Imagine the reaction of the first followers to Jesus's choice to die crucified, nailed to a wooden cross, stripped of
his garments – the ultimate humiliation... yet, ultimately, salvation. From this ostensible place of death and
defeat, a place of humility chosen by Jesus, the Son of God, comes the most remarkable healing
transformation in the history of the earth:
the redemption of humankind from sin.
This weekend we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the
Most Holy Cross, a feast that acknowledges this profound paradox of our
faith. In our first reading from
Numbers, Moses raises the saraph serpent on the pole, and those who eagerly turn back to God as they
gaze upon it (Psalm 78) are healed
from their suffering. This sign was a prefiguration of the final act of the human
Jesus, willing to suffer, lifted on the Cross, defeating both sin and death,
and gaining everlasting life for those who eagerly
turn to him. As Jesus tells
Nicodemus in John’s Gospel, Just as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. To believe in the victory of the Cross is
to know that God’s love has no bounds, no limits; Jesus is the revelation of
the fullness of God’s love.
As Paul explains to the Philippians, Jesus’s humility was
necessary; his obedience to a plan greater than he might humanly want came from
a place of love. He first emptied himself in the Incarnation,
taking on the likeness of man, and as a man, he died, nailed to a cross. Yet from that place of ultimate
vulnerability and annihilation, God exalted Jesus, so that the cross, a sign of debasement,
might become an everlasting symbol of the glory that is God’s, and the
salvation that is ours.
We, too, must choose. To choose the Cross is to choose life, to choose Love, to choose God. Will you choose the Cross, today?
We, too, must choose. To choose the Cross is to choose life, to choose Love, to choose God. Will you choose the Cross, today?
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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