Granlund Sculpture Dedication Sermon

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

18The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us

who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,

 “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

  and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this

age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of

God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the

foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs

and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to

Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and

Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For God’s foolishness is

wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Sermon Text

Lent always feels a bit bleak to me.

It is a time of preparation; a time of penance; a time of prayer, fasting, and giving alms.

Here in Minnesota, the season always coincides with the lingering winter. It seems to

drag on just a little too long.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of the season. But sometimes I find

myself wondering, do we really need 40 days in the desert when life is already so

difficult? While I usually don’t give up too much outside of my obligatory days of fasting,

the season generally puts me in a rather reflective mood.

This year, my mind keeps drifting back to a different Lent, probably because it was the

one I experienced exactly twenty years ago. I was not a Christian yet, so I didn’t really

understand the importance that season. However, it was likely one of the more

transformative Lenten seasons I have ever had because it taught me something quite

valuable about the cross.

That Lent, I left the country for the first time. I went to Spain.

Because I am now a professor of church history, and you know me at this point in my

life, you may be assuming that I was going to go on some sort of epic pilgrimage. That I

was heading to Avila, which seems like the obvious choice, or maybe to do the Camino

de Santiago.

I was not.

Remember, I was not a Christian. I was 21, visiting one of my best friends who was

studying in Toledo, and we were planning on having a very fun trip including an

excursion to the Canary Islands, a trip to Valencia for las Fallas, which Wikipedia

describes as a pyrotechnic spectacle (which is pretty accurate), and then just general

sightseeing and merriment. The trip most assuredly was not religious in nature. Until it

was.

So, I headed out alone from Minneapolis on the evening of March 10, 2004, and I

arrived in Madrid on the morning of the 11 th , which was the morning of the deadliest

terrorist attack in Spanish history. Around 7:30, four different commuter trains were

bombed in Madrid. Nearly 200 people were killed and around 2000 were injured.

I will always remember the feel of the city that morning. Death and grief and fear

seemed to hang in the air.

Later during that trip, deeply feeling this despair, I decided I wanted to see Picasso’s

Guernica. If you have never seen this painting, it is a surrealist work that depicts the

bombing of the city of Guernica, which was occurred in 1937 by the order of General

Franco and the Nationalist faction. The painting is representative of the anguish and

suffering endured during the Spanish Civil War, and it is housed in the Reina Sophia

which is a modem art museum in Madrid.

However, that day, I went to the wrong museum. Now, I did eventually get to the Reina

Sophia, and I did see Guernica. And it is powerful, and it is terrible, and it didn’t make

me feel any better whatsoever. It is brilliant, of course, but it is fundamentally just one

more record of human sin and suffering. There is no hope in that painting, just despair.

So, what museum did I accidently go to that day? The Prado. In my defense, this was

before we all had iPhones.

And that day, I saw so, so many paintings depicting the crucifixion. I remember

wondering if the Spanish had ever painted anything other than the crucifixion, at least in

the pre-modern era. And while I will freely admit that I did not truly understand this yet,

these depictions of the crucifixion were what I needed to see that day, not Guernica.

Why?

Because the crucifixion is powerful and terrible, but it offers hope and salvation.

I am honored to have been asked to preach on the day that we are dedicating the

Granlund statue. It is such a powerful piece for many reasons, but what is most striking

to me is the way that the artist brings the crucified Christ into our midst as a worshiping

community.

Now, I do know some Christians prefer the empty cross.

There are, of course, legitimate reasons for this preference. I won’t deny that. We are a

resurrection people. We are an Easter people. Christ has conquered death! Yes. Yes,

that is all true.

But we can’t celebrate being a resurrection people without first enduring the suffering

and death of Good Friday.

There is a brutality to the crucifix, as we can see. We have to look at the suffering of

Jesus Christ, our God, his body given for us. Broken.

In the crucifixion we can also see our own human failings; our own sins. It can be

difficult to look at.

But the crucifixion is also, I would argue, a symbol of a love so deep, so infinite, that it is

almost terrifying to behold.

Our scripture reading for the day is the perfect text for this dedication. In it, St. Paul is

highlighting the importance of the cross. He says: “the cross is foolishness to those who

are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Right before this passage however, Paul is discussing the conflict that is going on in the

community in Corinth. The context for this passage is that folks are fighting, as groups

of people, even Christians, tend to do. So, what does Paul do? He points them of the

cross.

Because there is power, and hope, and salvation in the cross. The cross is what should

bring us together. It is foolishness to those who perish, but to us, it is the power of God.

In a similar vein, St. Augustine wrote that “the death of the Lord our God should not be a

cause of shame for us; rather, it should be our greatest hope, our greatest glory.”

To look upon the crucified Christ is not a cause for shame, but it our greatest glory

because he has promised us life in him.

As many of you know, over the past year, I have spent a lot of time with the mystics.

And one person I found particularly intriguing is the seventeenth century French

missionary nun, Marie of the Incarnation. She was a wife and mother, who entered into

a convent a little later in life after having a series of mystical visions.

As I was contemplating our statue of Christ here, in preparation for today, I was

reminded of one her visions. It occurred in the year 1620, and it was what started her on

the religious life. In somewhat typical terms, she comes to recognize her past sins, a

process generally referred to as purgation in mystical literature, but then this is where

things get really good, and it is what I reflected upon and what I want to share with all of

you.

Marie had a vision of the crucifixion, and she came understand that “if one had been

entirely alone the Son of God would have done exactly what he did for everyone.”

She then writes: “This truly wastes and, as it were, destroys the soul. These visions and

what they evoke penetrate so deeply that in an instant they communicate everything

with their own perfect efficacy. At that moment I felt transported beyond myself and

transformed through the mercy of him who had wrought this wonderful grace.”

Even if one had been entirely alone, Christ would have done exactly what he did. In

other words, He would have died for one, just as he died for the many.

There is a universality to the crucifixion, of course. For God so loved the world that he

gave his one and only son. But as Marie so articulately expressed, it is also profoundly

personal. The crucifixion is a symbol of God’s incredible and transformative love for the

world and for each of us individually.

So, let me return briefly to where I began, with Lent.

Do I still think Lent is a bit bleak? Yes, I think I always will. But we need our forty days of

preparation.

We are spending our time in the desert so we can come humbly to Good Friday, where

we witness the crucifixion of Christ, so we can truly understand and celebrate the

incredible gift that is Easter Sunday.