Sermon: Feast of the Holy Cross, September 14, 2025

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Beloved, it is a joy to be with you again to share the Word. One benefit during vacation that I have discovered is that after delivering as many sermons as I do, what a joy it is to also just sit and listen for a Sunday or two. I got to hear my brother’s pastor preach last Sunday, the Rev. Carlos Negrón, a Disciples of Christ pastor in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And because the world is not dull even for a second, that Sunday in Puerto Rico came with all kinds of anxieties that were surging in the community, and I wondered what did God had to say in a time like this. I feel like the news have been piling up on us the last few days, but let’s take it little by little. In Puerto Rico, the news was this: the military build up in the island and near Venezuela has been re-igniting the fears of conflict in the Caribbean region, with military exercises in various parts of Puerto Rico which brought back traumatic memories from 20 years ago, when Puerto Ricans protested the military activity of the Navy in the islands. It is widely known by the community that such exercises and munitions explosions contaminated the land, with high incidences of disease and environmental degradation, not to mention the mental anxiety of having bombs blow up in your back yard. To all these anxieties, we had come to the presence of the Lord this last Sunday. And Pastor Carlos, so very clearly took this moment on, and remarked how this day and age, many people take up a podium and feel empowered to speak in the public sphere on behalf of something. He observed how in the name of peace and security, boats were being blown up in the water. That in the name of peace and security, we are actively being conditioned to fear, suspect, hate our neighbor. That in the name of peace and security, bombs were being dropped on innocent women and children. That in the

name of peace and security, people are being snatched away without any respect to their God-given dignity. Pastor Carlos remarked how many people are rising up to speak and justify on behalf of those things, but rarely, very rarely, so it seems, are people standing up to speak on behalf of Love. He asked, where are the people in the public sphere, speaking out on the motives, desires, outcomes and transformations that the Love of Christ requires. That Sunday, the focus text was Paul’s letter to Philemon, when Paul advocates for the emancipation from slavery of his helper Onesimus. Pastor Carlos was making the point that how nice it was to declare in Galatians: There is neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Greek, but we are all one in Christ Jesus. But when Paul asks for Onesimus’ liberation, that statement was no longer a nice sentiment, but that the love of Christ made present in the community was asking to be put into practice. That it was no longer a matter of thinking about liberation, the Holy Spirit was prompting the community to liberate and be liberating. No longer was it about feeling Love, but acting out Love, incarnating Love in the world. Remember beloved, Christ has made all things new, the old way of doing things has passed away, a new thing is taking root and growing and it is the Love and Mercy of God seeking to be born in our hearts and minds. What an often overlooked message Love is. Yet, if we are to be followers of Christ and His Cross, Love is the only way. Our Scriptures say, Perfect Love casts away all fear. I wish to repeat this verse to you Beloved: Perfect Love casts away all fear.

So immediately after listening to Pastor Carlos’ sermon, I knew that God had given me the best segway into today’s message. Today that we commemorate as a Church that paradoxical symbol we are known by: the Cross of Christ. What is the Cross? Why are

we so emphatic upon such a symbol that used to be a symbol of tortuous fear, death and imperial intimidation? Even more so for us Lutherans, as we are all called to be Theologians of the Cross, that our preaching be centered on Christ Crucified. What is the cross to us who believe?

That question reminds me of this comedy drama series I watched with my sister during my vacation, it’s called “Mo”, and it’s about a Palestinian-American asylum seeker going through the labyrinth of the US immigration system. At a moment of great inner turmoil and trauma, Mo needs to talk to someone to process his trauma, and so he ends up talking with a Catholic Priest in a confessional. And Mo points out to the priest, isn’t it a little bit too much to have so many images and depictions of Christ suffering on the cross? To which one could say fair enough. But the priest wisely responds, the cross is not about gratuitous suffering, it not morbid fascination with torture and death, it is about remembering the sacrifice of Christ. It is remembering the depths of God’s love, the length He is willing to go through for us, to save us, to uplift us from sin and death. What is the cross and sacrifice of Christ? It is Perfect Love, Beloved. The Cross is God acting out Perfect Love. God took the horror and death of the world, and transformed the meaning of a dead tree into a living one of hope, life, and resurrection. The Cross of Christ is the sign by which we witness the height, depth, and consequence of Perfect Love. If Jesus was not full of Love for us, if He counted the cost out of self-interest, we would not be gathered here. The cross used to be the world attempting to gain ultimate power by imposing fear, by intimidating with the threat of pain and death, to make others cower under them. For the world hell-bent on worshipping power and serving themselves, Love, mercy,

