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The St Matthew's Altar Cross

The story of St Matthew's altar cross
Peter Lineham Rev Helen Jacobi

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The St Matthew's Altar Cross

Transcript
Nau mai haere mai welcome to St. Matthew in the city, my name is Helen Jacoby and I serve as the vicar of St Matthew's. We want to tell you the story of our altar cross, which has been sitting here on the High Altar for decades. Sadly, it was stolen from the church in May 2022 and we were shocked and dismayed at this and we realized that we didn't really know it's story. But by the time it was returned, very happily returned to us, in June, just a month later, we had rediscovered it story. We were so grateful that out a sad occurrence, we have been able to rediscover its story, and it's enabled us to think more about our own history and in particular about the ministry of healing as you will find out. And since we've had the cross back, we have ourselves restarted prayers for healing in our church and people are finding this to be a very supportive way of looking at their lives. And it's all because of something that happened in the 1920s. The beautiful bronze cross which presides over the marble altar at St Matthew's is such a powerful symbol in this church and it has itself a very interesting history. I first discovered it when I brought a group of students into the church to show them around and look at the church that was built back, they began building it in 1902. It was dedicated in 1905. And I brought them up to the High Altar and then I saw the inscription at the base of the Cross and read the story of how this bronze cross came to be. And now that the cross was stolen and then returned to Saint Matthew's, this story has developed a bit of an extra aspect to it because it's the story of the cross that came back. But when there was no cross here, nevertheless, St Matthews was the biggest church in Auckland. It really presided over the city and that's why it was chosen to be the place where a most extraordinary event, took place in 1923. New Zealand was visited by a most unusual, man, his name was James, Hickson And he'd been appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to lead healing missions throughout the world. He was an Australian in origin. He had held some missions and discovered that healing was part of Christ's work back before the first world war. And then after the first world war, when they've been so much suffering, he held a very significant healing Mission first in England. And then in the USA and that led to the Archbishop commissioning him and two invitations, that developed at the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Bishops in 1921 that he should tour the world. And so in 1923 a short visit was arranged to New Zealand, that was to take place after a visit to Australia. And so he was only here from October 1923 until January in 1924 and the first mission was right here in St. Matthew's Church on October the 2nd to the 5th. Healing was a matter of great concern at that period, that come through the influenza epidemic. So many people had suffered as a result of the first world war and was still suffering and in a very extraordinary phenomenon. The mission of TW Ratana had developed from Ratana Pa near Whanganui, the idea that God could heal people had really come to the fore. So when Hickson's mission was arranged, the Bishops of New Zealand quite extraordinarily agreed that they would send him to each of the Dioceses where he could hold Healing Missions. And so here in Auckland was the first and the bishop of Auckland at the time Archbishop Averill was Very keen on it felt this was the right place to hold the event. And so negotiations were held with Auckland hospital. And for those remarkable days, crowds of people who were ill were issued with tickets in advance and slowly the priests in the church and Hickson, would anoint them with oil, and those who had particular illnesses, maybe psychological illnesses were healed downstairs in the Vestry. Now not everybody got healed you understand, many people were anointed, there was a great deal of powerful preaching and there was a certain amount of skepticism in the press as you can imagine. But there definitely were people who knew they were healed and it's to them that we owe this bronze cross because a little gathering of people who had been healed continued to meet as a prayer meeting in the church. In the subsequent years that group of people put together the money and they wanted to present this cross to the church. And so the cross was given by people who had experienced healing, who wanted to give thanks for the blessings that had taken place in their lives. And I guess it reflects some of the paradoxes of talk about healing. Not everybody gets healed, only a small number of people returned to give thanks. And you know, these are good themes that we recognize from other places, but the cross, as it now stands the bronze cross is, you know, a beautiful symbol of the Thanksgiving that people felt for something that had significantly changed them. And that's why it's so good to see this cross back in place. In this place, that has been a place of worship for so long. So thank you for being with us to learn about the story. Our prayer for you is that you too might discover God's power and God's blessing in your life. Amen.