MARCH 5, 2006 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9; I Peter 3:18-20; Mark 1:9-15
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Rachel, Carolyn and I walk into the darkened Abbey of Saint Pierre des Solesmes (sew-lem) – it’s about ten minutes before Evening Vespers. We are at the center of the world’s Benedictine monastic movement, an Abbey that is famous for its Gregorian chants.
We sit in the cold, darkened, soaring sanctuary bundled up in our coats, silently surveying the vaulted ceilings, the intricate carvings, the incense tinted air. It is an awesome worship facility, one that is entirely unlike our warm and homey Gloria Dei…And I wonder, for a moment, how different might be our family of faith if our sanctuary were set in stone rather than warmed with wood, shaded with shadows rather than lit up with lights.
We sit in the third pew from the front…and we’re still a hundred feet away from the altar. Our catch phrase for this trip comes to mind once again – I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore! And then something happens – a little thing, really, but it transforms my perception of that cavernous church.
A switch is flipped and the altar is suddenly awash with light. One beam in particular highlights the large chancel cross…and, strangely, I don’t feel so foreign anymore. That single sign, that symbol sublime, that simple design speaks to me as nothing else can of God’s suffering love and amazing grace: for my family, for my family of faith back home, for this family of humanity in France and across our planet. It marks me, this sign of the cross, and I know that I belong…
I look at the others who are gathering for worship. Most are dressed in dark leather, a beret or two on some balding heads - everyone has a warm scarf wrapped stylishly around their necks. I shiver and try to zip up my coat further but it’s as tight as it will go. A woman with a young girl, I assume it’s her granddaughter, settles in across the aisle. She, like lots of people we see, has a baguette, a loaf of French bread, sticking out of one of her bags. After a moment to catch her breath, she leans forward on the kneeler to pray.
No one speaks – the only sounds are those of bulletins crinkling, coats rustling, noses sniffling, and then I hear the scrape of a shoe being dragged along the rough floor. Soon an old man appears making his way down the center aisle to sit in what I assume is his place, as close to the front as possible. Barely able to walk, still he pauses at the end of the pew, bends one knee to the stone slab floor, and bows to the altar before taking his seat.
Then far up front in the area reserved for the spiritual community, the monks start to file into the sanctuary two by two. Dressed alike in dark albs, the men come in all sizes, colors and ages. At a certain point they, too, stop in their procession, bow to the altar, then move to their seats along the walls.
Suddenly, everyone in the church stands…and we do too, dutiful sheep that we are…and it hits me: sitting this close to the front, we’re fairly exposed for people who don’t have a clue as to what’s going on. I start to get a little anxious as the priest faces the congregation and says something I can’t understand…but then he makes the sign of the cross… and, strangely, I don’t feel so foreign anymore.
That single sign, that symbol sublime, that simple design speaks to me as nothing else can of God’s suffering love and amazing grace: for my family, for my family of faith back home, for this family of humanity in France and across our planet. It marks me, this sign of the cross, and I know that I belong…
Isn’t it strange how things change? This gesture that now fills me with such a sense of God’s grace was just not done when I was growing up. It was never stated, but everyone understood, that if you made the sign of the cross, then people might think (gasp!) that you were Roman Catholic!
I’ll never forget a gift
that I was given by our pastor at graduation: a book of prayers by Martin
Luther. Imagine my surprise when I read his words for morning devotions: When
you rise, he said, make the sign of the cross and say, “In the name of God: the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Then Luther suggests that we
should say the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and another prayer, sing a
hymn, “then go do our work joyfully.”
His advice for the end of the day is very similar. In the evening when you retire, says Luther, make the sign of the cross and say, “In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Then, again, he suggests that we say the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and another prayer…“then quickly lie down and sleep in peace” (“Prayers for Daily Use,” The Small Catechism, An Explanation of Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, p. 26).
So here’s what I’m going to do for this season of Lent – following Luther, I’m going make the sign of the cross when I awake and before I go to sleep. I’ll probably also make the sign of the cross when it’s appropriate at worship…and I invite you to do the same if it would bless you spiritually.
If the large gesture (head, chest, shoulder to shoulder) feels too foreign, then you might make the sign of the cross on your forehead with those wonderful words from our baptismal service: Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.
I was really blessed to see in France that though we are separated by politics and practices, customs and continents, histories and habits, one thing unites us, and its power is infinitely stronger than anything that divides us…the sign of the cross. Amen.