Homily for the Sunday After the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 2:16-20; Mark 8:34-9:1

 

            As we continue to celebrate the Elevation of the Holy Cross, we must remain on guard against the temptation of viewing our Lord’s Cross as merely a religious symbol that requires nothing of us. Through His Self-Offering on the Cross, Christ has conquered death and brought salvation to the world.  But in order for us to share personally in His eternal life, we must take up our own crosses, deny ourselves, and follow Him.  If we refuse to do that, then we will show that we are ashamed of our Lord and want no part in Him or His Kingdom. We will show that we prefer to continue in the old way of death rather than to enter by His grace into the heavenly reign.  

            Peter was in precisely such a state when he tried to explain to Christ that dying on the Cross had nothing to do with being the Messiah.  That is when the Lord famously said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”  That is the context for today’s gospel passage as Christ teaches that following Him is not a way to gain anything at all according to the standards of this world, but a calling to offer ourselves without reservation, no matter the cost.  Our vocation is to lose our lives in this world for Christ and His Gospel in order to share in His victory over death.   

            The calling to take up our crosses stands in stark contrast to the persistent temptation to try to use religion to exalt ourselves.  Across the centuries to the present day, some have tried to use the Cross to gain earthly power by identifying some version of an earthly kingdom with our Lord’s heavenly reign.  Others have tried to use the Cross as a way to justify their own religious or moral superiority over their family members, friends, or neighbors.  The problem is not so much in the particulars of how anyone has used the Cross as in the very idea of using it, of making it an instrument for serving our passions in achieving anything at all in this world.  Quite to the contrary, our Lord’s Cross calls us to turn away from addiction to gratifying our self-centered desires as we offer ourselves in union with His great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world.     

In our epistle reading from Galatians, Saint Paul opposes fellow Jewish Christians who relied too much on their own ability to obey the Old Testament law and would have required the same of Gentile converts.  Refusing to trust in his own ability to obey religious rules, he writes that, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.”  Paul took up his cross by enduring many struggles and difficulties out of faithfulness to the Lord, ultimately dying for him as a martyr.   He wrote to the Colossians that “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” (Col. 1:24)

There is obviously nothing deficient in our Lord’s great Self-Offering.  All that is lacking is our taking up our own crosses in obedience to the Lord’s calling to deny ourselves and follow Him. Because of our own passions and the brokenness of our world of corruption, the struggle for faithfulness inevitably requires suffering, but not as though pain were somehow pleasing to God in and of itself.  Such suffering results from the inevitable tension we experience in embracing the struggle to offer ourselves fully to Christ. Truly taking up our crosses means fighting the difficult battle of confronting our own personal brokenness each day as we reject thoughts, feelings, and habits that would keep us focused on serving ourselves and the false gods of this world.  

  Christ prayed the night before His crucifixion, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) He ascended the Cross in free obedience, and no one forces us to take up our crosses either.  Many problems and pains come upon us without our asking for them in this life, even to the point of death, and it is so easy to refuse to suffer in a spiritually health way. As Job’s wife suggested, we can “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9) in response to losses, obstacles, and disappointments.  We can refuse to offer our wounds to Christ for healing by ignoring them or convincing ourselves that we are still better off spiritually than the people we like to condemn.  Of course, doing so will simply fuel our passions, blind us with spiritual pride, and corrupt our relationships with others.   No one can keep us from refusing to take up our crosses, as freedom is an intrinsic dimension of being in God’s image.    

Only we can unite ourselves to Christ in His Great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world. Regardless of the circumstances, we have the freedom to refuse to fall into despair, for any instance of struggle, pain, disappointment, or suffering provides an opportunity to purify the desires of our hearts as we learn to entrust ourselves more fully to the Lord.  Difficulties by their nature present challenges to which we may respond in a Christlike way or according to our passions.  He offered up Himself fully upon the Cross and refused to respond in kind to those who hated and rejected Him.  Likewise, we may unite ourselves to Him in every dimension and circumstance of our lives, including those in which we are sorely tempted not to respond as He did. Illness, broken relationships with others, worries about the future, regrets about the past, crushed hopes, and even the worst losses imaginable all present opportunities to grow in “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  Saint Paul wrote that “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”  (Gal. 5:22-24)

Our self-centered and distorted desires usually rear their ugly heads quickly when we face trying circumstances.  If you are like me, you sometimes react like Jonah when the vine that gave him shade was eaten by a worm.  That was a very small thing, but Jonah became so angry that he literally wished he would die. (Jonah 4:5-11)   Other times we face circumstances so grave that they rattle us to the depths of our souls and we must struggle mightily not to fall into despair about life itself.  Whether in matters small or great, there is no lack of opportunity to take up our crosses as we struggle to find healing for our souls. 

Doing so usually does not require anything particularly dramatic or extraordinary.  It is normally a matter of focusing on the basic disciplines of the Christian life, such as refusing to accept sinful thoughts into our hearts, forgiving those who have wronged us, and trusting that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:39) The more that we open our souls to the Lord’s healing strength through prayer, repentance, and serving our neighbors, the less time and energy we will have for stirring up and embracing the impassioned thoughts that lead to sinful actions.  The less that we worry obsessively or run our mouths thoughtlessly, the more we will be able to pray to God from our hearts to grant what is best for us, our loved ones, and our world.  We must follow the Apostle’s teaching, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7) This is the path for gaining the strength to take up our crosses, deny ourselves, and follow Christ. 

