Veneration of the Holy Cross
Word pictures today don’t necessarily mean what they meant in ages past. Take the word “cross”. When we hear it today, we think maybe of a burden that we should willingly take on, one that will help us with our salvation. And, of course, there’s truth in that. Or we may think of the cross on which Jesus died, which is, for us, a sign, a symbol of His grace.
But, when He said these words, take up your cross, do you think that his listeners would’ve understood it in either of those fashions? I doubt it. If he were here today, to get the same impact, maybe he would say, “Take up your electric chair and follow me”.
The cross, for the first century Jew - or Roman - was not a religious symbol.
The cross was tool that the Romans used for torture and execution.
So, in the Gospel, Jesus is directly telling us to be ready for suffering. He’s telling to be ready for torture. He’s telling us to be ready for martyrdom.
Do we really need to be ready to suffer today? Do we need to be ready for torture? Or for martyrdom? Look what happened to the Ukrainian Catholic Church after World War II. Praise God, it’s not come to that here - yet - but one never knows.
We just sang, “To your cross, Oh Master, we bow in veneration, and we glorify your holy resurrection”. The cross here is a symbol of Christ’s death for us, and we venerate that. But notice - there is no cross but that it’s followed by resurrection.
Much of the symbolism of our faith is expressed in images of death and resurrection. Paul says that we are buried with Christ in baptism - we are dead before we are baptized. But then? But then, we rise to eternal life.
Paul said to the Romans, “We are those who have died to sin”. And, if we have died to sin, we are alive in Christ!
In the Gospel reading, our Lord tells us to take up our cross. On the surface, He is telling us to die to sin and to accept the sufferings that come in this life. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, our sufferings in the flesh complete what is lacking in the afflictions of Jesus. For us, though, the cross has become much more. Mystics and theologians have meditated on it since the early days of the Church, and their Spirit-led insights guide us today.
We can take the insights and apply them to His instruction to take up our cross.
From the Akathist to the Holy Cross, we can hear Jesus saying, “Take up your cross, redemption from the ancient curse”. We are redeemed through the cross!
Take up your cross, quencher of deception’s fire. When we want to avoid being deceived, if we cling to the cross, it will quench deception’s fire!
The cross is the doorway to the divine mysteries, The Akathist tells us that through the cross, corruption is banished and sorrow has vanished. We learn in it that the cross is the healer of the sick, that is the constant help of them that cry.
The Litany of the Holy Cross tells us that it is the terror of demons, it is refuge of sinners. The cross is Wisdom of the foolish and the splendor of kings. It’s the salvation of the world and destruction of idolatry.
And all of this is mediated by our great High Priest, a priest forever of the Order of Melchizedek. Under the Mosaic Covenant, the Law, there were priests of the Order of Aaron. They were all descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses, who were of the tribe of Levi, one of the sons of Jacob.
Under the Law, it was the high priest, a priest of Aaron, who, once a year, on the Day of Atonement, would enter the Holy of Holies to burn incense and sprinkle the sacrificial animal blood to atone for the sins of the people, prefiguring Jesus shedding his blood to atone for our sins.
Melchizedek lived in the time of Abraham, before there were Jews. The only time he actually appears in the narrative, we read, “And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought bread and wine, for he was a priest of the most high God”.
The Cross is a symbol for us of the atonement Christ makes for us, and the Eucharist is Christ’s Sacrifice offered to the Father, re-presented today under the appearance of Bread and Wine. It is that same Sacrifice which the priest offers on our behalf and which is given to us as spiritual nourishment.
And, so, we are privileged to pray, “Save us, O Christ our Savior, by the virtue of the Cross: You who saved Peter perishing in the sea, have mercy upon us.”
And we have the authority to say, “Behold the Cross of the Lord, flee all you His enemies: the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed.”
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