Step 4: A searching and fearless moral inventory.

This year, the Feast of the Holy Cross occurred on a Saturday, which led me (I am ashamed to say) to put off my reflections for another day. But when I finally got round to it, something came to mind while reading the Gospel lesson assigned for the day, which, in part says: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12: 32). This passage is related to an earlier passage in John (3:13-17) when Jesus referenced Numbers 21:4-9. Here God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and raise it up on a pole so that those who looked on it would be healed. At first, this action seems to have yielded to bald superstition. How can the people be healed merely by looking upon a bronze image? 

The incident in Numbers begins, typical of what was happening among the Israelites in the wilderness. Only three days journey after God led them through the Red Sea, they were grumbling about the foul tasting water.  It seems that grumbling plays a major role in the story of the Exodus. Against he backdrop of the people's grumbling, we see the revelation of many important themes: waiting on the Lord, patience, faith, forgiveness, hope, and self-discipline. 

These themes, however, commonly rest upon the bedrock of honesty and compassion. If we are not honest with ourselves, we begin to manufacture false hopes, to make selfish demands, and to live in a fantasy world devoid of reality. In the story outlined in Numbers, Moses gets to the bottom of Israel's distress and demands utter honesty from them. "Look," he seems to say, "look at what you are and what you are doing. Look the evil straight in the face."  Thus, he made an image of their sin and their punishment and mounted it on the pole. 

The Step 4 in any 12-Step Program requires those seeking healing to make "a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." That's exactly what Moses was calling Israel to do. And it is exactly what Jesus requires us to do each time we look at the cross, especially a crucifix. "Look at your sin and the punishment you have wrought," it seems to say. The cross in its less exalted and triumphal forms, reminds us that to continue growth in the Christian life, we need to make a a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. If upon the cross we find our brutally honest self, sinful and ungrateful, we also find ourselves closely united with Jesus and Jesus with ourselves. If we look upon the cross with this kind of faith, we are healed and saved. By accepting this union of our sinful self with Jesus sinless self, to perceive such love on Jesus' part that he looks like ourselves and takes our burdens upon himself -- all this requires deep faith.  Strangely enough, this kind of faith is less about our belief in Jesus' total divinity and it is about our faith in Jesus' total humanity. We arrive at our salvation by our intimate union with Jesus, by recognizing ourselves for who we truly are and then by being drawn to gazing upon the Crucified One and recognizing ourselves there with Him.