavy" and "shameful" hit home, I'm sure, for many of us.
Bless you.
Thinking about crosses with
Thinking about crosses with serpents on them, the Ethiopians still have bronze crosses with serpents, which custom probably dates from the time of Moses or earlier. They may be used for healing, as was the bronze serpent of Moses. When we meditate on Jesus on the cross, we are also experiencing healing. The Greeks too had snakes on their medical crosses. What is the connection between snakes and healing?
Snakes shed their skins and
Snakes shed their skins and emerge brightly coloured in their new one, so they have become a symbol of death and resurrection. One is often potrayed with its tail in its mouth, so making the eternal circle. In Hinduism and Indian tradition, the cobra is sacred to Vishnu, and thus is ever present in the cycle of the ages. Serpents are linked to 'worms' or dragons in the myths of the North. They too are associated with the beginning of the world.
This is only a very generalised comment on their importance in mythology. The 'serpent' in the Garden of the 'East' (Eden) did have legs before the curse, and as such, is an exception to the rule on two counts, being a symbol of evil instead of good. Perhaps this was part of the rejection of ancient creation myths by the Jewish teachers.
I am intrigued by the serpent in the Chalice in the tapestry in Coventry Cathedral (England). Perhaps someone else knows the answer to this. Why is it there? Is it a symbol of the pain of sin, or of the healing power of Christ's blood, or both/and?
One thing is certain: we humans have found these reptiles numinously fascinating since the dawn of our existence!
Fr. Hays, Thank you for the
Fr. Hays,
Thank you for the reminder that all that we do is with our good and gracious God for the kingdom is now and not yet.
Ritagail, you pose some heavy
Ritagail, you pose some heavy questions. Glad you are reading Fr. Hays' Chasing Joy. Since I, like you, “think too much,” I can’t help getting caught up with your question. But this is not a purely “thinking” response. I get the feeling that you should come down off of that cross and walk with Jesus through his enjoyment of life. See the beauty of the temple with him - and the lilies; watch the hens with their chicks; take little children on your knee; go fishing. Take Jesus to see a musical or a comedy. Take him wherever you go. Live with him. Share everything with him and give him some good times as well as painful ones.
Not even lent is meant to be a time of darkness. Lent is a time to shine some extra light onto our selfishness so that once the selfishness has been burned away (it will take a lifetime of living with Jesus), there will be only the light of Easter shining on the “self that we are in Christ.”
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