In order to take up our crosses, we must choose to embrace the struggle of dying to our vain illusions about ourselves, other people, and our world.  Our hope is not in spiritual or moral perfection acquired merely by our own willpower, but in the gracious mercy of the One Who offered up Himself for our salvation purely out of love.  Through the Cross, He has brought life in the midst of death, light in the midst of darkness, and joy in the midst of despair.  We will receive His healing as we persistently offer ourselves to Him in humble faith, no matter what challenges and pains life brings us.  That is how we may die to the corrupting power of sin and enter into the blessedness of His Kingdom, which remains not of this world.  The only way to truly elevate the Holy Cross is by denying ourselves and taking up our own crosses to follow the Savior each day of our lives.  

 

 

 

Homily for the Sunday Before the Elevation of the Holy Cross and for the Nativity of the Theotokos in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17

The temptation to make faithfulness to Jesus Christ merely a matter of outward obedience to a set of laws goes back to the first century and is still with us today.  The problem with legalism is that, as admirable as a life lived according to even the best code of conduct may be, it cannot heal our souls by making us “a new creation” as participants in the eternal life of the God-Man. Today’s celebration of the Nativity of the Theotokos and the upcoming feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross both remind us that only the Savior Who vanquished Hades is able to make us “partakers of the divine nature” as heirs by faith to His fulfillment of the promises to Abraham. 

The Savior’s grandparents Saints Joachim and Anna had despaired of fulfilling their role in the ongoing life of the Hebrew people due to their childlessness well into old age.  God heard their prayers, however, and miraculously blessed them to conceive a daughter, whom they offered to the Lord by taking her to live in the Temple as a three-year old. That is where she grew up in purity and prayer as she prepared to become the Living Temple of the Lord, the Theotokos who would contain the Son of God in her womb as His Virgin Mother.  Her parents had learned through decades of bitter disappointment not to rely on what they could accomplish merely by their own abilities, but instead to trust in the Lord’s mercy to bless them as He had blessed Abraham and Sarah. He did so with a daughter who would give birth to the Messiah.  By His grace, they fulfilled their role in the life of Israel in ways well beyond all expectations.

In today’s epistle reading, St. Paul argues against fellow Christians of Jewish heritage who thought that Gentile converts had to be circumcised in obedience to the Old Testament law before becoming Christians.  He rejected that practice, “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”  As St. Paul taught, “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3: 26-29) By conquering death through His Cross and resurrection, the Savior has opened the gates of Paradise to all who respond to Him with faith.  As He said to Nicodemus in today’s gospel reading, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

Our Lord was lifted up upon the Cross because even the strictest obedience to the Old Testament law could never have made us “a new creation.” The cycle of birth and the grave had reigned ever since the corruption of our first parents both for those who had the law and for those who did not. The path out of slavery to corruption was not through our ability to obey rules, but in being healed by the gracious mercy of God, Who blessed an elderly, righteous Jewish couple with a long-awaited daughter named Mary.   She, in turn, received the unique blessing of becoming the Virgin Mother of the New Adam, Who would set right all that the first Adam had gotten wrong.  The Theotokos is the New Eve through whom Life came into the world.  Her birth foreshadows the coming of the Savior in whom we are born again for the life the Kingdom.

In Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus, a legalistic Pharisee, He spoke not of law, but of the life into which we enter by faith, saying that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  He refers here to an event described in Numbers 21:8-9, when the Hebrews were saved from deadly snake bites when they looked at the bronze snake held up by Moses in the desert.  Christ does not describe Moses here in connection with the Ten Commandments, but instead as foretelling His victory over death through the Cross. Against those who trusted in their ability to obey laws, St. Paul wrote, “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.”  Through His Cross, Christ has liberated us from obsession with self-justification so that we may become “a new creation,” being born again into the eternal life that He has brought to the world.

In order to find the healing of our souls in Him, we must take up our crosses.  Joachim and Anna bore the heavy cross of childlessness for decades.  When God miraculously blessed them with the conception and birth of Mary, they offered her to grow up in the Temple.  After decades of disappointment, they knew that God’s blessing was not their private possession, but a calling for them to offer even the greatest desire of their hearts to Him.  Their daughter bore the unbelievably heavy cross of seeing her Son lifted up for the salvation of the world.  As St. Symeon prophetically told her, “a sword will pierce your own soul also.”  (Luke 2:35)

As members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we reap the blessings of the faithful obedience of Joachim and Anna and of their daughter the Theotokos.  We must now take up our own crosses as we unite ourselves more fully to Christ in His great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world.  It is only by dying to the old ways of death that remain with us that we will be able to live as His “new creation,” free from obsession with self-justification as a way of coping with slavery to the fear of death.  We will condemn only ourselves if we celebrate the faithfulness of the Theotokos and her parents while not following their holy examples.  They were not self-righteous legalists, but humbly entrusted themselves to God in ways that required deep faith and personal sacrifice.  We must do the same as we refuse to view the Cross as merely an artifact of ancient religious history or an empty symbol that we distort into a means of gaining power of any kind in this world.  

We will remain enslaved to the corruption of the first Adam and Eve if we refuse to endure the daily struggle of crucifying the disordered desires and unholy habits that keep us wedded to the misery and despair from which Christ came to set us free.  The birth of the New Eve foreshadows our salvation in the New Adam through His Cross.  “For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”  Let us celebrate the Nativity of the Theotokos, then, by freely taking up our crosses as we turn away from all that distracts us from entering into the great joy of the fulfillment of the ancient promises to Abraham to which we are heirs by faith.   “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”  That is precisely who our Lord, the New Adam, calls us to become as those transfigured by His grace.