Being Found In Human Form

John 3:16  Phil 2:8

“Being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross”  Phil 2:8

I am a cobbled together sort of Vicar when it comes to it.

A job lot of other people’s influences and characters.

An actress who had a walk on part in the “Railway Children” taught me how to speak clearly, so that even if your sermons are rubbish, she said, your congregations will be able to hear every word.

As soon as he heard I was going to be a Vicar, Mr Haff, my choirmaster for many years started coaching me in the singing of “O lord Open thou our lips” he would give me the  note every time I walked into choir practice. We never got as far as Merbecke however and as Martin will tell you, it shows.

The Vicar who trained me as a Curate gave me just one piece of good advice – keep a neat service register, he told me, if  your whole ministry descends into chaos the Archdeacon will never know because all they do is look at service registers.

My own Parish Priest who inspired me at last to take faith seriously, stood on our doorstep late one night. “I’ve had a bad day and I wonder if you would pray for me” he said “and I’ve got tests at the hospital in the morning”.

I didn’t know what to say. I thought that was the sort of thing you said TO Vicars.

I think I went and got my mum and left him standing there.

In that moment though, I learnt that it is our common humanity that is the most precious thing we have to share no matter who we are.

And the influence of Christ Himself, you may ask? Where is he to be found in you?

This Holy Cross Day is a strange festival isn’t it.

Isn’t it like making another Good Friday way out on the second Sunday in September?

Here is how it came to be.

Constantine was the man who gave Christianity its respectable place in the Roman Empire.

He had a Mother called Helena and he paid for her to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and whilst she was in the Holy City, she found a slither of wood which was part of the true cross of Christ.

She was a woman of influence and wealth and she decreed that a church be built over the spot where the discovery was made and that it be a big enough church to contain under one roof both the place of the cross and the site of the empty tomb.

The date of this discovery was 14 September in the year 335.

The church was named the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and on this day the slither of holy wood would get presented to the people for veneration.

I’ve been to that church and queued up to put my hand in the place where the piece of the cross was discovered. It’s now beneath a jewelled altar bedecked with candles.

I’ve been ushered into the empty tomb by the duty security gaurds on the other side of the building and stood wondering if this was possibly the place where He was once laid.

In those moments God asked me why I had come.

What it was I was expecting to find.

In not so many words He told me that I never really needed to travel any further than my own life’s experience to see the cross for what it is.

That along with all the bits and pieces that go to make me up – he has put a bit of his cross as the place where I might discover his love for me most fully.

That He’s put his cross in the place where I am at my most uncertain. My most hurting place, my most needful place, that’s where he’s nailed it.

Our Epistle reading says it : “Being found in human form”.

In my human form and yours.

In that place that feels the furthest away from heaven – that’s where he makes his home, and he doesn’t minister to our pain – he simply shares it, in a way that someone who really did love you would.

Shares it to the point of death.

Shares it and if we let him he takes it to himself and together we make the short journey from the place of the cross to the place of the empty tomb.

It’s all under one roof. Right there inside you.

On Wednesday morning at 8.30am it was Rev’d Rosemary’s turn to lead Morning Prayer and as she began the service I waited for the world to end, thinking this would be a fine way to go. The world kept turning though and we kept praying.

They’re looking at the affect of the collision of various atomic particles after they’ve been racing around 17 miles of pipe work as a way of understanding the big bang.

It might help to explain why we’re here and how things were made.

Today is also about the result of a collision course too.

The love of God and the need of humanity and what happens when the two collide is that you get the cross. You get an intermingling of dark and light, suffering and healing, exploding into one.

As Christians we need to be continually reflecting on the consequences of this moment and trying to explain the difference this makes to our destiny.

So unless we can claim perfection – do you see that each of us is a shrine of the true cross. I can’t tell in what form yours is, but I do know that because you are a shrine I must treat you gently and we must treat each other with reverence.

And I do know that whether you like it or not, whether you recognise it or not – that collision course of God’s love and your need, is taking place daily in your life.

There it is as Paul describes “Being found in human form”

And that when we’re having a bad day, we’re closer to the heart of our pilgrimage than we think.

It’s wonderful when people share their skills, their insights and challenges with us and we can aspire to them. It’s not so good when all that does is reveal our inadequacies.

So it’s even more wonderful when people can share the gaps in their lives that other people simply cannot fill.

We’re opening the shrine and we’re discovering the place where His cross is to be found within us. A collision of life and death in which life will always prove to be the stronger.

Just a slither is enough – A cut of light, like a wound, which shines in the darkness and which will not be overcome.

That is our festival day and we will rejoice and be glad in it!

RH  14.9.08