20210914 THE DOUBLE ASPECTS OF THE HOLY CROSS
14 September, 2021, Tuesday, The Exaltation of the Holy Cross
First reading | Numbers 21:4-9 © |
If anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked up at the bronze serpent and lived
On the way through the wilderness the people lost patience. They spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? For there is neither bread nor water here; we are sick of this unsatisfying food.’
At this God sent fiery serpents among the people; their bite brought death to many in Israel. The people came and said to Moses, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede for us with the Lord to save us from these serpents.’ Moses interceded for the people, and the Lord answered him, ‘Make a fiery serpent and put it on a standard. If anyone is bitten and looks at it, he shall live.’ So Moses fashioned a bronze serpent which he put on a standard, and if anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked at the bronze serpent and lived.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 77(78):1-2,34-38 © |
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
Give heed, my people, to my teaching;
turn your ear to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable
and reveal hidden lessons of the past.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
When he slew them then they would seek him,
return and seek him in earnest.
They would remember that God was their rock,
God the Most High their redeemer.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
But the words they spoke were mere flattery;
they lied to him with their lips.
For their hearts were not truly with him;
they were not faithful to his covenant.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
Yet he who is full of compassion
forgave them their sin and spared them.
So often he held back his anger
when he might have stirred up his rage.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
When a Feast of the Lord falls on a weekday, there is no reading after the Psalm and before the Gospel.
Gospel Acclamation |
Alleluia, alleluia!
We adore you, O Christ,
and we bless you;
because by your cross
you have redeemed the world.
Alleluia!
Gospel | John 3:13-17 © |
God sent his Son so that through him the world might be saved
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
‘No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who came down from heaven,
the Son of Man who is in heaven;
and the Son of Man must be lifted up
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost
but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world
not to condemn the world,
but so that through him the world might be saved.’
THE DOUBLE ASPECTS OF THE HOLY CROSS
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [NUMBERS 21:4-9; PHILIPPIANS 2:6-11; JOHN 3:13-17 ]
Is the feast of the Holy Cross a duplication of the celebration of Good Friday when we commemorate the crucifixion and death of our Lord? Yes, it is if we are simply commemorating the suffering of our Lord. But today’s feast is not so much focused on the suffering and death of our Lord but the victory that the cross has gained for humanity. On Good Friday, we focus on the passion of our Lord so that we are conscious of what are sins have done to Him. Our sins have caused our brothers and sisters to suffer, including ourselves. But if we just focus on our sins and our sufferings, we can end up feeling hopeless.
Some of us like to dwell on our past mistakes, our sufferings and our pain. We keep remembering the pains that we have caused to others, and those that they have caused us. We remember the humiliation, the agony, the struggles and the sufferings we went through because of them. We cannot forgive or let go of things that happened in the past. And then there are some of us who cannot let go of the death of our loved ones. Some of us even keep things exactly as they were when our child or our loved ones passed away tragically. We want those things to remain so that we can dwell on the nostalgic past. We live in perpetual bereavement, mourning what we had lost instead of moving on in life. Such remembrance of the past will do us greater harm than good. It makes us live in the past.
Celebrating the Exaltation of the Cross is to celebrate what the cross has achieved for us, if we understand the role of the cross in our lives rightly. The world is most afraid of suffering and death. It seeks pleasure and freedom from all pain. This is why more and more people are advocating euthanasia for those who find life meaningless. This is a less painful way of committing suicide than taking poison, overdose on drugs or even jumping from a height. The cross is a taboo for most people, a shame and something to resist. There is no religion that has a symbol of something apparently negative to express their faith. Even some Christians fight shy of the cross by focusing on the prosperity gospel, miracles and healings. It is not wrong to speak about the victory that Christ has brought to the world, but we must never forget that this victory is possible only through the cross. To underscore the victory of the cross without the suffering is misleading.
This is why it is important to focus on the two aspects of the cross. The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross provides the perspective in meditating on the passion and death of our Lord on Good Friday. These two aspects of the cross are presented in Christian tradition, firstly as a crucifix with the corpus of the crucified Lord, dramatically presented as one who had been tortured, stripped, His face and body in anguish and blood oozing out from His wounds. The other aspect of Christian tradition is to present the Cross without the corpus of Christ, which most non-Catholic Christians do. This is to emphasize the triumph of the Holy Cross, His resurrection and victory over sin and death.
Both aspects of the cross are present in the scriptures. In the gospel, Jesus said to Nicodemus: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and the Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” This lifting up of the Son of Man must be understood from the perspective of Jesus being lifted up on the cross for all to see. The second aspect of being lifted up is His glorification when He was raised from the dead and then lifted up into heaven at the Ascension where He shares the glory and the authority of the Father, for that is the symbol of being seated at His right hand. Indeed, there cannot be an exaltation without first going through the passion.
This double aspect of the cross is also brought out in St Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Once again, we see the descent of our Lord, being stripped of His divinity and sharing our humanity, even under death on the cross, a death in the most shameful, humiliating and painful manner. But the lower He sank, the higher He rose. “God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all other names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
It is therefore beneficial to us to begin by contemplating on the passion of Christ on the cross. Meditating on the wounds and sufferings of our Lord can help us to cope with our pain and suffering because we know that we are not suffering alone. But how consoling to know that God understands our suffering and the struggles of humanity. As the letter of Hebrews says, “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb 4:14-16) Knowing that God in Christ has gone through all we have gone through, the pain, loneliness, rejection, ridicule, humiliation, we are confident that God will help us to overcome our struggles.
Secondly, by meditating on the cross of our Lord, we come to know the triumph of God’s love for us. As Jesus said, “Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.” Believing in God’s love in our sorrows and helplessness will give us hope in our struggles. That God chose to share in our humanity and pain by emptying Himself, shows His solidarity with us. But more than solidarity, He wants to reveal to us the depth of His love for us sinners. He wants to show us His mercy and compassion for us in our sins so that, inspired by His utter love for us, we will live no longer for ourselves but for Him who died and was raised for us. (cf 2 Cor 5:15) Assured of His love, we can endure everything. When there is love, there is no sacrifice we cannot do, not just for God but for our loved ones.
Thirdly, the triumph of the cross is seen in repentance, forgiveness of sins and a new life that begins here and now, and eternal life with God. Through the cross of our Lord, many are brought to repentance after having encountered His love and mercy for them. Liberated from the chains of their past, their addictions, and inability to forgive themselves, they find themselves a new creation. No longer are they afraid of suffering and death because they see them as the means to come to realization of the consequences of their sins and a means of purification in love as they die to themselves. But most of all, meditating on the victory of the cross over sin and death, we know that victory is at hand for us as well.
Indeed, Christ comes to show us the way to suffer for love and how to overcome death in this life and in the world to come. The cross is the symbol of victory of love over suffering, life over death. It is the way of love and humble service, the way of self-emptying. It is the way to live in such a way that we who believe in Him, even though we die, will live and we who live and believe in Him will never die. (Jn 11:25) St Paul makes it clear, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” (Rom 14:7-9) With the crucifix and the cross in our minds, we can cope with all the suffering, inconvenience and tragedies of life. So instead of complaining like the Israelites about their dissatisfaction with life, we see the good of it. We know that we suffer not in vain but for a greater good, for humanity and ourselves. We are confident that God will not test us beyond our strength but that He will help us to gain victory in the end.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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