FEAST OF EXALTATION OF THE CROSS

Summary:

a) The cross as symbol of self-surrendering love

b) The cross means pain

c) How should we carry our crosses?

i) Live daily life in the spirit of the cross

ii) Heal the inner wounds through the cross of Christ

iii) Put the teaching on the Cross into Practice

Anecdote 1: Trinket or Treasure: Ann Thomas tells this story of herself. She was at a garage sale with her friend Betty. Ann had just sorted through a tray of trinkets. Betty came up and asked, “Any luck?” “No!” said Ann. “It’s just a pile of junk.” She stepped aside to let Betty see for herself. Betty took one look at the pile, picked up a tarnished old cross and said, “I can’t believe it. I’ve found a treasure! This cross is made of antique silver.” When Ann’s friend got home, she cleaned the cross and polished it. It was indeed a treasure. Ann ended the story saying, “Betty and I both looked at the same cross. I only saw junk; Betty saw a treasure.” Later Betty’s seven-year-old son, Bobby picked up the cross, held it reverently in his hands, and looked at it for a long time. Suddenly he began to cry. “What’s wrong?” asked Betty. Bobby said, “I can’t help it. I was looking at Jesus on the cross.” Three people looked at the same cross. One saw junk, another saw a treasure; a third saw Jesus..

Anecdote 2: Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel written by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852. The sentimental novel depicts the cruel reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as the enslavement of one’s fellow-human beings. The story follows the fortunes of a slave, the dutiful Uncle Tom. He was a slave on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky. There he was loved by his owners, their son, and every slave on the property. He lived contentedly with his wife and children in their own cabin until Mr. Shelby decided to sell him and another slave to pay off debts to Augustine St Clair in New Orleans. In the idealistic St Clair's household, the young daughter Eva became fond of Tom, and his life with his new master was relatively happy. However, following the deaths of the decent master St Clair and the kindly Eva, Tom was sold again and his new master Simon Legree, the owner of a cotton plantation, was the embodiment of cruelty. He treated the good and loyal Tom so terribly that Tom died just before rescue arrived, in the person of George Shelby, Tom’s first owner’s son. The novel ends with George Shelby’s return to the Shelby plantations. There he freed all his slaves, as a memorial to the sacrificial, loving and dedicated service of Uncle Tom, with the advice: “Remember … when you look at the wooden cabin of our dear Uncle Tom … that great man and his sacrificial suffering and heroic death which gave you your freedom.” On the feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross the Church our mother gives us her children a similar challenging reminder: “Look at this Holy Cross of Christ and learn to appreciate the great price He paid for our freedom from the slavery of sin by his suffering and death on the cross.”

Aim of the feast and its history: We celebrate this feast of the Exaltation of the Cross for two reasons: (1) to recall an historic event that proved to be extremely important in the life of the Christian church, and (2) to underline the importance of the symbol and reality of the cross in the daily life of every Christian.

When the Body of Jesus was removed from the cross, the soldiers, as was customary, threw the cross in a ditch and covered it with stones and earth. According to legend, while the pagan commander Constantine the Great was in combat with Maxentius for the throne of the Roman Empire, AD 312, some of his Christian subordinates suggested that he pray to the God of the Christians to help him in his battle. In answer to his prayer, the sign of a luminous cross appeared in the sky with the words “IN THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER" inscribed on it. Following this, Constantine won the battle over Maxentius. Indebted to the God of Christians for his victory at the Milvian Bridge, October 28, AD 312, Constantine became a Christian catechumen. He declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and commanded that the sign of the cross be placed on all the Roman standards and on the shields of all the soldiers. Then, September 14, AD 326, a team of excavators led by Constantine’s mother St. Helena found at Calvary the True Cross on which Jesus had been crucified. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Makarios, standing on a raised platform, lifted high the cross, “exalting” it, for all to see. The people fell to their knees, bowing down before the cross and crying out repeatedly: "Lord, have mercy!" To commemorate the finding of the Holy Cross, Constantine built and dedicated two Churches upon Calvary, "Anastasis" and "Colgotha," both within the precincts of the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In those days, the Feast of the "Exaltation of the Holy Cross" was commemorated annually on May 3rd.

