A HOMILY FOR THE GREAT FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE CROSS
About the Saviour’s Death on the Cross, and Our Repentance
Brothers and sisters!
Today we have performed the ancient, most sacred, and most moving rite of the Exaltation of the Lord’s Cross…
What awesome and sorrowful, yet joyful recollections the Exaltation of the Cross and the sight of the Cross lying before us bring to mind! On the lifegiving Cross, the God-man by His sufferings and death redeemed the whole human race from the just condemnation of eternal death. The holy Cross was dyed crimson by torrents of the blood of the Only-begotten Son, although a single drop of that blood would have sufficed to purify the world of every sin committed since the time of Adam. For three hundred years, the Cross lay hidden in the ground, during which time a heavy cross lay upon the Church of Christ: the earth was flooded by the blood of the Christians, some of whom were themselves crucified, some sawed in half, some burned alive, some drowned in the sea. So many heads, hands, feet, and breasts were cut off that the arms of the executioners grew feeble and, in many cases, they could not complete their grisly work. This was Satan’s hateful revenge for our Saviour’s beautiful feat of love accomplished on the Cross! The shameful, horrid death of the King of Glory on the Cross heralded the glorious death of countless Christians for His all-holy name.
Three hundred years passed; then the devout Emperor Constantine mounted the throne of the Roman Empire. The Cross appeared in the sky and brought him victory over every foe. In gratitude, he accepted the faith, began to worship the Crucified One, put an end to the persecutions, and granted full liberty and favor to the Church of God. The pious ruler built countless Christian temples and sent his beloved mother Helen to the Holy Land to find the precious Cross. She unearthed the instrument of our salvation, and it raised the dead, healed the ill, and drove demons out of their victims.
How is it that wood became the source of such prodigies? It was because the Creator of heaven and earth was lifted up on it, by His death granting life and healing to the whole world. Through the wood of the Cross, the entire race of man was saved from eternal perdition. Although when this happened, you and I were not yet in existence, the Lord knew we would be born into this world. He knew what wretched sinners we would be. In fact, He knew this from before there was time and so, with His unoriginate Father and His Most Holy Spirit, He determined then upon the most powerful, the most noble, the most beautiful, and the most moving way to deliver us from our plight. He drank the cup of human suffering down to the dregs, having assumed our nature and flesh, although He is ever the King of Glory and God preeternal. What an awesome mystery! What a wellspring of tears of contrition and gratitude! For this was not the deserved death of a breaker of the law, as the Jews imagined, but the unjust death of the only righteous, the only sinless One: the death of the only perfectly meek, humble, guileless, and compassionate One Who, even before redeeming our race by His death on the Cross, had showered countless blessings upon us by His teaching and miracles, and the incomparable example of His life. No wonder that when the Jews crucified Him, the sun was darkened, the earth quaked, the veil of the temple was rent, the great stones of buildings tumbled down, graves opened, and the dead arose! The whole of creation groaned, suffering together with the Creator. Only the stony hearts of chosen Israel did not suffer. Instead, the Jews surrounded the Cross and reviled the Saviour, wagging their heads and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save Thyself! If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the Cross.[1]
O Redeemer of every soul and of mine own wretched soul! Thy Crucifiers knew not that upon Thy shoulders, torn open by the fearsome Roman scorpions and weighed down by the Cross, Thou borest the weight of all the sins of the whole world. They knew not that Thou, the Innocent and Sinless, hadst voluntarily offered Thyself to the Father as a sacrifice for their sins and ours. They knew not that Thou hadst taken upon Thyself their just punishment and ours. They knew not that at the hour of Thy death as man, Thou wouldest descend into the deepest parts of the earth as God, subdue Hades’ power, and crush its might. They knew not that Thou wouldest break Hades’ bars and gates, leading up the dead who had been awaiting Thy coming!
Oh, how dear to the Redeemer the souls of those saved by His blood, that He endured the dread Passion! How dear to Him the souls even now nourished by that blood! What blessedness to eat the body and drink the blood of the Crucified One! How terrible and soul-destroying is sin, which took the death of God to be wiped away! How wretched the plight of sinners who fail to grasp the harmful power of sin! How fearsome the fate of the unrepentant: the outer darkness, the gnashing of teeth, the bottomless abyss, and worst of all, eternity spent with the demons they have chosen, and remote from the Saviour they have rejected!
Brothers and sisters, let us repent quickly, learn to hate every sin, and begin to love the righteousness loved by our Saviour and Judge. Let us cleave to the precious Cross with our hearts and kiss it with our lips, crying out with all sincerity and fervor, “O Lord, Who hast suffered for us, permitting Thy blood to be shed for our sake, and hast died upon the Cross, lead us to the path of salvation by the judgments which Thou knowest, and save us!” Amen.
[1] Matt. 29:39-90
