September 14 2010
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
By Beth DeCristofaro
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. (Numbers 21:9)
They remembered that God was their rock, God Most High, their redeemer. But they deceived him with their mouths, lied to him with their tongues. Their hearts were not constant toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant. But God is merciful and forgave their sin; he did not utterly destroy them. Time and again he turned back his anger, unwilling to unleash all his rage. (Psalm 78:36-38)
Jesus said to Nicodemus: "No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." … For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:13-15, 19)
Piety
"How splendid the cross of Christ! It brings life, not death; light, not darkness; Paradise, not its loss. It is the wood on which the Lord, like a great warrior, was wounded in hands and feet and side, but healed thereby our wounds. A tree has destroyed us, a tree now brought us life" (Theodore of Studios).
Study
Veneration of the Cross began in the Eastern church in the fourth century and came to the West during the seventh. Theodore’s words: “How splendid the cross of Christ!” rings true for us today but we tend to forget that in Jesus’ day and even into the early church, the cross was a symbol of cruel punishment and oppression. Crosses, laden with the dead or dying, were places of despair.
With Jesus acceptance of death upon this instrument of torture, succumbing even unto death, his resurrection into new life transforms the symbol into a sign of freedom from sin and death. The Israelites had only to look upon the bronze serpent to be healed of the serpents’ poison. We can choose to look upon the cross, and see more than suffering, see beyond despair. The death symbol for the oppressed peoples of the Roman empire is now the life-symbol for Christians.
Action
What is a place of suffering in your life right now? Can you stand at the foot of the cross with that suffering? Can you accept that Jesus suffered for you and suffers with you now? Pray for strength. Pray for the Spirit to sustain and guide you. Pray for life. Pray for freedom not only from your suffering but from the bonds which suffering puts upon you such as resentment, hopelessness, confusion, the desire to lash out against those who have caused your suffering. You are not alone. God loves you even as he loved his Son who chose suffering in order to offer freedom.
