We are celebrating the
feast of the cross which drove away darkness and brought in the light. As we keep this feast, we are lifted up with
the crucified Christ, leaving behind us earth and sin so that we may gain the
things above. So great and outstanding a
possession is the cross that he who wins it has won a treasure. Rightly could I call this treasure the
fairest of all fair things and the costliest, in fact as well as in name, for
on it and through it and for its sake the riches of salvation that had been
lost were restored to us.
Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been
crucified. Had there been no cross, life
itself could not have been nailed to the tree.
And if life had not been nailed to it, there would be no streams of
immortality pouring from Christ's side, blood and water for the world's
cleansing. The legal bond of our sin
would not be canceled, we should not have obtained our freedom, we should not
have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of life and the gates of paradise would not
stand open. Had there been no cross,
death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled.
Therefore, the cross is something wonderfully great and
honorable. It is great because through the cross the many noble acts of Christ
found their consummation-very many indeed, for both his miracles and his
sufferings were fully rewarded with victory.
The cross is honorable because it is both the sign of God's suffering
and the trophy of his victory. It stands
for his suffering because on it he freely suffered unto death. But it is also his trophy because it was the
means by which the devil was wounded and death conquered; the barred gates of
hell were smashed, and the cross became the one common salvation of the whole
world.
The cross is called Christ's glory; it is saluted as his
triumph. We recognize it as the cup he
longed to drink and the climax of the sufferings he endured for our sake. If you would understand that the cross is
Christ's triumph, hear what he himself said:
When I am lifted up, then I will
draw all men to myself. Now you can
see that the cross is Christ's glory and triumph. (Saint Andrew of Crete, bishop)
We are drawn to Christ in his glory and triumph. He draw us to himself. Do we allow ourselves to be taken up to
him? All over the Middle East,
Christians are drawn to Christ, they follow him, and they
die for him. What is our answer? Do we take the sufferings as Christ did so we
may share the glory and triumph, or do we settle for what this earth has to
offer us? Would we too die for him and
with him? kvs
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