Crossings: The Cross as a Tree
Wednesday Cross Sermon: Maybe it has been a single tree all along
The original version of this sermon was preached on March 14, 2016 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, the first in the final week of their Lenten series. It has been revised slightly for The Cottage.
In five sermons this week, I'm going to explore the theme for this year's Lenten series: It's About the Cross, Not About Us.
This theme surprised and discomforted me. It surprised me because of your reputation as a progressive congregation — this topic seemed somewhat different from your more recent theological concerns. And it discomforted me because I, like so many Christians these days, don’t always know what to think about traditional theologies of the Cross — those associating salvation with suffering and violence. In some ways, the subject might be easier to change or avoid.
However, I want to take this theme quite literally. Through these reflections, I’ll develop a series of images, each shedding different light on the central symbol of Christianity. These sermons offer no definitive theology of the Cross — only the prismatic promises of this emblem of faith. I hope to invite our hearts into creative wonder at what happened so long ago on Calvary.
Today, I want to begin with trees — specifically, the Tree of Life.
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