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9/14/26 A Slithering Horror · Omnia Christus

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody here really likes snakes.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now you might learn to like snakes, more or less.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some people even keep them as pets.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: But deep down, every person doesn't like snakes.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's written into us at a very deep level.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We don't ever have to see a snake in our life.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the first time we encounter one, we immediately react with revulsion.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I jump away from it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's something wrong with that.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's something bad about that.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And yet what happens in the Old Testament here,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: there are all these snakes that are attacking the people of God.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And God tells Moses to make a snake and to put it onto a pole.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone who looks at that snake is going to be saved from the snakes.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make any sense.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why would God do that?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Snakes are bad.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: These snakes are killing people.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to make an image of a snake and put it up there on a pole,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: make an image of that bad thing that's afflicting us.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't seem to be right.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: What are you thinking, God?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today is the feast of the exaltation of the cross.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: We know that snakes are bad.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we forget that the cross is bad
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: because we have like nice little gold crosses around our neck and we have crosses
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: in our house and they're nice looking and the cross was so bad
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: The first Christians didn't use the cross for about 200 years.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's about as long as this country's been around.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: The cross was so bad and so traumatic for them.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't even use it because that was how bad it was.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: They knew that the cross was like snakes.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't something that was good.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't something that was nice.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: They'd seen people die on crosses.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was horrible.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was the worst way that you could die.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't wear little electric chairs around our neck, right?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we have no problem wearing a cross.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Partly because we're not traumatized by it anymore.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Partly because, you know, crosses aren't instruments of torture anymore.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: But partly also because Jesus did something that changed the cross.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So even though the early Christians didn't use the cross,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: even though they didn't have crosses stuck around because it was pretty traumatic
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: because they knew the cross was bad, They still talked about the cross.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: The early Christians like St. Paul, they were all about the cross.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't stop talking about the cross.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ talked about the cross.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: The cross and his crucifixion was the center of his life and the center of his ministry.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: There are Christians even and those of other religions who don't use the cross and
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: who think that the cross is bad and they have a point.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because the cross was traumatic, it was bad.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason why we have a cross at the center of our churches is not because
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: the cross is bad, but because the cross became something that was absolutely good.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just like that snake in the Old Testament became the way of being saved from snakes.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the cross,
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: which is bad,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: the cross,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: which was the worst suffering and death became The means of being saved
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: from suffering and death because of something that Christ did.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we have that cross stuck up there.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not because we think that it's nice,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: but because it expresses the ultimate act of love that there is.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Christ's love transformed the cross.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: It turned it from something that was terrible into something that was good.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Something that was the best.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Something that we have this whole feast day today, which is the exaltation of the cross.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: The exaltation of this terrible thing because love has transformed that
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: which was terrible into that which is good.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: This world is broken.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: We broke it by our sin.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's where all this messed up stuff came from.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Christ came to fix that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: But what was his way of fixing it?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: His way of fixing it wasn't our way of fixing it because we'd come in
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: and we'd get rid of all that bad stuff.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's all this pain and suffering and death.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to fix all those things.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to get rid of them.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to make this place nice.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with God?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't he see that?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Christ's way is much more profound where he enters into the world and instead
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: of just kind of like,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: fixing everything and taking away the bad stuff and making everything nice,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: He enters into the world and he enters into the worst of the world,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: into our darkness, into our sin, into our suffering, into our death.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he turns that into something that's good.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: He enters into darkness and he turns darkness into light.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he wants to give us this superpower in our lives.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: God loves our freedom.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: He lets us be free and sometimes We use our freedom to wreck our lives.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And because God respects our freedom so much,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: he's like, I'm not going to go and just erase that.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to start you over.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to reset you like a bad computer program.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to help you to enter into that darkness in your life and turn
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: that darkness into light.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Who are the people we admire in our lives?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're not people who lived in their basement all their life.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're not people who never did anything, never tried to do anything.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about people who have to live in their basement.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's people who are disabled and nothing against them.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, people who are disabled have immense things to overcome.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: We admire people who overcame incredible things in their lives.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: People who had terrible suffering.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: People who even got into terrible situations,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: who did terrible things and were able to turn around their lives from that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is the superpower that Christ is giving us in the cross.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: That we can take those dark areas of our life and make those into our power.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Make the darkness into light.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of us has a choice.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get to not suffer.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't get to not die.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: This world has a lot of suffering in it and we all die.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Might be sooner, might be later.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody gets out alive.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get to run away from that.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: But we do get to choose what we do with that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when you've got darkness and suffering in your life,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: you can run away from it and it's gonna find you.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can hide in your basement and it will find you.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can turn around and you can face it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you can embrace it.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you can make it into the defining moment of your life.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the cross is.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: The cross is the worst thing that could happen to someone It becomes
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: the defining moment of the world.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes the turning point of all history.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And in our own lives,
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: our own darknesses,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: our own crosses,
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: our own sufferings,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: if we embrace those,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: if we accept those,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: if we allow those to be things that we can overcome,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: we can be even more amazing because of those things than
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: if we never had any obstacles or difficulties.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: We just kind of cruised along.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's not an inspiring life.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: An inspiring life is that life that each of us is called to in
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: which we have darkness, suffering, difficulties.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And with the grace of God,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: we're able to face those things,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: to overcome them, to become even better than we would have been otherwise.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: What am I going to do?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: What am I going to do with that snake in my life?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to run away from it in fear?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I going to turn around and face it?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to let the symbol of that snake,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: the symbol of my darkness,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: become something that can be a means of salvation,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: not only to myself, but to all those around me.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: To let the love of God transform my life,
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: transform my suffering,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that my life transformed can be an inspiration,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: can be a means of healing to all those other people who are afflicted by snakes
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: in their own lives.