Yet here is Christ’s call,
The death of Jesus of Nazareth is an historical fact, but many live today as if this death and the empty tomb that followed are irrelevant; they prefer to not think about it, to put off grappling with the ramifications of this truth and its calling on their lives: Out of sight, out of mind! But then, they find themselves empty, hopeless, alone.
The reality is that without the cross, this is all there is to life; there is no hope, there is no rescue from ourselves, our passions. Without the victory of the cross, each person has no reason not to live for his own pleasure. Nihilism is the only recourse.
God’s desired better for us all along. The reality of who we are deep down as human beings, who God created us to be is not fallen, struggling, depressed, lonely, slaves to the passions. Instead, He’s created us to be God-bearers, angels in the flesh, children of the living God.
He’s created us for glory, life with Him, but how often we exchange this glory for enslavement to the temporal things of this world. We exchange the glory of God and freedom to grow, heal, and find our salvation, for that which is passing away.
Christ’s death on the cross reminds us first that by the tree our first parents, Adam and Eve, fell into sin through their disobedience; they were exiled from paradise; they preferred relationship with Satan and his lies to relationship with God and His life. They introduced death into the world through sin, that is, through apartness from the life that is in God alone.
Our first parents and we, every time we sin, willingly “play with death,” we choose apartness from God, Life itself. The Fall, in this sense, becomes personal for us because of our choices.
But Christ descended into Hades and raised the death who were there, who had longed to see His day—this victory over sin and death. Christ died the vilest of deaths so that He could defeat on our behalf the vilest of our sins and passions.
Third-century Saint, Irenaeus, explains the Mystery so, “He (Christ) by His obedience on the tree renewed [and reversed] what was done by disobedience in [connection with] a tree…” or as St. Paul says, “22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.”
Christ inaugurates a new race of Adam—a race that is no longer enslaved to sin and death, but one that can heal from sin-sickness and grow into the likeness of the Holy Trinity. In Christ and through His Church we’ve been given the tools of salvation by which we may find healing, step by step, from our passions, our greediness, our desire to have things ‘our way,’ to live for self in all its arrogance, pride, and loneliness.
If those who touched the hem of Christ’s garment found healing, what would happen when Christ entered Hades and confronted death head on? Who would emerge the victor but the Lord of Life Himself, the only One who could offer Himself to death and emerge victorious?
We venerate the cross of Christ then, not just as a symbol, a sign, but a reality, marking that final victory over sin and death, over our vileness that has darkened human nature and obscured the image and likeness of God in us. By Christ’s death on the cross, death is transfigured into life for all those who live for and with God. Christ beckons us then to die to life apart from Him, life for and of ourselves—in all its vainglory, loneliness, and separation, and to live instead in Him that we may also become fellow partakers of the resurrection and be co-heirs with Him.
For this reason, we herald the cross in the hymnography of the Church as the “trophy invincible.”
We sing in the Canticles from Matins for the Feast, “Thy cross, O Lord all-merciful, is honored by the whole world, for Thou hast made the instrument of death into a source of life. Sanctify those who venerate it, O God of our Fathers, who alone art blessed and greatly glorified.”
How then do we interiorize and apply the cross to our lives? It’s not enough to carry the cross around our necks; we also need to carry it about in our hearts.
Jesus says, “whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it.” Christ, in denying Himself for us, gave Himself, His own life, to defeat death. So we, in order to live, in order to obtain the true life that is in His life, learn to take up Christ’s call. In self-denial and love for God, we fight to leave pride behind that we may grow humble like our Lord. We fight our vain attempts to create the mirage of temporal ‘stability’ in and around our lives with all the creature comforts we can afford. We learn through our fasting that we don’t live by bread alone. We learn that the pursuit of all that the world has to offer, cannot bring us true joy. This realization has to be the first step.
Because He loves us, Christ God warns us by asking us, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” In other words, Christ is saying, “What are you doing, man, living as if there’s no God, no resurrection from the dead.” Without Christ’s victory on the cross and our participation in it, there’s nothing left but emptiness; for that would be all there is to life without Christ, without the way of the cross.
This truth is summed up in this hymn from Matins for this Sunday: “I died through a tree, but I have found in thee a Tree of Life, O Cross of Christ. Thou art my invincible protector, my strong defense against the demons. Venerating thee this day, I cry aloud: Sanctify me by thy glory.” May this be our prayer too this day, “Sanctify me by thy glory.”
Make us, O Lord, pilgrims on the way to the cross. Teach us to say no to our own self will and yes to Thy will, so that, we may arrive at Pascha deified, changed, more and more into Thy likeness. Help us, Lord, that we too may deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Thee, dying to self, that we may live with Thee for all eternity.
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, 7 April 2013
Sunday of the Adoration of the Cross