In AD 614, Chosroes II, the King of Persia, invaded Syria and Palestine and carried away many of the great treasures of Jerusalem, including the relic of the True Cross. In AD 629, Emperor Heraclius of Constantinople marched into Persia, recaptured the True Cross, and brought it back to Jerusalem walking barefoot and wearing sackcloth in penance. On September 14th, the Sacred Cross was restored to its place in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It was to commemorate this great event that the Church of Rome adopted the "Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross" on September 14th.

Today’s Scripture readings: Today’s gospel describes how Nicodemus, a prominent Jew, went to talk with Jesus under the cover of darkness to ascertain whether he should do anything for his salvation besides observing the Mosaic Law and offering the prescribed sacrifices. Jesus explained to him that He would accomplish human salvation by His death on the cross and that one needs to be reborn through water and the Holy Spirit to become eligible for his or her eternal salvation. Jesus further explained to Nicodemus the necessity of his crucifixion and resurrection using the analogy of Moses and the bronze serpent in the desert. The first reading today describes how God punished the ceaselessly complaining Israelites in the desert for their stubborn and rebellious hearts by sending on them a plague of deadly serpents. When they repented and cried to the Lord for mercy, God instructed Moses: "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8). The bronze serpent pointed to the cross of Christ on which He defeated sin and death and obtained everlasting life for those who accepted the crucified and risen Lord as their Lord and Savior. In the second reading St. Paul explains how the exaltation of Jesus on the cross was an act of self-emptying by Christ our Lord for our salvation and how God exalted Jesus as our Lord and Savior because of Jesus’ perfect obedience to his Father’ will demonstrated by his death on the cross.

The transformation of the Roman Cross. Brutal and barbaric, the cross was a tool of political power for the Romans. They maintained their power because of the fear of death on the cross. When one was condemned by the state, the condemned literally had to "take up his cross" and carry it to the public place where he was to be crucified. It was part of the humiliation process, the mechanism of social control for which crucifixion was invented. Even the Jews considered it an instrument of suffering and shame: "cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree"(Deut. 21:23). Jesus went to cross as one who was rejected (by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes), and abandoned (completely, by his disciples too). Jesus did not die as a hero or a martyr. Yet Christianity had, and still has at its center, this most awful symbol of death and disgrace. But modern preaching reduces bearing the cross to little more than performing acts of kindness toward other people. Hence on this feast of exaltation of the holy cross we must learn to appreciate the real message of the cross in our Christian life.

The cross as symbol of self-surrendering love: The cross and the crucifix are meaningful symbols as dove symbolizes peace and heart symbolizes love. The crucifix/cross is the symbols of the loving and sacrificial offering of self for others. It is the symbol of humble self-emptying for others. It represents the cross-bearing Christ leading us in our life’s journey of pain and suffering, carrying his heavier cross and still encouraging us, strengthening us and supporting us. In addition, the cross is the symbol of the risen Christ who promises us a crown of glory as a reward for our patient bearing of our daily crosses. Thus the cross is a symbolic summary of the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ -- all in one image. Christians "exalt" the Cross of Christ as the instrument of our salvation.

The cross means pain: We generally speak of crosses given by Nature (e.g., diseases, natural disasters, death), crosses involved in doing our duties faithfully, crosses given by the others and crosses we create for ourselves. But the true cross is the pain we suffer for others. It is the sanctifying pain involved in sharing our blessings sacrificially with others. It is the pain involved in controlling our evil tendencies in an attempt to attain a higher degree of holiness. It is also the pain involved in standing with Jesus and gladly following him even if that means scorn and humiliation from the rest of the world.