compassion, solidarity, the dispossession of power and wealth, the life lived in service for the least of these is their greatest fear. And so when Jesus came along preaching the incoming Kingdom of God, where the enslaved are freed and the sick are healed, and no one is tyrant over each other, they tried imposing the Cross on such a man. But how gracious is the God we serve. How abundant He is in steadfast love, that not even the cross could destroy His perfect Love. In Christ, the cross has become a sign of victory for God’ love for us, and now a defeat of the way of life that only serves itself. It is why Jesus, makes that comparison with the bronze serpent from the Old Testament, where those who gaze at the Cross will be saved, because they are seeing God’s victory over the power of sin and death. We no longer need to be afraid of being chained to the powers of this world, for in the cross of Christ we are gazing at a new world being born, a new life, an eternal love that reaches out to us across the ages.

Therefore, as the Apostle Paul declares in His letter to the Corinthians, do not put your trust in wisdom or signs. Not that these things are bad in themselves. Rather, that for those who believe, the power and love of God are perfectly manifested in the foolishness of our preaching of Christ Crucified. Even in the time of Paul, people would wonder, if the most meaningful life is determined by how wise you are, or how much knowledge you accrue, or how blessed are your circumstances. But that is not where the blessedness of a Christian lies. It is in the cross of Christ, it is in the life ushered in by the perfect love of Jesus, that does not look at our weakness, that does not glory in power or wealth, that does not count the worthiness of His creatures to bestow His love upon them. But rather our lives are enriched in the giving ourselves away for the sake of love, to be rooted in a love that changes hearts, a love that builds

up because living well is when we all are participating in God’s way of abundant life. The love is the reward, the integrity of such a love is the ultimate intimacy with the substance of our lives. In the cross, God has revealed that He pays the price, bears the sin away, not because we are deserving, but because we were made to love.

And so Beloved, fix your gaze on this cross. Do not wander seeking out those who clearly cannot save, for those who peddle cold-hearted solutions, for those seeking to convince you that love and mercy is not the answer. Do not fall for rambunctious argument, or for impassioned speeches, or empty posturing. Look at Christ crucified. Live in the Spirit of His risen life. Abandon yourselves to the depth of God’s perfect love in Christ Jesus, and He shall be our guide and meaning.

Beloved, I know this as much as you in this moment, that these times we are living in are disturbing. And perhaps even this description of mine is an understatement. Because I’ll be honest with you on a human level. I feel afraid. I am afraid for what this country and my own are becoming. I’m afraid for many of my loved ones and those I do not know. I’m afraid of those seeking to do harm and serve themselves. I’m afraid that the hearts of people around me have grown cold and despairing. I sometimes have a great feeling of powerlessness in the face of these greater circumstances. And yet, in the face of so much anxiety, this great saying about the cross came to my mind, it belongs to the Carthusian order of monks: “As the world turns, the cross remains steady”. What great gospel in such a little phrase! Indeed, for thousands of years the world has turned, for thousands of years humanity has sought to destroy itself with hatred, but Jesus says, through the cross: Be not afraid, I have overcome the world. Be not afraid, because Love never fails. Be not afraid because I am with you always,

walking with you through the valley of shadow and death. Jesus has shown us a new path and community, where forgiveness is possible, where we are renewed in life and hope, where mercy is never ceasing. The cross remains steady, it is ever bestowing upon us the gift of God’s grace. Let us look at this cross with tears and thanksgiving that we have been empowered to look at this world differently, that we can love it beyond measure through the power of God revealed in the cross of Christ. Perhaps we will not effectuate this influence in the halls of the powerful, perhaps nobody might see how you are carrying a cross that preaches love, perhaps others might reject us because we refuse to hate, because we refuse to be tyrants, but such is the blessed foolishness of our preaching. We are planting for a new world, a more just world, a more loving world, and that begins from the seeds springing from the tree of the cross. Let us cast these seeds widely, let us plant this Kingdom that seeks to grow everywhere we go. So let us pray: