Trinity XII, Holy Cross Sunday, by The Rev'd Lucy Newman Cleeve

Numbers 21.4–9
Philippians 2.6–11
John 3.13–17

Let me begin with a story.

Once upon a time, in a forest, there grew three little trees. Each had dreams about what they wanted to become when they grew up.

 The first tree looked up at the stars twinkling through its branches and said, “I want to hold treasure! I want to be covered with gold and filled with precious stones. I’ll be the most beautiful treasure chest in the world!”

The second tree looked out at the small stream trickling by on its way to the ocean. “I want to be travelling mighty waters and carrying powerful kings! I’ll be the strongest ship in the world!”

The third tree looked down into the valley below where busy men and women worked in a bustling town.“I don’t want to leave the mountain top at all! I want to grow so tall that when people look at me, they’ll raise their eyes to heaven and think of God. I’ll be the tallest tree in the world!”

Years passed, and the three trees grew tall and strong. Then one day, three woodcutters climbed the mountain. The first tree was chosen and thought, “Now I shall be made into a beautiful treasure chest!” But instead, it was made into a feed box for animals - a simple manger.

The second tree rejoiced when the woodcutter said, “This tree is strong. This is perfect for me.” But instead of becoming a great ship, it was made into a small fishing boat.

The third tree’s heart sank when it was cut into heavy wooden beams and left in a lumberyard.

The first tree was disappointed. A manger? This wasn’t what it had dreamt of. The second tree was confused. A fishing boat? It had wanted to carry kings. The third tree felt forgotten, lying unused in a dusty yard.

But then, one starlit night, the first tree’s dreams came true in the most wonderful way. A young woman placed her newborn baby in the manger. Suddenly the tree realised it was holding the greatest treasure in the world - the Son of God.

Years later, the second tree’s dreams came true too. A group of friends climbed into the little boat, and one of them was the baby who had been born in the manger. When a storm arose and the friends were afraid, the man stood up and said, “Peace, be still!” Suddenly the tree knew it was carrying the King of Kings.

And the third tree? Years later, when that baby had grown to be a man, Roman soldiers made a cross from those beams. They forced the man to carry it up a hill and nailed him to it. The tree felt ugly and harsh and cruel. But on the third day, when the sun rose and the earth shook with joy, the tree knew that love had changed everything. Now, whenever people looked at that tree - the cross - they would think of God.

I’ve told you this story because today is Holy Cross Day, and it helps us understand what this feast is really about: how God takes what seems ordinary, even disappointing, and transforms it for glory.

Holy Cross Day takes us back to the year 326, when Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, travelled to Jerusalem to seek the cross of Christ. According to tradition, excavations on Golgotha uncovered three crosses. To discern which one was the Cross of Christ, Helena prayed, and when one of the beams touched a dying woman, she was healed.

Nine years later, Constantine dedicated great churches on the sites of the crucifixion and resurrection. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated in Jerusalem on 14th September 335, and from then on Christians kept this day as a feast of the cross - not just to venerate the wood itself, but to celebrate the victory it represents: how God turns what seems like defeat into triumph.

Our first reading from Numbers tells us about another moment when God used physical matter as a means of grace. The Israelites were dying from serpent bites in the wilderness, having spoken against God and Moses in their discouragement. These were the same people God had just delivered from slavery in Egypt with mighty signs and wonders. They had walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. They had been fed with manna from heaven and given water from the rock. Yet when the journey got harder and the provisions seemed uncertain, they began to grumble against God and Moses.

But God’s response to the Israelites’ crisis wasn’t to abandon them - it was to provide healing. God instructed Moses to craft a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole. Anyone bitten need only look upon the bronze serpent and they would be healed - a simple remedy requiring only obedient faith.

The very image of their affliction - a serpent - became their salvation when fashioned by God’s command and lifted up in faith. This might sound troubling at first - wasn’t this dangerously close to idolatry, worshipping a bronze snake? This is not what was happening at all. The bronze serpent didn’t heal because of any power in the metal itself. Rather, God chose to work through this physical matter, sanctifying it by command, transforming it into a means of grace. The healing came through obedient faith in God’s provision.

