Poison ivy at the cross

By John Fischer

There is a cross at the camp I spoke at last weekend that sits atop a small rise affording a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside.

We had our final service there, a very meaningful communion service, while a strong Kansas wind blew through our small group of believers. The cross is made of roughhewn logs and sits in the middle of a circle roughly 40 feet in diameter. Except for a three-foot radius around the cross, the area is covered in concrete with stone seats on the perimeter. The small circle at the foot of the cross contains a few large stones – one served as a table for the elements – and what was once some vegetation, but has, out of neglect, turned into a heap of twisted vines and brambles.

Only a few leaves were left on these vines, and the prickly, tangled mass made me think of the crown the soldiers placed on Jesus the day He was crucified. As I stared at a few reddish leaves left on one of the vines, I noticed they were in a sinister grouping of three. I've learned to read that configuration as poison oak, but these were not oak leaves. When I asked someone there if this was poison oak, they told me, no, it was poison ivy. I was on the right track.

Poison ivy at the cross. Something about that seems like you would expect it – like evil lurking around its death site, still flaunting its power to trap and enflame. It has the audacity to spring up where it was conquered. Evil was beaten at the cross, it's just playing out its sentence on death row. Only time makes it seem still alive. Its days are numbered.

We need to remember this when we are tempted. For like this ivy around the cross, evil can still find its way to where we don't attend to life. If we neglect to care for and tend to our spiritual life, no telling what can take root.

Just remember this about sin: It feels good to scratch, but the itch never stops. Why go back to what the cross defeated? "

…and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…" (Matthew 6:13)