Signs and Idols

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Of ourselves we have no strength.” We make this confession in the appointed Collect for today. And indeed, we have no strength. Neither you nor I have any strength in us to do anything useful. Our wills are corrupted and our bodies are weak and feeble. We live in a dying world, among the walking dead. Of ourselves we have no strength, because of ourselves we are dead.

One of the things for which you have no strength is resisting temptation. Even the regenerate man, the person baptized into Christ and marked with the Name of the Lord, still faces temptation, and more often than not gives in to it. Today's Gospel lesson alludes to a great temptation – the temptation of images and signs.

On one hand, there is the temptation toward idolatry. Depicting God in any form, even the face of Jesus Christ, runs the risk of creating an idol, an object of worship, or at least dependence. This is why the Reformed traditions reject all forms of church art or visual depictions of God. They assert that to depict God in any way, shape, or form is to diminish His glory, because the glory of God is beyond the capacity for human beings to represent. Furthermore, they assert that to depict Jesus in visual form is to rob Him of His divinity, because the divine cannot be expressed in visual terms. Finally, the Reformed claim that God commands His people to worship Him and to deal with Him only in Word and Spirit, and that to depict Him visually is a direct disobeying of this edict.

However, on the other hand, there is the temptation to make Jesus into an abstraction. This is what happens in all too many sermons. Preachers talk about the wonders of Jesus. About the joys of following Jesus. About the blessings Jesus has to give. About the history of salvation and the historical narrative of Jesus. But they fail to preach Christ Crucified for sinners. Jesus is indeed present with His people in Word and in Spirit, but He is not therefore absent of a body, of a face, of a visual character. Jesus is no longer a living, breathing Son of Man and a creating, enlivening Son of God, but simply a guru, a DIY expert who teaches a good way of living.

Lutherans have traditionally retained the practice of having and displaying crosses, crucifixes, and other religious art for its devotional and educational value. In many a Lutheran parish, a cross or crucifix is the central visual element. In others, like here, a large statue of Jesus adorns the altarpiece. Here, our altarpiece depicts the risen Lord reaching out His nail-scarred hands in a gesture of blessing. It is as though our Lord is displaying to you the wounds by which you are healed, and at the same time He says to you, Peace be with you; My peace I give to you. See these marks? By My blood shed from them, your sins are forgiven.

The altarpiece in St. Mary's Church in Wittenberg has a panel that shows Martin Luther preaching to the congregation. Between Luther and the people stands the Crucifix. The artist means to indicate what Luther is preaching – that the preacher preaches nothing but Christ crucified for sinners. And that is the ideal to which every preacher strives (or at least he ought to be), but which, sadly, so often miss. Young pastors often preach everything but the kitchen sink, and their sermons are convoluted doctrinal essays. Old pastors often preach the same old sermons over and over, and ramble off on this or that tangent. A seminary professor once wrote that he has considered giving his students a bell to ring every time he gets off topic. Some pastors use a lot of illustrations and stories; sometimes the sermon is all story and no substance.

But the Cross, whether plain or with the Corpus Christi, speaks volumes. It speaks of the burden of sin and death that each of you carry, that each and every human being carries. It speaks of the cost of Adam and Eve's rebellion. It speaks of the reason for the Incarnation of our Lord. It speaks of the “holy, innocent, bitter suffering and death of [His] beloved Son, Jesus Christ” for the sins of the world. It speaks of your salvation and the forgiveness of your sins.

Does an empty cross convey this better, or a crucifix? That is not an argument I care to indulge at this moment. A better point for the pulpit is that we believe in signs. We believe in visual interpretations of our Lord's death for us men and for our salvation.

Recently we had a funeral here. And the closing hymn for that funeral was “Abide With Me.” A familiar favorite, and a beautiful exposition of the hope of a Christian in the face of falling evening and in the face of death. Remember the last verse:

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heav'n's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me (LSB 878.6).

We tend to think of this verse in metaphorical terms – God holding the Cross before our eyes of faith by means of the Holy Spirit. But Luther spoke much like Henry Lyte, only in more concrete terms. He spoke of literally, physically holding a crucifix before the eyes of one in the throes of death, to remind him that he was about to fall asleep in Christ; therefore to die is great gain because of the joy of abiding with Christ.

In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus offers up a sign for the sake of Nicodemus (although the Teacher of the Jews does not understand it). He says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” Your salvation is not an abstraction in the mind of God, but a physical reality.

I have yet to meet a person who really likes snakes, who enjoys being around them. Some people are outright terrified of snakes. Perhaps this is a holdover from the Garden, from mankind's first experience with a serpent. More often, people are simply on the negative side of indifferent. Growing up, I was taught that if you leave a snake alone, generally it will leave you alone also. When you go out in the woods or such a place, you need to be careful because you are entering the snake's habitat.

The idea of gazing upon a giant statue of a serpent must have been a frightening, ghastly prospect for the Israelites. I reckon you would think of it that way if someone suggested we hang a bronze serpent from a pole in this sanctuary. Snakes are uncomfortable and unseemly, and they make us uneasy in the best of circumstances.

But even more ghastly is the idea of gazing upon the crucified body of Christ on the cross. Many people recoil at the idea of a crucifix prominently displayed because it hangs before your eyes the reality of what your salvation cost. In some cultures, the crucifix is a painful symbol, because the people are conditioned to see their own guilt and shame when they gaze upon their crucified Lord, and be moved to make satisfaction for their current sins.

However, ghastly, disgusting, unsettling, and discomforting as it may be, you must look upon Him whom you have pierced. You must look to Christ and His cross, that you may believe in Him and have eternal life. For the Cross is the sign of God's love for His creation. God loved the world in this way, to this extent – that He would, and did, send His only-begotten Son into the flesh to bear your sin and be your savior. Your sin is ghastly and unsettling, but gazing upon the Cross of Christ is the only way to see the salvation which the Lord has prepared for you in the sight of every people. The light that enlightens the nations shines from the Cross. The glory of Israel is in our God who is glorified in His showing mercy, in forgiving your sins.

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” There was no need to send Jesus to condemn the world. The world, the devil, and sinful mankind stand condemned by sin, by our rebellion against God and against His Law. All He needed to do was abandon us to our own devices.

But while we were yet sinners, while you were yet sinners, Christ died for you. He shed His blood on the cross so that your blood might not be shed on the altar of justice. He died so that the world might be saved through Him. He died so that that in His being lifted up, you might see your salvation.

The Spirit blows where He wills, and where He wills is that you be drawn to the cross. Look upon the ghastly instrument of torture and pain. Look upon the place of our Lord's suffering and death. And keep always before your closing eyes the saving image of our Lord Jesus Christ bearing your sin so that His angels might bear you safely home to the bosom of Abraham. He has been lifted up so that you might be raised through Him, with Him, in Him.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.