THE CRADLE AND THE CROSS

Luke 2:25-35

I love the Christmas lights although some go overboard with lavish, non-stop displays.  On the news last week was the man near Portland who lived next door to someone who had done just that.  He could not compete and so he had a neon sign made that said simply "ditto," with an arrow pointing at his neighbor's display.  I like the music of Christmas too, and the emphasis on rejoicing.  But we now are before the communion table that reminds us there is pain involved in this season.  It reminds us that Jesus was born to die. It reminds us that the cradle in a stable is joined by the cross on a hill as symbols that summarize who Jesus was and why he came.  They can never be separated.

We realize this when we read all of Luke's account of Jesus birth and infancy.  In the first two chapters of Luke we see the beauty in the story of Jesus' birth -- Mary's song, his birth in a manger, angels singing, and shepherds praising.  But then Luke tells us a story that foreshadows the pain and suffering of the cross, not just for Jesus, but also for his mother, Mary.  Shortly after Jesus was born Mary and Joseph took him to the temple to "present him to the Lord," since the law stated that every first born male belonged to the Lord.  There they came across an old man named Simeon who had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he saw the Lord's Messiah.  I can imagine him slightly bent with age, a staff in one hand, long white beard, perhaps with some spittle dripping, but with sharp, piercing eyes.  He startled many a mother as he suddenly confronted her and lifted a corner of the blanket to look see her child.  When he saw Jesus Simeon took him in his arms, raised his eyes to heaven and declared, "my eyes have seen Your salvation."  But when he handed Jesus back to Mary he said, This baby is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed -- and a sword will pierce even your own soul." 

John Killinger, pastor and professor of preaching, tells how those words were driven into his soul.  He and his family were in Spain, in a museum, standing before one of the great Spanish crucifixion scenes.  The painting, like so many Spanish works of art, was dark and brooding, unlike the sunlit plains of Spain.  Christ hung on the cross.  In the lower foreground a woman knelt.  "Who is that?" asked their six year old.  "That's Mary, Jesus' mother," we explained.  He was quiet for a second or two and then he said, very solemnly, "that must have hurted her."  Since then, Killinger says, "I have not been able to read Simeon's words to Mary, 'a sword will pierce through your own soul also' without remembering that observation" (Fundamentals of Preaching, 121). 

Luke has hardly finished telling the story of Jesus' birth in a stable than he elicits the image of a cross on a hill and the pain and suffering it brought to Mary.  Jesus was born to die.  The cradle and the cross cannot be separated.

At the communion table, as we remember how Jesus suffered on our behalf, may we also remember Mary, and many others, even today, who know him as friend, as teacher, and as Lord who also suffer and who, in some way enter into the pain of the cross.