Sermon –Feast of the Holy
Cross, 2008
+In the Name…
“Far be it from me to glory
except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has
been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Colossians 6:14). Or as
another translation has it, “God forbid that I should glory…”
Two events in church history
influenced the establishment of this day on the Calendar of the Church.
The first was the dedication in 335 of the basilica built by the Emperor
Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulcher; and the second was the
exposition of the supposed true Cross of Christ at Jerusalem in 629
by the Emperor Heraclius after its recovery from the Persians who had
taken it in 617.
Just as the Church established
the Feast of Corpus Christi to be a day of joy and thanksgiving for
the Lord’s gift of the Eucharist because the day of its Institution
(Maundy Thursday) is dominated with sadness because of what was soon
to come upon Jesus, so this Feast of the Holy Cross (also known as the
Exaltation of the Cross) is to be a day of joy and thanksgiving for
the Cross of Christ because the saddest day of the Christian year is
Good Friday when Jesus suffered and died on the Cross.
We live as Christians because
of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. He triumphed over death and the
grave, and now lives. We sing our hearts out during Eastertide as our
corporate response of joy and thanksgiving for the Resurrection. But
before the Resurrection was the Cross, and we are to glory in nothing
except His Cross.
The teaching of St. Paul in
his letter to the Colossians is to be followed:”If then you have been
raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is,
seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above,
not on things that are on earth” (3:1-2). But before we seek heaven
and set our minds on heaven, we are to embrace the Cross- as Jesus did.
Christ is Risen. Jesus lives:
but in this particular church and countless churches and cathedrals
throughout the world that are wedded to the Catholic Faith, it is the
cross and crucifix that dominate the particular space.
Even with the artistic representation
of Jesus as Christ the King – Christus Rex – the wounds of
His hands and feet are there, and His throne as King is the Cross.
Such artistic symbolism states
the truth of what St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “…being found
in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him, and bestowed
on him the name which is above every name” (2:8-9).
Christ is our Risen Lord as
the result of His obedience to the vocation of the Cross. He freely
submitted His human will to the divine will of His Father. He could
say, “Lo, I am with you always,” because He went first to the Cross.
We partake of His Body and His Blood that was broken and shed on the
Cross because He went to the Cross. He is with us, within us, behind
us, above us, beside us, beneath us, above us in quiet and in danger
to restore and comfort us because He went to the Cross. No Cross, no
crown. No death, no Resurrection. No death of Christ. No living Christ
with us always.
Jesus said, “If any man would
come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and
follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever
loses his life for my sake, he will save it” (Luke 9:23-24).
We all want to “come after”
Jesus. We all want to follow Him. But who wants to deny himself and
take up the Cross daily? We want to be saved, but who wants to lose
his life in the process?
It is wise for us to remember
that Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends”(John 15:13). Jesus did that, and He
calls us to do the same to find life’s true meaning. Isn’t it true
that as you and I are touched as deeply as we are when we see someone
like Michael Phelps win a record number of gold medals in the Olympics,
or when we see someone triumph over adversity, or some other event full
of emotion; aren’t we the more touched in the depths of our souls
when we see or learn of someone who has given themselves completely
(possibly to the point of dying) for others? Just this past week when
we were all taken back to September 11, 2001, are we not so deeply touched
when we remember all the young firemen who gave their lives to save
others and who died in so doing, or the men and women for whom photos
appear on television or in the newspapers who have died in service to
their country in the fight against terrorism? Such sacrifice and heroism
stirs us to know that life is enriched and life is found in such acts
which reflect what Jesus did and what He calls us to be ready to do
daily.
We will do these things (coming
after, following, denying ourselves, taking up the Cross daily, and
losing our lives – which is fundamentally the control that we hold
over them), when we think deeply about who He is and what He has done,
when we surrender our hearts to Him as we appropriate His teaching for
our lives.
This is the just requirement
for Christian discipleship. When we call him “Lord,” it means imitation
of the Lord and obedience to the Lord.
It was Justin Martyr in the
second century who first taught Christians to make the sign of the Cross
on their bodies. It was the 2nd century Church Father Tertullian
who wrote: “In all our actions, when we come in and go out, when we
dress, when we work, at our meals, before retiring to sleep, we make
on our foreheads the sign of the Cross. These practices are not communicated
by a formal law of scripture, but tradition teaches them, custom confirms
them, faith observes them.”
Making the sign of the Cross
at different times and in different circumstances is what we call a
“sacramental.” It is something we do with our bodies and upon our
bodies to remind ourselves (to impress upon and within ourselves) what
Jesus did for us. He took our place on the Cross and suffered punishment
for our sin as the perfect sacrifice for sin offered to God the Father
to satisfy the justice of God in order that man is returned to union
with God.
The Cross traced upon us reminds
us of who we are and what our calling is. It reminds us to stay on the
path that leads to new life, hope, and peace. It reminds us that the
victory over self-will and self-determination is found when what the
Cross of Christ is our chart and compass. For what Christ did on the
Cross, and what the way of the Cross did for him, St. Paul exclaimed,
“Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ.”
St. Paul tells of his spiritual
transformation in his letter to the Galatians: “I have been crucified
with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me;
and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20).
We heard Jesus say in the Gospel
today, “…and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all
men to myself.” St. John, the writer of the Gospel, tells us in the
very next verse, “He said this to show by what death he was to die.”
Jesus boldly stated that the
Cross would draw all men to Himself because the Cross is a compelling
testament to how the love of God for man is so deep, so broad, and so
high that the Father asks his Son to die for others out of the Father’s
love for others. The Cross demonstrates and proclaims what the cost
and the degree of the Father’s love for us is, and what the cost and
degree of the Son’s love for the Father and for us is.
Yes, the world starves to know
such love; and it is found first and foremost in history’s greatest
love story – the love of God for man. The story becomes the
story for the transformation of mankind when we in the Body of Christ
manifest the life of the Cross as our response to the love of God in
Christ Jesus. The world needs to see the Cross impressed upon those
who call themselves Christian in a Christian’s willingness to lay
down his life for the benefit of others.
We sing it during Ascentiontide,
and may what we sing be the truth that possesses us.
“The cross he bore is life
and health,
Though shame and death to
him:
His people’s hope, His people’s
wealth,
Their everlasting theme.”
+In
the Name…
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