Passion Sunday 2026
“Even Death on a Cross”
Those words of the Song St. Paul repeats back to the church at Philippi were utterly scandalous. Not only for anyone outside of the community who might have heard them but inside the community itself. A Cross was utterly despicable. It is different for us, for over the centuries of Christianity the horror of the Cross it has become beautified by the meditations in art and music and architecture that proclaim the beautiful love we see God accomplishing through it. Perhaps that is why we love the Cross. Yet, what do we do when we see that today the Cross has become a mere piece of jewelry for those who see it and the God whose love works through it, as a relic of a civilization that has passed?
That’s why we’ve taken down and covered all the crosses this day to pause for a moment and to not take for granted what the Cross is.
Do you know that these Gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus – today’s Gospel – are the only in-depth accounts from the ancient world of a crucifixion? Why? First of all, anyone who was crucified was hardly worth writing about. Death by crucifixion hardly merited notice. Roman Crucifixion was for slaves, conquered peoples, brigands, and other scum of the earth. It was beneath the contempt of a Roman. Why would a Roman write about it? Why would anyone write about it, it was a sign of utter humiliation and powerlessness? It was a brutal mockery to crucify someone in the upright position which makes a human being different from the other animals. A crucified person was no person – they were splayed out like any other animal prepared for the butcher. Nothing could be further from God than this abattoir.
The first Christians of did not want to think about it. Of course, that Jesus is risen in power, that is good news. But the Cross… It took all the effort of the apostles and all the grace of the Holy Spirit for the new Christian church to see that the Cross, beyond their imagination, is the glory of God’s love triumphant and the throne of Mercy.
What about us? Have we grown so used to the cross on our rosaries and our walls that it does not grab our hearts and takes our breath? Have we acquiesced to a comfortable Christianity that we expect to bring us just positive vibes? A Christianity sensitive to the feelings of the times? Seemed that’s what happened when our grandparents… So with the times of the 60s… Stripped out of our churches… Just like this Cathedral… Stripped out not only beauty but even more removed the upsetting ugliness of a dead man hanging on a cross.
We must not just look down our noses at her grandparents. Ours is a time that does this as well. Do you now the controversy over placing a Crucifix in the Cathedral? It is so easy for us to tell Jesus what he supposed to look like in our lives… And so miss what our sin does to Him.
“He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire him.:
That’s what we see in the ugliness of the cross… we meet the ugliness that we bring to and experience in this world. The ugliness of broken suffering and humiliation and loneliness and sickness and war and betrayal and injustice and exploitation and … and …. and …sin. Better to get a nice poster at Home Sense with a positive message.
But this ugliness still haunts us. No matter how much we try to distract ourselves.
But our God is never distracted from offering mercy. Especially amidst ugliness.
So today and the beginning days of this Holy Week we don’t run away. As painful as it is we look at Jesus on the Cross and see how our gossip humiliates him, our sickness weakens him, our wars pierce his side, our betrayal leaves him alone, and our selfishness drives the nails into his hands and his feet.
But the Cross is covered so that we might rediscover what familiarity dulls. For We are to look in silence and in prayer.
And there from the ugliness we see Jesus on that Cross … looking at us… With such love.
For a bit, a holy bit, let us leave aside our busyness with family and world and work and play… And look at Jesus loving us.
This why he accepted “even death, death on a Cross” so that no ugliness or pain will ever stop us from seeing him loving us… Loving me… Loving you. “Nothing will come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus on the Cross” … Unless we decide not to look.
Do not be afraid. Let us look.
Let us be holy. Let us be saints.