The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit;
A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
In about the year 325AD, the Roman emperor Constantine sent his mother, Helena, to the Middle East on a very special mission: she was to find any artifacts that she could that pertained to the life of Jesus of Nazareth and preserve them, as well as any holy sites associated with Jesus and his followers. Helena was to spare no expense to find and preserve whatever remained from the earthly life of Christ. Two of the oldest and most sacred churches in the world owe their existence to Helena: The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Helena’s most famous discovery by far, was what was reported to be the true cross on which Jesus was crucified. While excavating around the site that local tradition claimed to be the location of Christ’s tomb, Helena found, unceremoniously dumped in the bottom of a ditch, three large wooden crosses. Surely, she thought, one of these must be the cross on which Jesus was crucified. When one woman was miraculously healed by touching one of the crosses, Helena believed that she had discovered the true cross of Jesus and fragments of that piece of wood were distributed throughout the world. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is built over the site where Helena discovered the crosses as well as the two places where tradition states that Jesus was crucified and buried.
It would be easy for us in the modern world to forget how powerful a symbol the cross once was. It is now so casually used and worn (in varying degrees of tastefulness I might add), that it is entirely possible to overlook the fact that this was an instrument of torture that represented not only the death of Jesus, but the deaths of countless others whom the Romans crucified. Jesus’ followers couldn’t bear to look at a cross after his death and the cross didn’t become the universal symbol of Christianity until much later. It was probably no accident that the actual cross was thrown into a ditch and forgotten for 300 years. It was a symbol of defeat and weakness and pain and it reminded Christ’s followers of a horrific event that they just couldn’t bear to face. But Christ’s followers eventually overcame their aversion to the cross by transforming it into a symbol of life, and not just death. The cross became a reminder of Christ’s life and the eternal life that he promised to his followers and for that reason it became a treasured symbol of Christianity and one of the most recognized symbols in the world.
In the days immediately following September, 11th 2001, it became unbearable for many people to view media coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The pain was still too real. For many of us the pain still is too real. In the Pastoral Care Office is a binder that is left over from the weeks and months following September 11th. It is filled with photographs and missing person signs left by family members desperately looking for their loved ones. I have to admit that I find this book almost unbearable to look through, knowing now that these people are no longer missing, just missed. I don’t know any of these people, but I do know that each one of them was loved by someone; each one of them had a family; each one of them had dreams. While many people are mourning for specific loved ones, some of us mourn for people we never knew. There is something pretty amazing about our capacity to connect with complete strangers and maybe one of the things that we learn during a major crisis is how much we really do need one another.
On the morning of September 11th, 2001 the terrible, hateful actions of a few individuals got a lot of media coverage. What is less obvious is how many people responded to such hatred with courage and love. How many people ran into burning buildings to try to save complete strangers? How many people offered food or assistance or shelter? How many people worked long hours trying to rescue victims or recover bodies? How many people from around the world sent their condolences? How many stories are there of love, courage and compassion that we will never know? The most amazing thing about September the 11th, was that on that day and in the days immediately following, nobody was a stranger. We were all in this together. Maybe that is why so many people feel so profoundly wounded by that morning even though they never actually met any of the victims: by some sort of revelation we realized that we were all family.
It took a while for the cross to transform from a symbol of death and pain into a symbol of love and hope, but eventually it did happen and now the Church observes Holy Cross Day on September 14th. Any church lucky enough to have a fragment of the True Cross typically displays it on that day. Now it is fragments of World Trade Center steel that have been distributed around the world in the form of various memorials, in the hope that they too can bring about healing. It will take a lot more than 10 years for us to be able to fully appreciate and understand the events of September 11th, if we ever do, but it will only be possible if we can look beyond the hatred of the few that began that day, and remember the love that was expressed in how we responded. If you spend too much time hating something you usually condemn yourself into becoming what you despise. It’s just not worth it. Despite the media attention that was given to the hateful acts of the few, it was the loving and courageous acts of the many that actually won the day. Love may not be as showy or spectacular as hatred, but it is far more enduring and far more powerful. Whether it is on September the 11th or September the 14th the lesson is essentially the same: love always wins.
