Colossians 1:15-20
Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things. For through him God created everything in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen things, including spiritual powers, lords, rulers, and authorities. God created the whole universe through him and for him. Christ existed before all things, and in union with him all things have their proper place. He is the head of his body, the church; he is the source of the body's life. He is the first-born Son, who was raised from death, in order that he alone might have the first place in all things. For it was by God's own decision that the Son has in himself the full nature of God. Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son's blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.
Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things. For through him God created everything in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen things, including spiritual powers, lords, rulers, and authorities. God created the whole universe through him and for him. Christ existed before all things, and in union with him all things have their proper place. He is the head of his body, the church; he is the source of the body's life. He is the first-born Son, who was raised from death, in order that he alone might have the first place in all things. For it was by God's own decision that the Son has in himself the full nature of God. Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son's blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.
Last week I explained that through this Lent I want to spend some time looking at the Cross. Not literally sitting and looking at it – although that might well be worth the time spent – but looking into and thinking about the idea of the cross and all the different things it represents to us. Today I want to look at the Cross as the connecting point between heaven and humankind – between heaven and hell.
I don’t know how many of you have spent much time studying cultural anthropology, or if you have, if it was so long ago you don’t remember much about it anymore. There is a concept that anthropologists and ethnologists have found in virtually every cultural from the earliest times to the present that involves an axis mundi – an axis point which for that culture is the center-point of the world – a physical or metaphorical navel – around which everything turns.
Since divinity is so universally seen as up there – this axis mundi is also a point of connection between sky and earth. It’s also the place where the four compass directions meet – East, West, North, South – they all come together here. This is the point from which those of us here in the lower realms can communicate upward with the higher realms. Our prayers and offerings go up from this point and blessings, in turn, come down to us here. This point is often on a mountain – higher up and closer to the heavens – but many time it is an actual physical pole – or a tall, pointy steeple – lifting into the sky.
So far I am not talking here about specifically Judeo-Christian belief – this is a worldwide human urging within us, whether we are worshiping many gods of different names or the spirits of the trees and wind. But this need for a center point certainly exists in our faith history, as well.
Genesis 2:8-10
Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and there he put the man he had formed. He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. A stream flowed in Eden and watered the garden; beyond Eden it divided into four rivers.
Here the Garden of Eden is clearly the center point of the world and the four rivers that flow from it mark the four compass points – and here we have, not one, but two axis mundis – the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. Humankind blew it in Eden and was driven away from the center of the world – never, it seemed to be so close to God again.
Genesis 11:1-9
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
The story of the Tower of Babel has traditionally been taught as a story of punishment for human hubris, for arrogance. Here humanity decides it can build its own axis point – a tower so high that it will reach clear into the abode of God himself. The people will make themselves like gods, or at least reconnect themselves with God. For this arrogance we have been cursed with an almost fatal inability to understand each other. Later, in Jesus, we will come to see that this connection – if there is to be one again, has to originate with God – not with us – we, on our own, will fail - time and time again.
Genesis 28:10-17
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Here the people are given hope again. There is still a link between heaven and earth and angels – God’s messengers – are moving up and down – back and forth – all the time. There is still hope for us. In time, a new axis point, a new center of the world is created with the building of the Temple in Jerusalem and there is once again a place where humans can connect with God. But for the hundreds of years of the Old Testament, God’s messengers travel back and forth bringing word to the people through the prophets – and for hundreds of years that word is grasped briefly at best and then ignored – over and over and over.
Clearly, something has to be done and so God sends his Word – that capital ‘W’ Word - in the person of Jesus. Jesus who ‘comes down’ from heaven to earth - not in some fleeting appearance, but to actually live among us. He comes and dies among us. And his Cross becomes for us a new Tree of Life - a new Jacob’s ladder -- a new connection between heaven and us, even here in the sometimes hell of our human existence.
People have hungered all through history for a point of connection with the divine. Jesus IS that point for us – and we do not need to keep searching for another. In his life and in his death on the cross, Jesus united us forever with God. God is no longer something ‘out there’ to be accessed through extraordinary means, like building towers or struggling up to mountain-tops. Instead, through Christ’s own Holy Spirit, God lives IN us and we live IN God.
