Glory to Jesus Christ!
Many of us are back in school, so I feel like I can give a pop quiz. Last Sunday was the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, but today is NOT the 15th Sunday.
What do we Byzantines call this Sunday? The Sunday before the Exaltation.
What is the Exaltation of the Cross? Why do we celebrate this event?
All the readings this weekend, then on September 14, and again next Sunday are related to what Jesus did for us on the Cross, to the extent that we even personify the Cross in our prayers. What used to be an instrument of execution has become for us a sign of Victory.
St. John the Theologian makes references to Moses lifting a serpent up in the desert. All who looked at the serpent were healed. In the same way, all who desire to be healed today need only look to the Cross of Jesus. This is why St. Helen wanted to find the Cross: It is the sign by which her son Constantine conquered his enemies, and it’s also a sign of healing.
Every generation desires to be saved from the insanity of its age. But as insane as the last 3 years have been, that’s not the insanity Jesus came to vanquish. As evil as the last 3 years have been, that is only a symptom of the evil Jesus destroyed by his death on the cross. The insanity Jesus came to destroy was the idea we got from Satan in the garden: that we don’t need God – that we are already God, even better than God. That’s insane!
Our own secular society has been telling us for decades that we don’t need God. We don’t need to pray in schools. We don’t need to trust God with our procreation; we can invent pills and devices to do that ourselves. Fast forward to today where society says WE can choose our own gender because there is no God, and even if God did exist, he just made a mistake when he made me male, so “I’m going to fix that for Him.”
This is harming relationships. I have a nephew who now has a girlfriend who calls herself non-binary. I told him I would be happy to meet her, but that I have no intention of calling her by some strange pronoun or acknowledging the illusion that she misunderstands her own being. And now he won’t talk to me. The insanity Jesus came to destroy was the insanity of using our free will to deny the existence of
the One who gave us that free will. That’s insane!
Regarding the serpent in the desert, we need to ask ourselves: Are we ungrateful for what Jesus did for us on the Cross? Has his sacrifice faded from the very fiber of our being? Are we looking for salvation in other quarters? From politics, religious controversies, activism, or our own self-reliance?
Back to the quiz: and to the Israelite people in the desert.
Why did they have to look at the serpent for healing? Because they had been bitten by a snake.
Why were they bitten by a snake? Because they had complained against God.
Why were they complaining?
They were tired of eating the Manna from heaven and the multitudes of quail that just happened to show up—in the desert! And all that water they drank—that came from a rock! They wanted more variety in their diet, maybe even a little wine. So God, in his justice, sent them venomous snakes to bite their ungrateful hearts and send many of them to their graves. Faced with a faster death than dining at God’s table in the desert, they clamored to God for mercy! That’s when the Father said “anyone who looks with faith at the serpent lifted up on a pole will be instantly healed of his snake bite.”
Even today, the symbol on medical documents and letters from doctors shows two snakes writhing up at the top of a pole, just below a pair of angelic wings. it’s not exactly the same as the OT image, but very similar.
That symbol is an amazing summary of our faith and relationship with God. It was a snake that tricked our parents into thinking they didn’t need God. It was snake, lifted up on a wooden pole that healed them in the desert. It was man who lost our salvation with God by eating a forbidden fruit, and it was the new man, Jesus, who regained our salvation by offering himself as our food and drink. Jesus was lifted high on a wooden pole where even a pagan Roman centurion said “surely this man was the son of God”.
To us, he IS the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity. St. Helen found that true Cross, lifted it up again and implored us to remember what St. John said so beautifully, and which echos this time of year in football stadiums across the nation, that “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him not perish, but have eternal life.” The people of Moses looked at the serpent in the desert and were healed, but they later died again. But if we believe in Jesus and the One who sent him, we will live forever.
Of the blessed wood of the Cross, we sing:
“Today the saving wood shines forth from the bosom of the earth. It is reverently lifted up in the
church by the hands of the bishop. The whole world prostrates and kisses it with awe. Save
us through your cross, O Lord.”
Glory to Jesus Christ!
(From the homily on Sunday, 9/10/23)