Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“’Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’”
There is perhaps no more universally recognized symbol as the Cross. In one iconic image the whole of the Christian Faith is captured and signified. It is the sign of our Lord’s Great and Holy Passion. It is the sign by which St. Constantine – and now the Church – conquers his enemies. It is the sign by which we are baptized into Christ God, united with Him, and given New Life through death. It is the framework of the whole universe, as the Fathers would say. It is the scourge of demons, the death of death, and the ladder to Heaven. The Church sings her praises of the Cross and falls prostrate before it, even on days when such prostrations are not permitted such as on Sunday, the Day of Resurrection! “The Cross! The Cross!,” the deacon might cry aloud, “In wisdom, let us attend!” Monks and theologians, clergy and laity, have spent lifetimes probing the height and depth and breadth of the Mystery of the Cross which “for us men and for our salvation” was given by God. And not just given – as though He handed it on to us untried and untested – but He Himself, “of His own good will was pleased to ascend the Cross in the flesh and deliver His creatures from the bondage of the enemy” (Troparion). For us, the Cross is synonymous with and the personification of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Listen to the wisdom espoused in the Church’s hymnody, especially the hymns of Vespers:
Shine, O Cross of the Lord!
Illumine the hearts of those who honor thee!
With love inspired by God, we embrace thee,
for thou art the only hope of the world.
Through thee our tears are wiped away,
the snares of death are sprung,
and we pass over into everlasting joy.
Through the Cross reveal Thy beauty to us, O Lord!
Help Thy servants who ask for mercy in faith!
Bestow upon us the fruits of abstinence!
Rejoice, O life-bearing Cross:
bright paradise of the Church, and tree of incorruption!
Thou hast obtained for us the joy of everlasting glory.
Through thee, the hosts of demons are driven out;
the choirs of angels are amazed and rejoice;
the company of the faithful gathers in celebration.
O unconquerable weapon, unbroken stronghold,
triumph of Orthodox Christians and pride of priests,
by following thee may we witness the Passion and Resurrection of
Christ our God!
Rejoice, O life-bearing Cross:
invincible triumph of godliness,
gate of Paradise, and protection of the faithful!
The Cross is the might of the Church,
through which corruption is abolished,
through which the power of death is crushed,
and we are raised from earth to heaven.
O invincible weapon, the adversary of demons,
the glory of martyrs, the true adornment of ven’rable saints,
and the haven of salvation,
which grants the world great mercy.
Come, O Adam and Eve, our first father and mother,
who fell from divine glory
through the envy of the murderer of man!
Bitter was the pleasure of the Tree of old;
but see, the honored Tree of the Cross draws near!
Run with haste and embrace it in joy,
crying out with faith:
“Thou art our help, O most-precious Cross!
We eat thy fruit and gain incorruption!
We are restored again to Eden, having received great mercy!”
There are those who, no doubt, would see our veneration of the Cross, not as a gift of divine grace, but as an inexplicable and curious obsession, an unhealthy pre-occupation with an instrument whose primary purpose under Roman rule was to inflict brutal pain and, ultimately, death by suffocation. Who but masochists and sadists would relish such things? And yet, the Cross is the salvation of the world, the “pride of priests,” and the revelation of divine beauty. To it we run with haste, with Adam and Eve, and embrace the wood of the Cross in joy, “crying out with faith: ‘Thou art our help, O most-precious Cross! We eat thy fruit and gain incorruption! We are restored again to Eden, . . . .’”
Christianity without the Cross is inconceivable! A Christian without a cross is an impossibility! Many a spiritual father and mother have confessed that if they did not have a cross to bear they somehow felt deprived by God, cheated of a divine gift through which grace was immeasurably given; that somehow they felt as though God might be upset with them because they did not have a cross to carry. So, they would implore God to give them a cross – His Cross. It was then that they knew they stood in God’s goodness.
But, you see, my beloved, none of this will make sense outside of faith. Only faith in God can begin to comprehend the joy of the Cross, that “through the Cross joy has come into all the world” (Troparion); that though it is death, it brings those who embrace it Life and Resurrection. What is this nonsense? Why is this the case? Quite simply, because of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Whose blood sanctifies the wood of the Tree that now sets us free from sin, death, and the devil. Without Jesus Christ the Cross is meaningless and purposeless, but with Him it is wisdom and righteousness and redemption and sanctification (1 Cr. 1:30). It is for good reason, then, that St. Paul savors the Saviour and glories in the Cross of Jesus Christ Who has crucified him to the world and the world to him (Ga. 6:14). For him – as for us all who have been signed with the Cross and sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit – we desire and are determined to know nothing else “except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cr. 2:2).
The Cross, beloved, is for us and it is given to us, which is to say, we must ascend it with our Lord to experience its redemption and sanctification, to die and to rise again with Jesus. For if we desire to know Christ we must be willing to share His Cross, just as our brother, Zacchaeus, had to climb the tree in order to see Jesus. No tree, no Jesus. No Cross, no crown. No death, no resurrection. No dying to self, no living unto Jesus Christ (Rm. 8:17; Pp. 3:8-11). And, it all begins with my free will to willingly die to self. Then, to willingly take up the Cross. Then, to willingly follow Jesus. Each of these is an act of my will, of submitting myself to the Cross knowing full well it means my death and my resurrection to New Life. By the Cross we conquer; by the Cross we are conquered!
Of course, our natural response is to be like Peter who, when he heard about Jesus having to suffer and die on the Cross, drew back and rebuked Jesus, “’Surely, not so, Lord!’” But, Jesus quickly rebuked His recalcitrant disciple, reminding him – and us – that the Cross is the divinely ordained way for salvation, that there is nor could be no other path (Mt. 16:21-28; Mk. 8:31-33). “How can this be possible?,” we might demand. “Who can be saved?,” we might ask. “’With men this is impossible,’” Jesus says, “’but with God all things are possible’” (Mt. 19:26; Mk. 10:27; Lk. 18:27). Beloved, we must stand convinced by faith in faith that our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ would not will such a thing for the sheer sake of what the Cross is or does as an instrument of suffering and death. But, He would if He knew firsthand that His Suffering and Death on that very Cross would transfigure it by His Resurrection, fill it anew, and sanctify it for God’s holy purposes. Our Lord condescends to take up the Cross that we might ascend with Him by way of the Cross.
Shine, O Cross of the Lord!
Illumine the hearts of those who honor thee!
With love inspired by God, we embrace thee,
for thou art the only hope of the world.
Through thee our tears are wiped away,
the snares of death are sprung,
and we pass over into everlasting joy.
Through the Cross reveal Thy beauty to us, O Lord!
Help Thy servants who ask for mercy in faith!
Bestow upon us the fruits of abstinence!
Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
PROPERS:
Hb. 4:14-5:6
Mk. 8:34-9:1