Grafted into the Cross
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
Good Friday, 2021
He is the vine, and we are the branches … The branches of the tree of life that stands in the center of the garden, the center of the Creation of the World … but also, the branches of the wood of the cross, on which the Prince of Glory died.
And so I ask you today: what it might mean, to be grafted into THIS tree? This tree, after all, is a symbol of death: dead wood, onto which a person is nailed, in order to kill him. And while I’ve seen those Easter crosses, where folks stick cut flowers into chicken wire so that the cross “blooms,” I have to say that it’s always struck me as a bit odd. Like those moments when you look at a Christmas tree and what you suddenly see is a tree that has been chopped down: a dead thing on which you have strangely chosen to hang shiny things.
But that’s my bad. Because the cross is, in fact, different. The cross sends down roots. The cross refuses to remain lifeless, even as it brings the death it was designed to inflict. The cross joins heaven and earth, by being the place (the moment) in which death touches life, and life is transformed by the encounter.
Life and death, intertwined. It is the story of these holy days. And if on Easter we look into death and find life, one could perhaps say that on Good Friday we look into life and find that it contains death.
Which would be a fact of staggering obviousness, if we were not so averse to it that we are likely to run as fast as we can in the other direction.
This day does not allow us to run. This day forces us to stand at the foot of the cross and face into the reality of death. And not just death, but the full depth of suffering, cruelty and despair. Here is an innocent man, tortured and killed by the authorities who wanted to silence him. Here is a mother, watching her child die in excruciating pain. Here is betrayal, cowardice, terror and abandonment.
Here, at the very center of it all.
Ours is not a sacred story that paints over the ugly, not a wistful vision of the perfection that could be if we would all just behave. Our story, our redemption, our hope is rooted right down deep in THIS. Start here. Start with the reality that life contains this kind of harshness … otherwise any insight you will get will be about half an inch deep and the healing won’t go much further than that.
It is a terrifying and bitter truth to have to taste. But it also contains a kind of bracing freshness. It rings true with some parts of your life story, doesn’t it, gathering them up out of the places you’ve stashed them: your suffering, your cruelty, your despair, brought into the light, brought into this space where life and death intermingle.
The tree of life was planted in paradise, and our nature led us away from it. The cross is planted in hell, meeting us (shall we say) where we are, so that redemption can grow from the very ground underneath our feet. So that it can grow within our broken and hurting and sinful souls. There, in those places where you think nothing can grow, and no-one should ever go: that’s where it will take root.
It is our own suffering that draws us to the cross: the pain we have felt and the pain that we have inflicted. It resonates with the cross and we are pulled in, overcoming even our desire to run from suffering, to run from loss, to run from anything that smells or looks or tastes like death.
Perhaps we can sense the truth that death and life are mingled here. And that if we want the life, we have to face the death; if we want the healing, we have to face the brokenness; if we want the redemption, we must face the sin. As Bishop Steven Charleston puts it, “We must go into the tomb of all that haunts us, even the loss of faith itself, to discover a truth older than death.”
We enter, and we are grafted into the life that courses through the cross, fed by the truth that a strong and fully lived life can only come through the willingness to suffer and die. Because that’s the paradox of the cross: it does not shrink from the reality of the punishing anger, the mindless sadism, and the brutal shedding of the blood. There IS death here, and even the Son of God cannot escape that fact. But there is life here too. Life that springs from the astonishing forgiveness, the resolute refusal to return violence for violence, and the willingness to have one’s blood shed.
He laid down his life for us. And we are grafted into that. That flows through us, giving us the courage to lay our own lives down, to lay our lives open, to admit to our own wounds and sin and sickness.
It is hard. We would rather clutch around our own pain, and turn away from others’ pain, as though denying and running from suffering and death defeats them somehow. But the thing is, running just gives them more power, inviting them to live (hidden away) at the center of our lives. And it encourages us to live smaller, more fearful lives, focused on trying to protect ourselves, to avoid our own suffering.
Being grafted into the cross turns all that on its head. The cross (and the crucified one) can bear the weight of our suffering, our brokenness, and even our sinfulness. The cross can bear all that, and therefore, so can we. We can be willing to experience the suffering that just might come from being truly alive in this world. We can be brave enough to love, and to be open to another person’s pain. We can be strong enough to recognize ourselves in the cruelty and sinfulness that planted this tree and thought it had won. We can do that, by being grafted into the tree of the cross, united with Jesus in his death, and trusting that we will be united with him in his resurrection. Then, and only then, will we be truly alive. May it be so, Amen.