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

 

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

We may be tempted at times to think that we will find healing for our souls simply by   doing this or that.  We may assume that fulfilling our calling as Orthodox Christians means attending divine services, receiving the holy mysteries, and devoting ourselves to prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and other acts of piety. These are certainly indispensable practices for us to share more fully in the life of Christ, but they are not merely rituals or ends in themselves.  Our Savior calls and enables us to become not merely religiously observant but truly “a new creation” through His Cross and glorious resurrection on the third day. 

Today’s gospel reading is taken from Christ’s conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, who could not understand what it meant to be born again.  The Lord spoke to him neither of physical rebirth nor of the type of hypocritical religious legalism associated with the Pharisees.  Instead, He foretold the centrality of the Cross, 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.  

In today’s epistle reading St. Paul argued against those who trusted more in their ability to obey religious laws than in the Lord’s great Self-Offering.  He 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.”  The Apostle opposed fellow Christians of Jewish heritage who thought that Gentile converts had to be circumcised in obedience to the Old Testament law.  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 and faithfulness, regardless of who they are.   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, contrary to the expectations of the Pharisees, even the strictest obedience to the Old Testament law could never make anyone “a new creation.” If legalistic outward observance had the power to heal our souls, then there would have been no need for “the Son of man [to] be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  Likewise, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and all the other spiritual disciplines of the Orthodox Christian life are not matters of legal observance whereby we satisfy, impress, or earn anything from the Lord.  They are, however, ways in which we open ourselves in humility to become more receptive to His grace as His “new creation.”

In order to celebrate the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross with integrity, we must follow the instruction of St. Paul not “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.” That means we must not become Orthodox Pharisees who imagine we are more righteous than others because of how we pray, fast, or observe any aspect of our Orthodox faith as though it were some kind of personal accomplishment.  To the contrary, the more receptive we become to the Lord’s grace, the more aware we will become of our sinfulness and our ongoing need for the healing mercy of the crucified and risen Lord, Who was lifted up upon the Cross out of His infinite compassion and love for the salvation of the world.  In Him, we are “a new creation,” not as a reward for any act of piety or religious observance on our part, but because “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”