Today we commemorate the Universal Exaltation of the precious and lifegiving Cross.

The Universal aspect of Christ’s redemptive love shown on the Cross is remembered in the Liturgical action at the Vigil for this feast, as it is practiced in monasteries, cathedrals and some parishes. The Cross is exalted, raised to each of the four points of the compass whilst the choir repeatedly sings Lord have mercy. This action recalls the exaltation of the True Cross by Saint Macarios when he raised it in the city of Jerusalem after it had been found by Saint Helen.

More than that it shows the all-encompassing nature of Christ’s love for the whole universe, for the whole of creation. In the Gospel designated for the Sunday before the Cross we read: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, not only all mankind, but the whole of creation is redeemed through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.

At the Feast of Transfiguration we sing these words (Kontakion):

... Thy Disciples beheld Thy glory, O Christ our God, as far as they were able so to do: that when they saw Thee crucified, they might know that Thy suffering was voluntary and might proclaim to the world that Thou art truly the Brightness of the Father.
Celebrating Christ in glory at his Transfiguration, 40 days before this feast of the Cross, we are reminded, that Christ voluntarily underwent Crucifixion. This same theme is taken up in the Kontakion for the Feast of the Cross, which begins: Lifted up of thine own will upon the Cross.

And in today’s Gospel passage Christ reminds Pilate of the voluntary nature of His forthcoming Crucifixion when he says: You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above. At each divine Liturgy we say of Christ: he was betrayed or rather gave himself up for the life of the world.

In his book, The Orthodox Way, Metropolitan Kallistos writes:
At the moment of Christ’s deepest humiliation on the Cross, he is as much the eternal and living God as he is at his Transfiguration in glory on Mount Tabor. Looking upon Christ crucified, I see not only a suffering man but suffering God.

The Cross isn’t a failure which is somehow then put right by the Resurrection. Rather the Cross itself is a victory. The Kontakion of the feast of the Cross finishes by describing the Cross as a weapon of peace, an unconquerable ensign of victory. Christ’s death on the cross is itself a victory.

We might ask: The victory of what? Metropolitan Kallistos says there can be only one answer: The victory of suffering love. In the Gospel we read that Christ cries out from the Cross: Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Prior to this in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ says to his disciples: I am deeply grieved, even to death. Metropolitan Kallistos comments on this as follows:

Full weight must be given to Christ’s words at Gethsemane: Jesus entered at this moment totally into the experience of spiritual death. He is at this moment identifying himself with all the despair and mental pain of humanity; and this identification is far more important to us than his participation in our physical pain.

In his Crucifixion, Christ identifies with and shares the depth of the suffering of all people at all times. Christ doesn’t remove suffering but shares fully in the suffering of each one of us.
In the words of a Russian priest on release from a Soviet prison camp: Suffering has destroyed all things. One thing alone has stood firm – it is love.

In the Gospel of John, Christ says when predicting his death: And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. Our participation in Christ’s sacrifice, into the totality of his act of Salvation is expressed in the Divine Liturgy. Having recalled Christ’s words of institution at the Mystical supper, we remember, in the fullest sense, that is we participate in, Christ’s act of Salvation, in these words:

Remembering, therefore, this saving commandment and all those things that have come to pass for us: the Cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the sitting at the right hand, and the Second and glorious Coming, thine own of thine own, we offer unto thee, on behalf of all and for all.

We participate in Christ’s offering of himself, on behalf of all and for all. Each of us is given our own way of taking up Christ’s cross and bearing one another’s burdens. Love, by its very nature, offered freely, offered voluntarily, is at the root of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, in which we share. In Corinthians thirteen we read: If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

In living the Divine Liturgy, we freely take up Christ’s cross as our own. Our Prosphora, our offering of ourselves, is itself inscribed with a cross, this ultimate expression of God’s love in which we participate. Christ said: No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

The theme of taking up our cross is a focus of next Sunday’s Gospel, in which Christ says to us: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

Through the power of the precious and lifegiving cross, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.

Amen.

Given by Father Richard