Homily for the Third Sunday of Great Lent: Veneration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross in the Orthodox Church

 Hebrews 4:14-5:6; Mark 8:34-9:1

 

            Today we venerate the precious and lifegiving Cross upon which Christ offered Himself for the salvation of the world purely out of love for those enslaved to the fear of death, which He conquered through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  The Cross is not the sign of a civil religion that grants spiritual sanction to any power structure of this world. Neither is it a magical good luck charm that makes all our problems go away.  It is certainly not a way of demonstrating our superiority over any person or group.   The Cross of Christ is the opposite of such distortions, for it stands in radical judgment of those who would attempt to use religion to help them seek first the things of this world, such as power, pleasure, and possessions.  That was the mindsight of the corrupt religious leaders who called for the Lord’s crucifixion because they perceived Him as a threat to their attempt to use God to gain earthly power.  It was also the perspective of the Romans who believed that worshiping their many gods protected their rule.  By having “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin on the Cross, Pontius Pilate did not miss the opportunity to let everyone know what happened to those suspected of challenging Roman authority.  (Jn. 19:20) Those who place loyalty to empires, nations, or other earthly projects before faithfulness to Christ inevitably end up rejecting Him as surely as those who nailed Him to the Cross. As He said, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

 

On this Sunday of the Adoration of the Holy Cross, right in the middle of Lent, we do the opposite of making any type of success in this world our highest goal.  Today we venerate the Cross on which Jesus Christ offered Himself for the salvation of the world.  Through His crucifixion, the New Adam entered fully into the misery and wretchedness of the first Adam to the point of death to liberate us from slavery to its corrupting power and make us participants in eternal life.  The Cross is the Tree of Life through which we return to the blessedness of Paradise.  It is “a weapon of peace and a trophy invincible” that even the high and mighty of this world cannot defeat.

 

            As our epistle reading states, our crucified and risen Lord is the “great High Priest” Who ministers in the heavenly temple, where He intercedes for us eternally.   To enter into His salvation, we must take up our own crosses as we refuse to make any earthly goal the deepest desire of our hearts. Denying ourselves means putting faithfulness to Him before anything else, including indulging weaknesses and desires that hold us back from fulfilling our high calling.    Even as common bread and wine are fulfilled as our Lord’s Body and Blood when offered in the Divine Liturgy, we too are transformed when we unite ourselves to the High Priestly offering of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.   If we refuse to embrace the struggle to do so, we will shut ourselves out of the blessedness of His Kingdom, both as a present reality and as a future hope.

 

            We must not adore the Cross only in religious services, but daily as we take up our crosses to love God with every ounce of our being and our neighbors as ourselves.  The disciplines of Lent present opportunities to gain the strength to so as we take small steps to die to that which keeps us enslaved to the self-centered ways of the first Adam.  In prayer, we open our hearts to the Savior and learn experientially that our life is in Him.  In fasting from the richest and most sustaining foods, we open ourselves in humility to receive His strength for resisting deeply ingrained habits of self-indulgence. In sharing our time, attention, and resources with others, we follow Christ in offering ourselves for the good of our neighbors.  In forgiving our enemies and welcoming the stranger, we participate in the merciful lovingkindness of our Lord.  These are the most basic disciplines of the Christian life, and they are necessary to help us gain the spiritual strength to take up our crosses, especially in response to the deep challenges of our lives and the appealing temptations to apostasy and paganism that are all around us.   We must remain constantly on guard against popular  distortions of Christianity that place their trust in the fallen powers of this world and have no place for a Lord Who loved and forgave His enemies and reigns from a Cross and an empty tomb.

 

If we refuse to deny ourselves even in small ways this Lent, we will demonstrate where our true loyalties lie and become even more accustomed to serving ourselves instead of God and neighbor.  Doing so will reveal that we are ashamed of our Lord and His Cross and prefer to offer our lives to other gods, especially to ourselves.  Even if we continue down that path to the point that we somehow gain the whole world, we will risk losing our souls by committing idolatry every bit as much as those who condemned Christ because He stood in the way of fulfilling their passionate desires for earthly power and glory. We will then be even more guilty than they were because we know that His Cross is nothing less than the salvation of the world.

 

There is perhaps nothing worse than distorting our calling as Christians to the point that the Cross becomes merely an empty symbol that we use to satisfy our lust for any earthly or self-centered goal, no matter how popular or appealing.  If we do not do the hard work of actually taking up our crosses and denying ourselves out of love for God and neighbor, then our lives will bear witness that our true lord is someone or something other than Jesus Christ.  St. Paul taught that “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24) When we realize how far we are from fulfilling that goal, we must humbly call for the Lord’s mercy from the depths of our souls as we struggle to take even small steps in denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Him.  There is simply no other way to enter into the joy of His Kingdom.

 

Whether in the first century or today, salvation has not come to the world through the pursuit of power, possessions, and pleasure.  It does not come through the achievements of the powerful and popular people who seek first the kingdoms of this world.  The same kind of spiritual depravity that drove religious and political leaders to crucify Christ is still very much with us.  When we show that we are ashamed of the way of the Cross by refusing to embrace the daily struggle to take up our own, we demonstrate that we are not that much different from them.  As we continue our Lenten journey, let us confess how we have fallen short of fulfilling the high calling that is ours and learn to offer every dimension of our lives to the Savior for healing as we take up our own crosses.  Whether in Lent or any other time, that is the only way to enter into Paradise through our great High Priest, Who offered Himself fully upon the Cross for the salvation of the world purely out of love.  That is what His Cross is all about.