When I Am Lifted Up

Holy Cross Day, Part Three

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

— John 12

And here it is.

After three days of considering the Cross, we arrive on Holy Cross Day itself, September 14. We have considered shame and judgment, new creation and humility. But today, in the Gospel of John, Jesus gives us perhaps the most profound image of all.

“When I am lifted up.”

Think about that for a moment. Christ gets lifted up—and His enemies are the ones doing the lifting.

The religious authorities bring the charges. Rome conducts the proceedings. Pilate gives the order. The machinery of execution takes over, and Jesus is quite literally lifted from the earth. Those responsible believe they are humiliating Him, defeating Him and displaying Him publicly as a warning to everyone else.

Instead, they lift Him up.

John loves that kind of reversal. Jesus being “lifted up” means His physical elevation upon the Cross, but it also suggests exaltation. The people who intend to put Him down accomplish the very image by which generations will remember Him. An instrument designed to repel becomes something that draws.

“I will draw all people to myself.”

Yesterday we considered Paul's declaration that “a new creation is everything.” On Saturday, we considered the extraordinary reversal of shame represented by Holy Cross Day. The Cross was designed to announce humiliation, defeat and death. Yet after Easter, Christians began lifting it up themselves. They put it atop churches. They carried it before them. They wore it. They sang about it. The symbol that announced This man is finished became the enduring symbol of a faith proclaiming that death itself will be finished.

Christian writer George Gilder once used the expression “a cross of light” while reflecting theologically upon the strange properties of light described by modern physics. It is a metaphor, not a scientific discovery, but it is an evocative one—especially here in John 12.

Because shortly after speaking of being lifted up, Jesus begins speaking about light.

“Walk while you have the light,” He tells those around Him. Believe in the light. Don't let the darkness overtake you.

Here we are, almost back where John's Gospel began. In the opening of John we encountered the Word, life and light. The light shines in the darkness. Now, as Jesus approaches the Cross, light and darkness appear again.

And in between stands this strange, terrible, beautiful thing being lifted from the earth.

The Cross.

Maybe that gives us something useful beyond theology. We've spent considerable time lately thinking about disagreement, particularly the kind we encounter online. We've talked about welcoming rather than quarreling. We've talked about forgiving instead of keeping a ledger. We've talked about humility, listening, patience and the temptation to retaliate when someone hurts us.

John adds another question.

Am I trying to defeat people, or draw them?

Christ draws.

That doesn't mean truth becomes unimportant. It doesn't mean we never disagree or never take a stand. Jesus certainly did both. But if the purpose of our faith is to draw people toward Christ, then perhaps humiliating them is a peculiar way of going about it. If I leave somebody feeling smaller, angrier and more despised after encountering me, I may have won my argument while accomplishing very little for the Kingdom.

Light suggests another way.

Imagine being somewhere unfamiliar in nearly complete darkness. Then, in the distance, you see a light. You don't need somebody to argue you toward it. You recognize that here is something different from the darkness surrounding you. It gives you a direction.

You move toward it.

Perhaps that's something Christians can remember when we're frustrated by the darkness we perceive around us. We don't have to curse the darkness continually. We don't have to win every dispute about whose fault the darkness is. We can walk in the light we have been given and perhaps become a little more visible within it.

That brings our three days of Holy Cross reflections together.

The Cross reverses our ideas about shame. It reveals a new kind of greatness through humility and self-giving. And finally, today, it draws.

There is something almost wonderfully ironic about the whole story. The people who wanted Jesus gone lifted Him high enough for everyone to see.

Rome did the lifting.

The Cross did the drawing.

And two thousand years later, we are still looking.

Perhaps that is the invitation of Holy Cross Day. When the world feels dark, when people seem determined to divide themselves into camps, when somebody has hurt us and we're preparing our response, we can look again toward the thing that was lifted up.

The Cross.

The Light.

And instead of asking how we might defeat somebody today, perhaps we can ask a better question:

What might draw somebody toward the Light?

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