Did you know there is a whole body of Christian mythology out there? – wild and weird stories that don’t come from scripture but have been passed along, down through the centuries as folktales. Many of these Christian myths – while they may not be facts, do tell us a certain kind of truth. One such story says that Golgatha - the Place of the Skull – where Jesus was crucified - was on the site of the original Eden and the place where Adam was created. It was also where Adam was buried when he died. In fact, the story goes, Jesus’ cross was placed right on Adam’s grave and the cross, passing through Adam’s grave, canceled out Adam’s sin, and went on below to stretch from hell all the way up to heaven, and provided a ladder to free the souls damned in hell.
St. Paul, as usual, has the last word: (I Corinthians 1:17-18, 22-24)
God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.
The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out.....While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
I don’t know how many of you have spent much time studying cultural anthropology, or if you have, if it was so long ago you don’t remember much about it anymore. There is a concept that anthropologists and ethnologists have found in virtually every cultural from the earliest times to the present that involves an axis mundi – an axis point which for that culture is the center-point of the world – a physical or metaphorical navel – around which everything turns.
Since divinity is so universally seen as up there – this axis mundi is also a point of connection between sky and earth. It’s also the place where the four compass directions meet – East, West, North, South – they all come together here. This is the point from which those of us here in the lower realms can communicate upward with the higher realms. Our prayers and offerings go up from this point and blessings, in turn, come down to us here. This point is often on a mountain – higher up and closer to the heavens – but many time it is an actual physical pole – or a tall, pointy steeple – lifting into the sky.
So far I am not talking here about specifically Judeo-Christian belief – this is a worldwide human urging within us, whether we are worshiping many gods of different names or the spirits of the trees and wind. But this need for a center point certainly exists in our faith history, as well.
Genesis 2:8-10
Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and there he put the man he had formed. He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. A stream flowed in Eden and watered the garden; beyond Eden it divided into four rivers.
Here the Garden of Eden is clearly the center point of the world and the four rivers that flow from it mark the four compass points – and here we have, not one, but two axis mundis – the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. Humankind blew it in Eden and was driven away from the center of the world – never, it seemed to be so close to God again.
Genesis 11:1-9
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
The story of the Tower of Babel has traditionally been taught as a story of punishment for human hubris, for arrogance. Here humanity decides it can build its own axis point – a tower so high that it will reach clear into the abode of God himself. The people will make themselves like gods, or at least reconnect themselves with God. For this arrogance we have been cursed with an almost fatal inability to understand each other. Later, in Jesus, we will come to see that this connection – if there is to be one again, has to originate with God – not with us – we, on our own, will fail - time and time again.
Genesis 28:10-17
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Here the people are given hope again. There is still a link between heaven and earth and angels – God’s messengers – are moving up and down – back and forth – all the time. There is still hope for us. In time, a new axis point, a new center of the world is created with the building of the Temple in Jerusalem and there is once again a place where humans can connect with God. But for the hundreds of years of the Old Testament, God’s messengers travel back and forth bringing word to the people through the prophets – and for hundreds of years that word is grasped briefly at best and then ignored – over and over and over.
Clearly, something has to be done and so God sends his Word – that capital ‘W’ Word - in the person of Jesus. Jesus who ‘comes down’ from heaven to earth - not in some fleeting appearance, but to actually live among us. He comes and dies among us. And his Cross becomes for us a new Tree of Life - a new Jacob’s ladder -- a new connection between heaven and us, even here in the sometimes hell of our human existence.
People have hungered all through history for a point of connection with the divine. Jesus IS that point for us – and we do not need to keep searching for another. In his life and in his death on the cross, Jesus united us forever with God. God is no longer something ‘out there’ to be accessed through extraordinary means, like building towers or struggling up to mountain-tops. Instead, through Christ’s own Holy Spirit, God lives IN us and we live IN God.
Did you know there is a whole body of Christian mythology out there? – wild and weird stories that don’t come from scripture but have been passed along, down through the centuries as folktales. Many of these Christian myths – while they may not be facts, do tell us a certain kind of truth. One such story says that Golgatha - the Place of the Skull – where Jesus was crucified - was on the site of the original Eden and the place where Adam was created. It was also where Adam was buried when he died. In fact, the story goes, Jesus’ cross was placed right on Adam’s grave and the cross, passing through Adam’s grave, canceled out Adam’s sin, and went on below to stretch from hell all the way up to heaven, and provided a ladder to free the souls damned in hell.
St. Paul, as usual, has the last word: (I Corinthians 1:17-18, 22-24)
God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.
The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out.....While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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