The Sunday before the Exaltation
- Galatians 6: 11-18
- St. John 3: 13-17
The Cross is more than a symbol of Christian mythology: it is a symbol and mechanism of our – and creation’s – transformation.
Sermon on the Cross (Sunday before the Exaltation).
John 3:13-17
John 3:13-17
No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Tomorrow is the feastday of the Exultation of the Cross, when we solemnly celebrate the awesome role that the Precious and Life-giving Cross has had – and continues to have – in our salvation. Three points:
First: The Cross is real. We can venerate its remnants. It is powerful, and it is not just an idea.
Sometimes we treat Our Faith as if it were a myth. I don’t mean that we intentionally put it and its symbols (like the Cross) into the same category as elves and dragons and (as the new atheists would have it) unicorns. Nor am I implying that any of us actually doubt the obvious historical truth of that which is proclaimed in the Gospels; I am just pointing out that we do not allow the reality – the tangibility – of our Faith into our lives; we do not embrace the implications if it.
This may be because we automatically treat the Gospels as just another history text. Let me give you an example. As Americans, we know the role that George Washington played in the early life of our country; but we do not spend much time thinking about what he did. We recognize that he played a role in founding this nation that we love so much, but we really just enjoy going about being Americans… he [George Washington] doesn’t really enter into our minds all that often. Perhaps it is the same with the Cross of Christ; we know the role that the Cross played in the establishment of Orthodoxy, but we really just enjoy going about being Christian… the Cross doesn’t really enter into our minds very often.
And so the Cross leaves our lives and occupies a seldom accessed part of our memory; the same part of our mind that holds other powerful symbols from our culture’s past. There it shares space with real things like George Washington, Hetman Khemelenski, Great Prince Volodymyr, and the Baptism of Rus’; as well as other things that are less real, like the Chopping Down of the Cherry Tree and the exploits of pagan gods like Thor, Zeus, Perun & the Sidhe.
But this is not the category the Cross belongs in. It is more than a symbol of something that long ago shaped the culture of which we are now blessed to be a part: it remains tangible. The current Feast of the Exultation of the Cross reminds us that we can venerate its pieces and benefit from its power. We can invoke this same power to drive away demons and guard ourselves from temptation. This works because the Cross is real. We can venerate its remnants. It is powerful, and it is not just an idea.
Second. The Cross is a visible witness of the Great Transformation from brokenness into Glory.
Our world is broken, its true purposes and potential have been perverted; the disease of sin has moved into the heart of things like a blight. For example, the water that was made to sustain life now drowns and destroys it; the intimacy that was made to further our joy is now more likely to bring heartache; and the wood that can be shaped to match our necessity became the implement of torture and death for the God-man Christ and so many others. Wars, famine, disease, pornography, depression, environmental devastation… these are all results of the perversion of a world that was created “good.” They are all signs that point to the truth of St. Paul’s claim that creation “groans in agony.”
But history does not stop there. The Lord did not allow for this wicked distortion to continue. Two thousand years ago the reclamation of matter towards its proper purposes was begun. It was then that things were the worst, when the greatest depravities were committed, and when the ultimate perversion of matter occurred: it [matter] was used to kill God. A piece of creation was used to destroy the uncreated. Christ was crucified on the Cross. He suffered on it and He died. But just as the victory of perversion was proclaimed by all the forces of evil, it was undone. Through the Resurrection, the Cross was transformed from an instrument of torture into a standard of our Lord’s victory (planted high in the midst of the battle field).
And so the Cross is no longer a sign of misery or of evil’s sadistic murder of God, but of the very defeat of evil and misery themselves. Mourning has been turned into joy. Through the Cross, death itself was transformed into the mechanism of its own destruction. All of creation now rejoices and begins to taste the fruit of this victory. Through Christ, matter responds to its Christian stewards and caretakers in the manner God intended. Creation has been renewed. And so in addition to being real and tangible force, the Cross is a visible witness of the Transformation from brokenness into Glory.
Third and final point. The story of the Cross is our story, too.
Through the Cross, joy has come into the world. Creation is renewed; we are part of that Creation. More than that, Christ’s passion on that Cross was accomplished for us – not “humanity” in the abstract, but for every single one of us [with real names, real problems, and the strong need for transformation], so that we could be saved from our own falleness and from the many sins that surround us. All creation groans in sin – it is all perverted by wickedness – but man’s perversion is the worst [our perversion is the worst] : the image of God distorted into something that inflicts pain and revels in depravity.
This was the image of God that was distorted in us. But through the Cross, “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life… for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
Wear your cross, put its image over you. Enjoy its power: it is the mechanism of your salvation. It is tangible and it is real. It has changed the world, and it is yours through Christ.
