Homily for the Sunday after the Elevation 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 to corrupt the Christian faith into a soothing piety that requires nothing of us because the Lord Himself has already done all the work.   Through His Self-Offering on the Cross, Christ has conquered death and brought salvation to the world, but for us to share personally in His great victory, we must take up our own crosses, deny ourselves, and follow Him each day of our lives.  Refusing to do so amounts to being ashamed of Him and wanting no part of His Kingdom.  No matter what we believe or how we feel about the Lord, refusing to take up our crosses means continuing in the old ways of death and rejecting the call to enter into the joy of eternal life.    

            Today’s gospel reading follows Saint Peter’s attempt to explain to Christ that dying on the Cross had nothing to do with being the Messiah.  That is when the Lord famously said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”  The Savior did not fit Peter’s expectations for the Messiah, whom he expected to be a righteous military leader like King David.  By His sharp response, Christ demonstrated that following Him is not a path to success according to the conventional standards of this world, but a calling to embrace the deep struggle of offering ourselves for growth in holiness, no matter the cost.  

            The calling to take up our crosses also stands in stark contrast to the persistent temptation to use religion to exalt ourselves in our own minds and condemn a segment of our neighbors.   It is blasphemy to corrupt the great sign of our salvation into an instrument for fueling our self-centered desires and illusions.  To the contrary, our Lord’s Cross calls us to do the hard work of refusing to gratify our passions as we unite ourselves to 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 passions and the brokenness of our world of corruption, the struggle for healing inevitably requires suffering, but not as though pain were somehow pleasing to God.   Such suffering results from the inevitable tension we experience in embracing the struggle to offer ourselves fully to Christ. There is so much within each of us that does not want to do that. Truly taking up our crosses means fighting the difficult battle of confronting our own personal brokenness each day as we reject thoughts, desires, and habits that would keep us 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.  So many problems and pains come upon us without our asking for them in this life, 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 deep frustrations and disappointments.  We can refuse to offer our wounds to Christ for healing by finding ways to ignore them or convincing ourselves that we are still better off than the people we like to condemn.  Doing so is simply a dead end that will fuel our passions, blind us with spiritual pride, and demonstrate how ashamed we are of Christ and His Cross.

Since freedom is an intrinsic dimension of being in God’s image, no one can make us take up our crosses. 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 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 we must struggle mightily not to fall into despair about life itself.  Whether in matters small or great, we have the opportunity to take up our crosses daily as we struggle to find healing for our souls.   

Doing so usually does not require anything 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, fasting, serving our neighbors, and otherwise responding faithfully to the daily circumstances of our lives, the less time and energy we will have for stirring up the impassioned thoughts that lead to sinful actions.  The less that we cultivate worry, fear, and resentment, the more we will be able to pray to God from our hearts to grant what is best in even the most broken circumstances. 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)

To share in Christ’s victory over death, we must embrace the struggle of dying to all that would keep us from uniting ourselves to Him in holiness.  Our hope is neither in our own willpower nor in being superior to anyone else, 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 in even the most difficult dimensions of our lives as we persistently offer ourselves to Him in humble faith, no matter what challenges, pains, or disappointments life may bring us.  That is how we may die to the corrupting power of sin and enter even now into the blessedness of His Kingdom.  It is how we may learn to say truthfully with St. Paul, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” It is how we show that we are not ashamed of Him and His Cross, which remains a weapon of peace, a trophy invincible, and the great sign of our salvation.

 

 

 

Homily for the Third Sunday of Great Lent with 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.  Contrary to popular opinion, 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 or gives us what we want on our own terms.  It is certainly not a means of escape from the daily struggles of living faithfully or a way of demonstrating our superiority over any person or group.   In fact, the Cross of Christ is the complete 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 self-centered agendas.  It was also the perspective of the Romans who believed that worshiping their many gods protected their empire.  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 rule.  (Jn. 19:20) Those who place loyalty to empires, nations, or other earthly projects before faithfulness to Christ will 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 complete 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 in order to liberate us from slavery to its corrupting power and make us participants in eternal life.  The Cross is truly 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.   In order to enter into His salvation, we must take up our own crosses as we refuse to make any earthly goal our highest good.  Denying ourselves means putting faithfulness to Him before anything else, including indulging personal inclinations 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 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 in order to love God with every ounce of our being and our neighbors as ourselves.  The disciplines of Lent help us gain the strength to do precisely that as we take intentional steps to die to that which keeps us comfortably enslaved to the self-centered ways of the first Adam.  By devoting ourselves to prayer, we open our hearts to the Savior and learn experientially that our life is in Him.  By refusing to gratify our desires for the richest and most sustaining foods, we open ourselves in humility to receive His strength for resisting deeply ingrained habits of self-indulgence.    When we share our time, energy, and resources with others, we become more like Christ in offering ourselves for the good of our neighbors.  When we forgive our enemies and welcome the stranger, we bear witness to the merciful lovingkindness of our Lord.  These are the most basic disciplines of the Christian life, and we all must practice them in order to gain the spiritual health necessary 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 today, including distortions of Christianity that have no place for a Lord Who reigns from a Cross and an empty tomb.  

