About three months after 9/11 a play called “The Guys” opened off Broadway, not far from where the World Trade Center had been. It was a two character play about a fire chief, Nick, who had lost eight or nine of his men on 9/11 and who needed help writing their eulogies. Joan, a professional writer, was chosen to assist him. Nick would talk, and Joan would put his thoughts in some kind of order. There is a powerful moment after Nick has been speaking about one of his men, offering bits and pieces of the man’s story, snatches of memory. Joan has been typing away, but when she reads back what she has written, her voice cracks with emotion. Nick looks up at her and sees how upset she has become and says, “Look what I’ve done, I’ve dragged you into this. I come along and unload all this stuff on you and now you’re wretched too. I had no right to do that. You should not suffer. You were outside of it and I dragged you in.”

It seems to me that lately we have been dragged into many sad stories: stories about men and women at war, roadside bombings, earthquakes in Italy, tragic car accidents on our own highways, Afghanistan, Dafur, Iraq, illnesses and the deaths of loved ones - there are many stories that we are dragged into, that, given a choice, we would probably not choose to be part of. And ths afternoon we come here to listen to yet another story of death, one we have heard many times. We listen to this story twice each year, on Palm Sunday and on Good Friday. Perhaps we have grown used to this story and only half listen. But this story can help us face all the other stories that come our way, all those other terrible stories of loss, pain, and grief, both personal and communal.

Our first reading from Isaiah speaks of the suffering servant,. The letter to the Hebrews speaks of the high priest who has learned obedience through his suffering. These readings help to prepare us for the passion of John’s gospel, where, Jesus is the one who reveals in his suffering and death the face of God. It is the hour long awaited - the story of the death of Jesus the King. In this gospel Jesus crucified is Jesus enthroned. From the cross Christ reigns, drawing all to himself. On the cross the hour has finally come when the mission Jesus was sent on is finished. Through the cross the God who sent Jesus is glorified and revealed - in the cross we know for certain that our God will always be faithful to us - our God will not abandoned us - God is stronger than even death, our greatest fear. At the cross a new creation begins, a new community is born. Life is changed, not ended.

We gather around the cross because of what this story tells us. The cross is the enthronement of Jesus as Lord of all creation. While the cross speaks to us of what happened in the past, once and for all, more importantly, it speaks to us about the present. We are the inheritors of that first community that stood at the foot of the cross: his mother, and the Beloved Disciple. The gospel places them both at the foot of the cross, where Jesus gives them to each other. Then he utters, “It is finished,” and hands over his spirit to the Father and to them. We come to the cross as his family of today, often in need of his spirit. The water and blood that flowed from Jesus on the cross continues to flow, as we will witness tomorrow evening as we baptize new members of the family of Jesus and the blood of the Lamb is once more presented to us in the Eucharist.

The cross becomes the tree of life. We share, as the Body of Christ, the sufferings of one another. We help one another to carry the cross. We participate in the cross through acts of self-giving - in our willingness to serve and love one another...in giving of our selves we receive, in dying to ourselves we are born to eternal life. Today as we venerate the cross we will be doing something very different. Rather than each person individually coming forth to kiss or embrace or reverence the cross, this year the cross will be carried by the Body of Christ - by everyone - we will pass the cross up and down through the pews - each person taking hold of the cross and passing it over our heads to those in the next pew. We reverence the cross best by carrying the cross together, as one family. As you take hold of the cross, let us pray - let us reflect on the cross that we carry - and let us remind ourselves that Christ is with us as we carry the cross.

And so we have listened one more time to the story of the cross. May it give us courage, calm, conviction and confidence in the One who sent Jesus, in the One who continues to draw us through Jesus. In the One who calls us His Chosen Ones, brothers and sisters of the Crucified one. Behold the wood of the cross on which hung the savior of the world. Come let us worship.