How should we carry our crosses? We should not carry our crosses cursing our fate as does the donkey carrying its heavy load, or protesting like oxen or horses pulling heavy carts, or expecting a heavenly reward as a hired worker works for his wages. The true spirit of carrying our crosses is to do so like a loving wife who nurses her paralyzed husband or sick child with sacrificial love and dedicated self-surrender. We find support in carrying our own crosses by comparing our light crosses with the heavy crosses of terminally ill patients, and by drawing strength and inspiration from Jesus walking ahead of us carrying his heavier cross and supporting us in carrying our crosses.

Life messages

1) Live daily life in the spirit of the cross: The most vital part of loving the cross is to begin and end each of our days securely on the foundation of Christ's death for us. For example, when we rise from bed each day we can make a short profession of faith in the power of Christ's cross. We can ask the Lord to position us on the ground of his cross and to plant his cross in our life that day. In a similar way, at the end of the day, we can make an examination of conscience by first reviewing how much or how little we stayed upon the foundation of Christ's cross. For example, when faced with a temptation to anger or fear during the day, did we immediately remember that we are dead in Christ to these things? Did we immediately call upon the Lord to apply his cross and cut off the temptation from our hearts? Or did we forget the cross, fall into temptation and then attempt later to deal with the sin and guilt by our own power? These are the spiritual practices that show whether or not one loves the cross of Jesus Christ.

2) Heal the inner wounds through the cross of Christ: An area where it is very important for us to apply the cross of Christ in our life is in the area of inner healing from character wounds we sustained as young people, especially in the first seven years of our life. Someone who has an abusive or withdrawn father or a critical mother, in an attempt to respond to the wounding, will develop specific character traits, for example, a tendency to anger or a tendency to fear and withdrawal. The good news is that the cross of Christ can heal and undo even these early wounds to our character because every moment of our life is present to God and hence He can heal the wounds that are in our past. Part of this healing involves our repenting of the sinful ways in which we have responded to the wounds. Forgiveness is vital to such healing. If we do not forgive those who have wounded us we are actually holding on to bitterness and hurt in our hearts and this will completely block healing and transformation. Beyond the need for repentance and forgiveness, we must also call upon the power of Christ's cross to set us free from the "old life" that is represented by the wounding. We must specifically reckon the attitudes and expectations of the old life that spring from the wound as dead, crucified on the cross with Christ. And we must likewise pray for blessings and new life over the area of our life where we were wounded. Thus, through the cross of Christ, inner healing is accomplished in accord with the pattern of dying and rising with Christ.

3) Put the teaching on the Cross into Practice: God uses our sufferings to help us grow in compassion, persistence, and ministry. We need to remember the truth: our old self was crucified with Christ so that we might no longer be slaves to sin. Hence we are expected to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. We have to love the cross of Christ and make it a regular part of our spiritual life by reading and pondering the teaching in the New Testament on the cross (Rom 6; Hebrews 9–10). We have the habit patterns of sin that God wants us to confront and render powerless through Christ's cross. We need to reckon ourselves dead to these drives especially when moments of temptation arise. We have to identify the character wounds in us that are at the root of the above habit patterns of sin. Then we have to repent of our sinful responses, forgive those who have wounded us and then reckon the whole "old life" under the character wound as crucified and dead in Christ. Finally let us pray for God's blessing over each of the areas of temptation, sin, and character wounds.

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Happy is the Person

Happy is the person who believes in God despite the seas of sadness that sometimes surround the lighthouse.

Happy is the person who believes in the greatness of a Nation despite the poverty and prejudice that affect the lives and hearts of our people.

Happy is the person who believes in law and order despite the crime in the streets and indifference in our homes/communities

Happy is the person who believes in the innate goodness of people, despite the vanity and greed of some people.

Happy is the person who believes in the inherent wisdom of nature and people, despite the ignorance and foolishness that seem to blind the vision of so many leaders

Happy is the person who believes in the sanctity and serenity of life, despite the restlessness, turmoil, noise and violence that beset our daily life.

Happy is the person who believes in her/his own community, despite some dark areas and the frustration of trying to change them.

Happy is the person who believes in oneself, despite one=s known weakness and futile attempts to correct them.

Finally, happy is the person who believes, for in his/her belief lies her/his strength, her/his chances of growth, and the realization of a richer, fuller life.

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