We see this pattern throughout Scripture: God working through physical, ordinary things to convey grace. Bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. And today, as Stefania is baptised, water becomes, by God’s blessing, a means of grace through which she is cleansed from sin and reborn by the Holy Spirit.

But the ultimate example of God working through physical matter is the incarnation itself. Paul’s great hymn in Philippians - often called the “Kenosis Hymn” or “Carmen Christi” - reveals this deeper mystery. Christ, who existed in the very form of God, chose to empty himself, taking on human flesh, becoming human like us. God took on physical matter - a human body, human limitations, human experience - to reach us with grace. Christ humbled himself to the point of death - even death on a cross.

“Therefore,” Paul tells us, “God also highly exalted him.” The cross becomes the throne. The instrument of shame becomes the sign of victory. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Perhaps nowhere is this mystery clearer than in our Gospel reading. Jesus spoke these words to Nicodemus, who came to him by night, confused about what it meant to be born from above. In response, Jesus recalled that story in the wilderness: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Then came that magnificent declaration: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

In that lifting up we glimpse a great reversal. In Eden the serpent was the bringer of death; in the wilderness it became a sign of healing. In Eden, the tree became bound up with our fall; at Calvary, the tree of the cross becomes for us the place of life. As John of Damascus would later write: “The tree of life which was planted by God in Paradise prefigured this cross. For since death came by a tree, it was fitting that life and resurrection should be bestowed by a tree.”

And this is where all the threads of our readings are drawn together: The serpent lifted up, the hymn of Christ’s self-emptying, the son given in love – each of them pointing to the same mystery.

At the heart of it lie not mere belief as an idea – the word John uses for belief means to trust, to entrust oneself, to lean the whole weight of life upon Christ. This is the life that Stefania is brought into today – not simply a set of words to affirm, but a relationship of trust with the One who gave himself for her.

When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, he made it clear: the Son was not sent into the world to condemn, but to save. The cross is not a sign of condemnation but of love poured out.

During the baptism ceremony, when the sign of the cross is traced on Stefania’s forehead, Christ claims her for his own. The cross - the sign of Christ’s victory over death - becomes the mark of her belonging to him, traced upon her life as a seal of protection and love. It will be her companion throughout life: reminding her that she belongs to the one lifted up for love of her; proclaiming that God’s grace reached her before she could ask for it; that love claimed her before she could understand it; that God’s victory covers her before she could earn it.

In these waters she is buried with Christ into his death, so that she may also rise with him to new life. Baptism is both gift and calling: gift, because it assures her that she already shares in Christ’s victory; calling, because it sets before her the pattern of his life. As she grows, the sign of the cross will call her into that pattern - a life of self-giving love, of obedient trust in God’s provision, of walking the way that leads through death into life.

Today we see again the paradox at the heart of our faith: what seems weak becomes strong, what seems foolish becomes wisdom, what looks like death becomes life. That paradox also runs through our own lives. There are times when we find ourselves in the wilderness – weary, doubtful or uncertain. Like Israel in the desert, we know how easily faith can falter. Yet the God who did not abandon his people then does not abandon us now. His grace is always greater than our frailty; when we are bitten by doubt, poisoned by cynicism or wounded by life, we can still look to the cross and live.

And perhaps we also recognise ourselves in those trees before they found their true purpose. Life has not turned out as we once hoped. Health may have diminished. Work or family life may look very different from our dreams. Our circumstances may feel more like a forgotten lumberyard than a palace throne room.

Yet God’s purposes are often fulfilled in ways we do not expect. The manger held the treasure of heaven. The fishing boat carried the King of Kings. The rough beams became the sign of salvation. In the same way, our ordinary lives, with all their disappointments and limitations, can be taken up by God for glory.

Look, then, at your own life - even its disappointing, ordinary parts - and ask how God might be at work in them.

On this Holy Cross Day, we lift our eyes to the cross - the place where suffering is turned into glory, and defeat into victory. And when the wilderness feels long and God seems distant, we are invited to look again to the one who was lifted up for love of us. Trust Him and Live. For the God who turned rough beams into the tree of life, who makes water the fountain of rebirth, who brings glory out of disappointment - this God has looked upon us with love, and made us alive forever.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.