THE LESSONS OF THE CROSS


FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS

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

The Son of Man must be lifted Up

The core of the mystery of Jesus Christ as the Son of Man is his cross. The cross of Jesus Christ signifies his passion and death on Calvary. The passion and death of the Son of Man constitute the centre of the mystery of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world. Therein lies the mystery of human salvation. The divine aspect of the mystery is our faith that the One who died on the cross is God and man. How would God allow his Son to become man, to suffer, and to die a cruel death for the salvation of us, men? There is no other reasonable answer to the question than Saint John’s statement in 1 Jn 4:8 that God is love. Often, love appears irrational. The Father's love for us led him to give up his Son to ransom slaves. This is the core of the mystery for us, for it poses an impasse to our poor human understanding. But God really willed that; and his Only Begotten Son accepted and accomplished the will of the Father. The Son’s knowledge and love of the Father make him ready always to accomplish the divine will. Because he is God, the Son understands the Father’s will to be just and loving at all times. He also embraces his Father’s will because of his love for us, whom he made in his own image. Thus, everything he endured for our salvation constitutes the Lord’s cross.

Our Lord Jesus Christ endured the cross for the love of God the Father and the love of us and our salvation. He gave us the two great commandments: love of God and love of our neighbour, to bring us to participate in his cross and glory. Saint Paul describes the essence of the Lord’s cross. “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; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross.” We have two great lessons in the cross of the Lord: the depth of God’s love for us, and the importance of humility, or self-emptying. These bring us to receive the glory of God. The cross reveals God’s infinite love for us, his sinful creatures, and forcefully attracts us to love God with all our being. At the same time, love for God enables us to self-empty ourselves in humility, which crushes the head of the serpent and his influence over us. Our contrition for our sins, which caused the death of the Son of Man, and the virtue of humility we learn from him model us in his image, making us children of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A third lesson from the cross of the Lord is the sinfulness of sin, which is essentially disobedience to God’s will.

The lesson of God’s love is the greatest lesson of the cross, for it is God’s essence. Our Lord witnesses to this love as the One from heaven. “Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.” The divine justice decreed our death; but instead of slaying us eternally, he slew his Son in his human nature, that our nature may regain life from Him who is immortal. “When he slew them, then they would seek him, return and seek him in earnest. They would remember that God was their rock, God the Most High their redeemer.” About the lessons which he taught us in his passion and death, the Lord says: “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.” These three lessons of divine love, necessity of humility, and the evilness of sin conduce to our salvation. Paul writes of the exaltation that comes from the cross. “But God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all other names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” By learning these lessons, we enter deeply into the mystery of Jesus Christ and share his death, resurrection, and glory. This is what we celebrate in the exaltation of the Cross.

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.  

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