Ants in the Cross
Ash Wednesday 2023
I was going to preach this sermon for Ash Wednesday this evening but because of our winter storm that is not going to happen. I am filling in for our pastor who had just left for the Holy Land. It is pretty ironic that I begin the sermon talking about my own dread of going out of town as a pastor when our own pastor is out of town - a long ways out of town. This sermon is based on an experience I had when pastoring at Zion United Methodist Church in Grand Forks, ND.
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:17-18
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:17-18 NRSV)
When I was in active ministry, I always felt a little bit of hesitancy when I went out of town. It seemed like whenever I did, something would go wrong either at home or at the church. (I’ll admit, this isn’t probably the best time to talk about that with Pastor Michele in the Holy Land) Anyway, there were times I was called home for unexpected, tragic deaths. I was called home a couple times when our son or daughter were in car accidents. I was called home when a major rainstorm brought several inches of water into our parsonage. More than once I came home to staff resignations. Apparently it was easier for staff to quit when I was out of town.
But I don’t think anything has been stranger than the time I came home to this phone call: “Pastor, you know this past Sunday when you were gone? As I was leaving the church I drove by the front of the church. I was looking at our cross on top of the church and it seemed like one of the arms of the cross was sagging. I thought you might want to check it out.”
This was no small cross he was talking about. It stood at the end of our church building - over 40 feet high. It was a beam of three feet of lamination. It rose from ground level through the roof overhang at the front side of the sanctuary and then up above the roof line where the horizontal beams to the cross were fixed.
We didn’t live far from the church so I went over to look. Sure enough one of the arms of the cross did not look straight.
So what does any good pastor do when there is something wrong with the church building? I called the chair of the trustees. Later that day I met him at the church and he concurred - the arm of the cross was sagging. He would come back the next day to get a closer look.
The next day the Trustee chair climbed up the steep, pitched roof to get close and personal. Something definitely was wrong. The day after, he showed up with another Trustee and a lot of tools. He figured that over the years the glue had let loose and the laminated cross arm was coming apart. Their plan was to clamp the cross arm back together, drill a long hole through the arm from one side to the other, put a long bolt through, and draw it up tight with bolts, bringing the cross arm back together and straighten it.
We were in for a surprise. They had barely started drilling their hole when the drill bit broke through the wood into a big hollow hole in the middle of the cross arm. Out of the hole climbed big black ants. Ants had somehow – for who knows how long – gotten up into that portion of the cross and eaten out the inside to make a nest or to open an ant smorgasbord.
The long and short of it, we didn’t have any idea how long those ants had been in the cross and how extensively they had burrowed in the cross. For all we knew that 40 foot cross was riddled with ant holes from bottom to top and from side to side and the whole thing was ready to fall apart. We had a new cross built, rented a crane, and exchanged the ant infested cross with a new one.
It was a Grand Forks media event. To be honest I was embarrassed - the trustees were embarrassed. How could we have neglected the cross - over who knows how many years - to the point it was ready to fall apart? How could we have neglected the cross?
Paul cautions us not to do that very thing – to neglect the cross – not a cross of laminated beams but the cross upon which Jesus had died – and not the physical cross per se but rather what Jesus’ death on that cross had accomplished. Paul would say that if we neglect the cross we have neglected much – there is no other way by which we can be saved.
Paul writes this as he responds to a group of people who were torn apart - divided up into camps over who had been their favorite pastor/preacher. Paul was so convinced of the importance of the cross, he gave thanks he was not an eloquent speaker. He didn’t want people to follow him and the Christian way because of his persuasive preaching. He wanted to people to choose Jesus’ way because of the power of the cross and the cross alone.
Paul says - don’t neglect the cross which brought you to faith. You are going to hear others make fun of what you believe – calling you thoughtless and naming your trust in Jesus’ death on the cross as foolishness. There are people out there who want to save themselves. There are people out there who are looking for more dramatic – flashier - ways to find salvation. There are people out there who want to save themselves with lofty thoughts and complicated philosophies. Be careful - don’t neglect the cross. The cross is God’s plan and - “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
Paul’s caution is as well founded today as it was back then. Who wants to hear about an old rugged cross stained with blood so divine? - so gruesome – so simplistic – so irrational - so easy to disregard - **but** ……. so costly if neglected. There is no other salvation.
As we stand at the threshold of the Lenten Season we smudge our foreheads with some very common ashes, reminding us we are mortal human beings - all those physical things we have and create will someday deteriorate to dust and ash. But it is more than just a smudge. It is the mark of the cross - the solution to our sin and mortality once and for all.
We turn to the cross. May we never neglect it.
Amen, Doug. Terrific analogy.