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The sermon today comes from Psalm 40 hearing again verse 8.

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I delight to do your will

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Oh my God. Your law is within my heart.

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Several years ago the church

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I was attending built a new sanctuary.

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It was fascinating to watch the progress of the new building each week

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and not being part of the building committee or the leadership.

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There was some mystery and surprise involved especially as the chancel

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took shape.

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It was an expensive chancel with a towering blank wall of sheetrock

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behind and above the altar just waiting to be filled with what would

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be the central feature of the entire sanctuary.

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At last it arrived and was fixed in place.

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It was enormous precisely proportioned with elegant long lines sharply

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angular and a study in symmetry polished to perfection gleaned softly

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with a burnished gold opulence.

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It wasn't solutely perfect cross.

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I hated it.

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It was sterile, lifeless, unimaginative and shiny.

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I wasn't sure what I had wanted.

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I knew it wasn't that.

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I suspect it's true of every one of us

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actually. We all want a cross that looks right. One that does what it's

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supposed to do. One that fits our ideas of what a cross should be. One

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that's authentic, real.

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We want the true Cross.

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Legend tells us that it was on this very day, September 14th that Saint

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Helena the pious mother of emperor Constantine entered a secret

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chamber in Jerusalem and found the three crosses of Calvary, cleverly.

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She had each laid in turn over the body of an old dying woman.

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And when at the first touch of the third one that woman was instantly

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healed Helena knew she had the true Cross.

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That cross was unsurprisingly lost to history. But not before pieces of

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it and could be scattered all over Christendom where each could be

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placed very carefully in a Cross or reliquary worthy of veneration for

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centuries to come every September 14th right down to this very day.

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And while we may not be blessed here in our humble Chapel with a relic

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of the true Cross.

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We got our own unique Serpentine version ready to be adored.

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Tho I have heard it rumored that some people are less than enthusiastic

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about our nahushton style cross.

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As far as they're concerned, it's not what a cross is supposed to be.

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Maybe though it's not just architects, artist and credulous ancients

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who get the cross all wrong and lose the true Cross. Yes the cross can be

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abused victimized by craftsman and superstitious saints.

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But the true Cross can be badly distorted and even twisted into a

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perversion also by serious Christians, lovers of liturgy and even

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scholars of theology.

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It happens.

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Well-meaning serious Christian people degrade the true Cross when they

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designate every hard trial, painful suffering or passing annoyance that

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intrudes into their lives to be a cross that they must bear.

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When Jesus declared that anyone who is going to follow him how to do it

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with a cross on his shoulders.

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He was not making a veiled reference to a food allergy, a two-week

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quarantine, the lack of marital prospects or even a terminal diagnosis.

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The cross is not a challenge, a hardship or even very hard very real

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suffering.

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The cross is a long painful humiliating exceedingly effective

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means of death.

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Crosses kill people.

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That's what they do.

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When you bear your cross you march to your execution, self is slain you

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die.

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So when Christians invoke the cross to make sense of life's difficulties

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and struggles a trivialize the true Cross into an object of therapy.

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Of course, the cross is also objectified is another means of therapy

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when it is pressed into liturgical service intended to meet the

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visceral and spiritual needs of participants. Here

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again, the cross is being bent to fit the desires and sensitivities of

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people, no matter how well-meaning or how proper they may be. If the

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cross is little more than a blueprint for a sanctuary, a favorite

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symbol on a chasuble or a rote action of the right forearm or a

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catalyst for humble liturgical actions of veneration and piety then it

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is certainly not the true Cross of Christ.

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The true Cross is not a matter of taste or an object of any sorts.

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It is not an object of sentiment or therapy or liturgy or art or

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architecture or superstition or veneration and it must not be reduced

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even to an object of theological study and reflection.

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The Temptation not unknown in Christian institutions of Higher

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Learning.

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Cross must not be used to solve the legal logical puzzle of a just God

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whose wrath needs to be assuaged lost somehow his beloved simple

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creatures are saved. Yes,

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this account of the Cross makes sense and it answers questions. But it

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also legalizes and sanitizes the cross and holds about an arm's length

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for it can more safely be considered, like a villager fending off of

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Vampire.

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The cross becomes the tool.

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Even the profound Insight of a theology named for the cross can

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obscure the reality and impact of the true Cross. Theologians of the

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Cross all too easily become skilled practitioners of evaluation and

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judgment, making the cross another object a tool of self-righteousness.

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Yes that happens.

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You know it.

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There is cause for caution and circumspection. The tidy solutions and

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explanations of systematic theology to easily end up demeaning the

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power and significance of the true Cross. That cross the true Cross

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does one thing,

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simply and starkly.

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It does nothing

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more than bear the dead weight of Jesus.

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That's is the point of the Cross. Its not an object

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we put to use. The true Cross has the means of torture and death

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appointed for Jesus.

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The true Cross is the place where God's plan for the Salvation of his

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creation was brought to stunning fruition in the innocent death of his

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own obedient son.

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That's why we heard from Psalm 40.

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Where as he does

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so often David delights in the faithful care of God for his Creation.

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The God who inclines to the Earth bending down his had better to hear

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the cry of his people. The God Who does for his people wonders beyond

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counting. The God who sends his servant his servant long promised his

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son with his ears dug open and his body ready for work ready to hear

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and obey and do everything

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just as the Father directs.

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Even when that means carrying across into the pit of Hell itself.

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In that pit the Son cries out

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now the Father is silent.

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And that pit on that cross bearing the shame guilt reproach and sin of

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the world.

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The view

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is the Son who inclines to the earth below who bows his head

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and dies.

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That's what the true Cross is all about.

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It's the story of God saving his masterwork of the creation from the

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foolish, sinful, stupid rebellion of his own creatures.

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The Cross is not an object.

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It is the event in the story that creates, defines and fulfills all the

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world.

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At the heart and center of the Christian faith that claims you and

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animates you there is not a ponaite human sentiment.

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Not a powerful insight not an inspiring idea.

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Not a captivating vision.

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Not a universal truth.

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Not even a divine principle.

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No, at the heart of your faith is a cross with Jesus hung on it dead.

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Behold the life-giving cross on which was hung the salvation of the

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whole world, indeed behold.

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In whatever form it takes behold and give thanks.

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It does not matter how it looks rough-hewn, bedazzled in gems gold and

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shiny, austere and Gothic

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or even gumby.

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It makes no difference.

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They all point to the one true cross every cross reflects

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the one reality of the one true cross where the Father saved his

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world.

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Where the Father saved you.

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Amen.  We omit the Te Deum this morning and stand for prayer.