This entire week, we honor and give glory to God for this precious instrument of our salvation. We will hear in the hymns of the feast this evening at the Great Vespers:
“The Cross is the guardian of the whole world. The Cross is the beauty of the Church. The Cross is the might of kings. The Cross is the confirmation of the faithful. The cross is the glory of the angels…and the wounding of demons”.
The Cross is everything for us! We bring it out to the center of the Church. We decorate it with beautiful and fragrant flowers. We bow down low before the life-giving wood. In all of these external movements, we give Glory to God for the Cross!
The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is one that is unknown to many in the modern Christian world, because you will not find it anywhere in Holy Scripture. It is found rather through Holy Tradition, in the history books, and in the hymnography and poetry of the Ancient Church.
When our Lord was taken down from the Cross, the instrument of His death remained on Golgotha for some time before it was eventually thrown down into the trash heap near the spot of the crucifixion. A few decades later, after the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, Emperor Hadrian gave orders to build a temple over the land where the cross was buried to the Roman Goddess Venus, who was the Goddess of fornication, lust, and desire.
So imagine if you will, for several hundred years, on the very spot that the True God gave His life for the human race, He had to watch from above as His own creation offered sacrifices to the Goddess of the Passions, just a few meters above the Cross of Christ!
When we come into an Orthodox Church, we see the cross of Christ depicted literally everywhere. It is on the Altar table, on the top of the Royal doors, even on the fabric of the icon stands. Many of our Churches are even designed to be constructed in the shape of the cross, leaving the faithful to worship in the very center of it! The Cross is everywhere! It is raised! It is prominent! It is exalted!
And Yet…How much is the cross exalted within us? How often do we think about it? Are we constantly putting it on ourselves outside of Church? Does our Lord’s love take precedent in our own lives, above everything else in this world? Or is it sometimes buried, neglected, and “thrown into the trash heap” as we occupy ourselves with earthly concerns?
After Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which stopped the persecution of Christians throughout the empire, he sent his elderly mother St. Helen to Jerusalem to find the Holy Places that had been decimated and buried by the Pagans. After years of searching, she met with an elderly Hebrew man named Jude, who told her that Golgotha was buried beneath the temple of Venus.
St. Helen had the temple demolished and the land excavated, and it was there that they found three crosses, a board with the inscription “King of the Jews”, and four nails that were used to put our Lord to death. To determine which of the crosses was that of Christ’s, the Patriarch of Jerusalem ordered that a corpse be brought to the site. They laid a dead man on the three crosses, and when he was laid on the cross of our Lord, his eyes opened as he came to life. The entire world celebrated and rejoiced at the finding of the true cross! It was lifted up and exalted on high!
One year later, Emperor Constantine ordered that the area surrounding Golgotha and the Empty Tomb be enclosed in a massive Church that was finished 9 years after the finding of the Cross. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, although it has been rebuilt several times throughout history, still stands today over those sacred sites, welcoming Christian pilgrims from around the world!
Since those early days of the 4th century…for almost 1700 years, the Church has remembered and celebrated the finding and elevating of the Cross of Christ. At the Divine Liturgy for the feast, we celebrate and rededicate ourselves to Christ and His Cross. At Vespers, we will bring out the precious cross from the altar, adorned in flowers, and place it in the center of the Church while we sing:
“O Lord Save Thy People and Bless Thine Inheritance. Grant victories to the Orthodox Christians over their adversaries, and by virtue of the cross, preserve Thy Habitation”
Then we will all bow down low to the cross…the instrument of our salvation. We will be reminded of the sweetness it brings our embittered lives…the strength and stability it offers us throughout our fight with the passions…and the hope and promise it brings to those who keep it elevated in their lives.
By the power of the precious and life-giving Cross, O Lord, have mercy on us and save us!