THE CROSS OF OUR SALVATION

FEAST OF EXALTATION OF THE CROSS

Numb 21:4-9; Ps 78:1-2,34-38; Phil 2:6-11; Jn 3:13-17

The Narrow Path to Heaven

We celebrate the feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross of our Lord. The cross encompasses the whole length of our human life, such that it characterises our lives here on earth. The cross was not part of the divine plan for humanity, but entered the picture after the original fall of Adam and Eve as a consequence and a remedy for disobedience and sin. The cross symbolises the experience of death that Adam and Eve opted for when they chose to disobey the word of God. They were well informed of the consequences of the choice to disobey, for God told them, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Subsequently, their choice to eat the forbidden fruit was a choice to walk the way of the cross and death. Therefore, the cross symbolises everything dark and ignoble. By itself, the cross has no meaning for it arises from man’s irrational choices; Hence, it signifies all that is dark and unattractive to human reasoning and nature. The word of God being the source of every meaning and light, our disobedience to the word of God would only lead to darkness and sin. God’s infinite wisdom sheds light into our darkness, making the cross a means of our redemption.

God used the deliverance and journey of the Israelites through the wilderness as a type of the deliverance of man from sin, death, and evil. The Church uses the reading from Numbers to highlight for us the very source of the cross in our lives. The plan of God, even before our creation, is to bring us to be like him; that is, to live in communion with him. The realisation of the plan would require our willing cooperation. Just as God needed the cooperation of Adam and Eve in Eden to bring them to be like him, the cooperation of the children of Israel was needed for God to bring them through the wilderness to the Promised Land of Canaan. We see a similarity in God creating Adam and Eve from nothing, and his making a people for himself from the children of Israel enslaved in Egypt. In place of the garden through which Adam and Eve were to pass to glory, the Israelites passed through the wilderness, due to the sinful condition of man. Both in the garden and in the wilderness, what is required of man is to trust and obey. The Israelites failed to trust and obey, as Adam and Eve failed. “On the way through the wilderness, the people lost patience. They spoke against God and against Moses.” They were not content with what God provided and desired something else. To desire something outside the will of God is the source of our sins and death. The serpent represents this evil desire that leads to death. “At this God sent fiery serpents among the people; their bite brought death to many in Israel.” The physical death inflicted by the serpents demonstrates the spiritual death they have already incurred by their evil desire and murmuring.

Our spiritual death always originates from our desires away from the will of God. These desires invite the serpents or are incited by the presence of the serpents. Since the path to the Promised Land or eternal glory is only revealed by the word of God, we cannot make any headway to eternal glory without repentance from our evil desires and submission to the divine will. In taking the Israelites to the Promised Land, God needed to heal their sinful habit of distrust and disobedience. The same applies to us on our way to eternal life. God works the cross into a redemptive sacrament for us. God’s instruction to Moses points to this miracle and the wisdom of God. “Make a fiery serpent and put on a standard. If anyone is bitten and looks on it, he shall live.” The symbol indicates the irrationality of our disobedience and the disorder or death it introduces into the divine plan for us. The serpent represents our irrational desires, and the hanging of it on the pole, the shame and death that result from them.

We must take a look at the foolishness of our distrust and disobedience of God’s word. We must raise our eyes introspectively to the word of God and what he promises us, which we abandoned in our cravings. Our Lord implies this when he made reference to the bronze serpent in the Gospel. “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and the Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” Just as the bronze serpent in the desert helped the Israelites to realise their sinfulness and repent of it, the Son of Man on the cross reveals the wickedness and sinfulness of our sins. The cross of the Lord is also a path for us, for it suspends or shows to us the One we are to follow to heaven. The Crucifix brings us to repentance and shows the way to heaven. The Son of Man, our way, passed through the cross back to heaven. We must follow him through the way of the cross to the glory of heaven. Saint Paul witnesses to this truth. “His state was divine, yet Christ Jesus did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave and became as men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross.” He accepted the cross and death to save us and to teach us the path to heavenly glory. We must follow him, for only he knows the path to heaven. For this reason, we celebrate the exaltation of the Cross today.  

Let us pray: O God, who willed that your Only Begotten Son should undergo the Cross to save the human race, grant, we pray, that we, who have known his mystery on earth, may merit the grace of his redemption in heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.