 

If we refuse to deny ourselves even in small ways this Lent, then 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 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. Indeed, we will be even more guilty because we know that His Cross is not a sign of ultimate defeat to be repudiated, but of 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 actually take up our crosses and deny 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) If we are not embracing the struggle to do so, then we must humbly call for the Lord’s mercy from the depths of our souls as we learn to take the steps necessary to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow 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 self-centered addiction to the pursuit of power, possessions, and pleasure.  It does not come through the achievements of the wealthy, powerful, and popular people of the world.  The same kind of spiritual depravity that drove religious and political leaders to crucify Him is still very much with us.  When we live as those who are ashamed of the way of the Cross, we show 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 in Christ and learn to offer every dimension of our lives to Him 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. 

 

   

 

           

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.  

The Adoration of the Holy Cross: Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 4:14-5:6; Mark 8:34-9:1

            We do not have to look very closely at dominant trends in our culture today for signs that many people are offering their lives for the service of false gods, regardless of how they identify themselves religiously.  The evidence of their idolatry is not primarily in where they congregate to worship, but in how they seek first the things of this world, such as possessions, power, and pleasure, and in how they hate and condemn those whom they perceive to stand in the way of their acquiring them.  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 self-centered agendas.  It was also the perspective of the Romans who believed that worshiping their many gods protected their empire.  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 rule.  (Jn. 19:20) 

         On this Sunday of the Adoration of the Holy Cross, right in the middle of Lent, we do the complete opposite of making success in this world, however defined, 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 in order to liberate us from slavery to its corrupting power and make us participants in eternal life through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  The Cross is truly the Tree of Life through which we return to the blessedness of Paradise.

             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.   In order to enter into His salvation, we must take up our own crosses as we refuse to make any earthly goal our highest good.  Denying ourselves means putting faithfulness to Him before anything else, including indulging personal inclinations 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 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 in order to love God with every ounce of our being and our neighbors as ourselves.  The disciplines of Lent help us gain the strength to do precisely that as we take intentional steps to die to that which keeps us comfortably enslaved to the self-centered ways of the first Adam.  By devoting ourselves to prayer, we open our hearts to the Savior and learn experientially that our life is in Him.  By refusing to gratify our desires for the richest and most sustaining foods, we open ourselves in humility to receive His strength for resisting deeply ingrained habits of self-indulgence.    When we share our time, energy, and resources with others, we become more like Christ in offering ourselves for the good of our neighbors.  These are the most basic disciplines of the Christian life, and we all need to practice them in order to gain the spiritual health necessary to take up our crosses, especially in relation to the great challenges of our lives.  

 If we refuse to deny ourselves even in small ways this Lent, then we will 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 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 power. Indeed, we will be even more guilty because we know that His Cross is not a sign of ultimate defeat to be repudiated, but “a weapon of peace and a trophy invincible” to be honored.     

 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 achieve our desire for any earthly goal, no matter how appealing or noble.  If we do not actually take up our crosses and deny ourselves out of love for God and neighbor, then we will condemn only ourselves when we use the Cross idolatrously to justify getting whatever we want personally for ourselves or the factions, nations, or other groups to which we have given our hearts.  Whenever we recognize that we are coming anywhere close to using the way of Christ to seek the things of this world as ends in themselves, we must call for the Lord’s mercy from the depths of our souls as we struggle to embody St. Paul’s teaching that “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24)

 We adore the Holy Cross today because it is ultimately a sign of the blessed eternal life that the Savior has brought to the world through His victory over the corrupting power of sin and death.  As we continue our Lenten journey, let us offer every dimension of our lives to Him 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 our salvation.