Feast of the Exaltation or Triumph of the Holy Cross

This feast this weekend is something of an interruption in the normal flow of the weekend liturgical calendar. This weekend we observe the feast of the Triumph of the Cross. If I remember correctly, the origin of this observance was, some time back, the finding of the true cross in Palestine. The stories hold that that event was accompanied by any number of miracles, and it pretty quickly became a focal point for the personal piety of a good many people. A relic, or a piece of the wood of the true cross became a highly prized thing, and remained so for a number of centuries. So much so, in fact, that by now, even though the veneration of relics in general has rather died down in popular Catholic tradition, I'd be willing to bet that if all the relics of the true cross were to be gathered together from all over the world, there would be enough wood to build a good sized condominium, let alone a single cross.

Over more recent years, however, the Church's focus of attention in this feast has shifted away from the finding of a particular relic, and a devotional response to that, and has settled rather more on the concrete reality of the cross in the life of a believer, right now. With good reason. The simple, and painfully obvious fact is that burdens, problems, sometimes even outright hardship, are a reality. And they are a reality for everyone. Actually, in a strange sort of way, and simply on an emotional level, there almost seems to be a kind of consolation for those struggling with some burden, to be reminded that such is the case indeed for everyone. No one goes through life unscarred, unburdened. A real sense of loneliness seems so often to be a part of the suffering of those dealing with hardship. A sense that nobody really understands what I am going through when I am burdened, that nagging suspicion, conviction, even, that everyone around me is really very happy, quite content with their lives. And so, in a way, simply to remind ourselves that there is indeed a community of burden-bearing can make it all a bit easier, sometimes.

But if that is as far as we go, we miss the point, I think. Certainly we miss the point of this feast. After all, that kind of a sense of community really offers no more profound an insight than simply that suffering is a part of the human condition, that to be human means at some time or other, to bear a burden. Not much real consolation in that, and precious little hope held out. No, I think this feast urges us to go a good bit further than that, urges us to get beneath the surface of our experience of hardship, whatever it might be, and see a goodness in it. To go beyond how that burden feels, and settle on what it means. I said a bit ago that the focus of attention is on the reality of the cross in the life of a believer. And I think those two words, "cross" and "believer", really point the way beneath the surface of experience. Actually, every experience is changed, redefined, in the life of a believer. Nothing means simply what it feels like. Everything means what Christ says it means. In the life of a believer, nothing is pointless, there is no such thing as an empty, meaningless experience. And perhaps that is also the first thing to be said about hardship in the life of a believer. In the light of faith, it is not simply a burden. It is in fact, a cross. Those two words really don't mean the same thing at all, burden, and cross. There is a world of difference between simply enduring, simply bearing up under hardship, and actively carrying a cross. The cross is a uniquely, mysteriously, Christian burden. It is hardship with a point. Suffering that leads somewhere, produces something new, means something.

Well, fine. Sounds good. But what does it mean? Where does it lead? You may remember that last week we began a reflection that really leads in to this observance. Christ's words in the Gospel last Sunday were, "Those who do not take up their cross and follow me cannot be my disciples". And in reflecting on those words we said that a good way to begin to come to an understanding of the reality of the cross in the life of a believer is to come to better understanding of the reality of the cross in the life of Christ. And we said that for Christ the cross was not something laid on Him, as much as it was something He took up, and that He did that long before Good Friday. Christ began to carry His cross the moment He decided that the value of His mission, the goodness of what He was sent to do, far outweighed any consideration of whether or not that mission made Him popular, and acceptable, and powerful, or made Him an outcast, a figure to be scorned, ridiculed, and finally killed. Because Christ's cross was well-carried, there really wasn't much difference in His experience of the crowds who wanted to make Him king, and the crowds who wanted Him dead. No difference between being at the center of the people's good will, or the center of their hatred. To have given in to either would be to have been unfaithful. Christ carried the same cross through both crowds, really, the same burden, that of faithfullness. For Christ, that was the heart of what the cross meant. Fidelity. Simply never to give up, never to sway from the course known to be the will of the Father, no matter what anyone else did or said, no matter how it may have felt at the moment.

And acceptance. In the life of Christ the cross was the focal point of His total, unconditional acceptance of the human condition. By the Father's design, human beings are sent to move in one another's company. To enjoy the pleasures of that company, and to endure the hurt that human beings inflict on one another. He could have avoided that, easily enough. There are hundreds of ways to hide from the woundedness of the human condition. Always have been. He could have literally moved out of the company of people, been a hermit, lived off in a cave somewhere. He could have hidden Himself in any number of different roles or costumes. He could have curried popularity, been a crowd pleaser. He could have built a wall of unconcern around Himself, too thick for anyone to pierce. He could have listened to the fear that He surely felt, and done nothing to offend anyone. Hundreds of ways to hide. And had He done any of that, He would not been arrested. He would not have been crucified. He would not have died. But neither would He have healed, or consoled, or taught, or saved. So acceptance of the human condition, it all its woundedness. That too is part of what carrying the cross means.

And forgiveness. In the life of Christ, the cross was the focal point of that as well. Perhaps there is no other virtue that so closely approaches an act of God, no way we can treat one another that more clearly reflects the way God treats us. That is so, really, because forgiveness is a virtue that leaves reason so far behind, goes so far beyond the boundaries of human experience. When Christ died on the cross, the Gospel tells us His last words were "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing." It seems so out of place. Christ had been badly used. He had been hauled before a mock trial, ridiculed, tormented, subjected to a painful and humiliating death. Something in us seems to say He should have gone down fighting, resisting, cursing His tormentors, rather than blessing them. By any rational standards, Christ had every reason in the world to die an angry and bitter man, a man hungry for revenge, rather than reconciliation. And if He had done that, He would have been a folk hero, but He would not have been the Messiah. People would have told stories about Him around campfires, for a while. But they would not have preached His Gospel for 2000 years. It was in that final, fullest possible acceptance of the woundedness of human beings, even of His executioners, that Christ on the cross brought to His people the divinely creative power of the Father's own forgiveness, the Father's own promise that that woundedness just doesn't matter.

Well. There is one more truth to be underlined about the reality of the cross in the life of a believer. And it is the truth revealed really in the title of this feast this weekend. It is the Triumph of the cross. The ultimate truth about the cross is simply this. Faithfullness, acceptance, forgiveness, are virtues that work. I said that a cross is a burden with a point. And it is. But it is also a burden that is no longer deadly. No matter how it may seem to those standing a ways off watching, the truth is, the cross doesn't kill. But the only way to learn that that is the truth is to pick it up and carry it.

So. That is the reality of the cross for a believer. And that is how a believer transforms that reality, re-creates it. Those who approach the burdens, the hardships in their lives with faithfullness, with acceptance and with forgiveness, literally re-create that burden. They make of it a cross. They drain that burden of its danger, its ability to destroy them. For a believer, for those who take up a cross, the worst that any burden can ever be, is heavy.

Readings: Numbers 21:4b-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17.