EXULTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS
The Cross – Source of Life Through Faith and Repentance
(Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 78; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17)
***********************************************************
There is much history behind today’s feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Legend has it that St. Helena, the mother of St. Augustine, discovered the True Cross in 326 A.D. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was consecrated Sept. 13, 355. The Exaltation of Cross as a feast was celebrated the next day, Sept 14, and every year since then. The Cross was taken by Persian Emperor Khosrau 300 years later, recovered after 14 years by Roman Emperor Heraclitus, and taken to Constantinople. Interestingly, history reflects our experience – we take up the cross, leave it and take it up again.
There is some divine irony in today’s feast: a cruel instrument of suffering and death has been transformed into a grace-filled instrument of healing and resurrection. The cross terrified people in Greco-Roman times, and that was the point. The cross was state-sponsored terrorism, a form of capital punishment reserved for those who had in the most egregious ways undermined the authority of the Roman state. To exalt the cross then would have been analogous to someone speaking today of the triumph of the electric chair or the exaltation of the noose.
So why are we celebrating the triumph of the cross? There is only one possible explanation, and that is the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. All the attempts to soft-pedal and explain away the Resurrection are ruled out by this feast. Once they had taken in the experience of the Resurrection, the first Christians turned with rapt attention to the cross, convinced that in it they would find something decisive. Somehow, in the strange providence of God, that cross was ingredient in the very process by which God would save the world. So today, we are invited to put our faith in Jesus Christ, repent of our wrong-doing, and receive the gift of eternal life.
We see irony in today’s first reading. The Israelites had begun complaining and accusing God of abandoning them during their journey toward the Promised Land. Ultimately, all the venom in their words and hearts manifested itself in the form of poisonous serpents that attacked them. Their own sin fell back upon them and trapped them in death and destruction. It is like carrying unforgiveness in our hearts that eats us up from the inside out. That’s one irony – the people’s complaining made their situation worse.
When they cried out to Moses to intercede for them to God to get rid of the snakes, God reacts in a surprising way. God does not get rid of the serpents. Instead, God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent, a symbol of that which is afflicting them, their own sins, put it on a standard, and command the people to look at that serpent and they will be saved. They had to fix their eyes on a symbol of their own sins and unbelief if they wanted to be set free from the consequences of their sin. That’s another irony: looking at their sin brought them salvation.
The psalmist speaks of uttering “dark sayings of old” and goes on to describe how the people repented and turned to God when these snakes were killing them. There is a premonition here of the first words Jesus preached – “repent and believe – the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Maybe faith and repentance are “dark words” but they are also key to experiencing that kingdom.
In the Gospel, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus about eternal life and mentions to him those who believe in the Son of Man lifted up on a standard would have not just life, but eternal life. Of course, Jesus was speaking of himself being crucified on the Cross. What is important here is Jesus on the Cross has no poison, no sin in him, so he would be able to save God’s people from their sins. He promises salvation to everyone who comes face-to-face with the consequences of their own sin. Yes, we helped crucify him. It was our own violence, our own hatred, our own self-centeredness and fallen desires that put Jesus on the cross.
But what is most important is that God’s motivation for the cross was, is and always will be, love for the human race. God does not want to punish or destroy. God wants only what is for our good – that we might be saved and share eternal life with him.
The final glorious irony is: when we exalt the cross – when we lift it up and gaze on it – we experience God’s love and healing. We see that it wasn’t just our sin that put Jesus there; it was also his love. It wasn’t just our enmity; it was his friendship. It wasn’t just our selfishness; it was his selflessness. We thought we were casting him out of our lives when really, he was giving himself to us in the fullest way possible. Jesus could have stopped his death at any point, but he didn’t. He let us lift him up in death so that he could raise us up to eternal life.
The Eucharist makes present for us the love of God for us through Jesus’ death on the cross. We are nurtured by God’s Word, and our communion with Jesus.
May our celebration today empower us to put our complete faith in Jesus, receive his forgiveness and healing, express our faith through acts of love to all those in need, and truly exalt the cross in our hearts today.
