THE CROSS THAT BECOMES A CROWN
Lift high the Cross! The love of Christ proclaim, ‘til all the world adore His sacred name!
Twice in the Liturgical year I think more frequently about the Cross: at Lent, and on today’s Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. During Lent of course, with its lead-up to Good Friday, it’s about joining my small (but still painful) crosses to His immense one, and adding my small (but still difficult!) sacrifices to His unfathomable one.
Today’s gaze on the Cross, though, is a bit different.
It’s about praising, blessing, adoring the Cross and what it stands for.
Lift High the Cross was written by George W Kitchin, an Anglican clergyman and scholar who led a distinguished life in academia and in the church, publishing works such as A Life of Pope Pius II (1881), and the hymn we sing to venerate the Cross of Christ. It’s a hymn worth studying to understand what’s behind our celebration of this particular feast:
Come, Christians, follow where our Captain trod, Our King victorious, Christ the Son of God.
Any skill we want to master we look to masters of that skill, don’t we? They’ve trod the path, they know the best methods. The crosses we have to carry trip us up, or cause us to feel frustrated, angry, hopeless. Most times they make us want to drop them and run. But we know discipleship requires us to pick them up and follow Christ, despite the fact that we’d rather not. We already know the way – it’s Him. It’s the ongoing dreariness of the slog that gets us: how many people do you know can cheerfully live each day with an enormous loss, a terrible affliction, a disturbing fear? Not all of us are built that way.
Looking at His Cross today is like a hearty encouragement to follow like soldiers behind a Captain who knows exactly how to carry that heaviness, and with what attitude to do it.
There’s a section in C S Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters I like coming back to when I’m pondering this carrying of one’s burdens, at those times when it seems pointless because God isn’t even noticing. This is what Screwtape, the demon, says to his demon-in-training nephew, Wormwood:
‘Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.’ (Chap VIII).
What does the Cross mean to you, really? Jesus emptied himself while carrying it, and gave Himself up in trust to the Father while hanging on it. For Him, it meant doing what was necessary to save the ones He loves, even while filled with agony and facing cruel death. When we look at that Cross today we might want to reflect that for us, embracing it means first wanting to forsake the path of sin because we see what it’s done, and secondly, that in carrying it, heavy and painful as it is, we die to ourselves upon it – thereby letting Jesus live in us so that His self-sacrifice of love can reign in us.
The Holy Cross bearing the Master, our Captain, is lifted high so that we, floundering and struggling beneath ours, can look up each time and get a new burst of hope, and inspiration to not give up.
Led on their way by this triumphant sign, The hosts of God in conq'ring ranks combine.
Actually, Kitchin’s original phrasing was:
As Moses lifted up the brazen sign, Come, Christian people, sing your praises, shout!
Led on their way by this triumphant sign, O Lord, once lifted on the tree of pain.
‘Are we there yet?’ could’ve been what the Israelites said to Moses, like kids say to their parents when they’ve had enough of travelling. ‘Do I have to eat this again? I hate it!’ might have been another.
Maybe that original phrasing should have been kept in the hymn.
It’s probably understandable that since the Edomites refused to allow them entry, the Israelites felt exhausted at the thought of trekking the long way around again to get to the Promised Land. But bearing in mind that God had been taking care of them all throughout, is it any wonder that when they threw His blessings back in His face, He set venomous snakes upon them? Kitchin’s line is a profound example of how, despite the ingratitude of His people, the moment they became remorseful and humbly begged Moses’ intercession to ask God’s pardon, He used the same painful instrument of punishment and fear to turn their occasion of sin into an offer of redemption, freely given to all who would only place their complete trust in Him.
Looking at a snake-bearing cross to get healed sounds like an insane thing a gullible person would do. If someone offered that to you today, you’d slam the door and warn your friends and neighbours about the psycho scammer.
But spiritual healing calls for deep and sincere faith, an unwavering trust that even in the worst, most extreme situations, God will rescue us, possibly in ways we don’t expect and maybe can’t understand. Accepting that, and obeying still, is exactly what Jesus did when He accepted the Cross: He opened not His mouth, He was led like a sheep to slaughter, and in His own extreme condition He, too, cried out to the Father asking why He was abandoned.
The Holy Cross. The sign of acceptance, humility, obedience.
That ‘brazen sign’ generations later translated into the ‘triumphant sign’ we look at today with gratitude and trust, awe and love. The Holy Cross is what we sign ourselves with, what we wear on our bodies, and what we should be offering to those who have yet to know our Captain and Master. Paul recounts this to the Philippians in the oldest kenosis (emptying) hymn that encapsulates the Creed we profess and the mission of Christ’s followers to lead all creation to ‘bend the knee’ and adore His sacred name.
A side note: look up the story of how Our Blessed Mother taught St Bernadette to properly pray the Sign of the Cross – that very act, done with deep reverence and recollection of what the Cross is, entrusts us to the Trinity Whom we invoke, opens us up to graces Christ gained for us there, and signals our commitment to embrace our daily cross and be a new Simon of Cyrene to our Lord.
Saved by this cross whereon their Lord was slain, The heirs of Adam their lost home regain.
Despite the fact that God actually walked with them and saved them time and again, the Israelites had great difficulty trusting and obeying Him. Think of how long they were wandering all over the place, and how many times they lost their homeland. In the time of the Apostles, those who started following Jesus had the same issue of trusting in God’s providence, given their hard life under Roman rule.
But God never stopped looking after His chosen people and making a home for them, like Jesus never left His disciples even after His Ascension. More than His physical presence, with His death on the Cross He guaranteed them eternal salvation.
The heirs of Adam regained their lost home, indeed.
When we’re tempted to give up, or give in, to fear in tough circumstances, St James encourages us, “Blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation for he has been proved he will receive the crown of life that He promised to those who love Him.”
This hymn we’re playing (I hope you are!) has so far spoken of Jesus as Captain, King, Son of God, leader of an army, Lord. We might forget sometimes the tremendous sacrifice He made in leaving Heaven itself and His place as Son of the Most High King to come and save the very creatures He’d made.
And then we slew Him.
The Holy Cross is a stark reminder of that. We should contemplate it today with the utmost reverence and gratitude because the alternative would have been an entire world enslaved by evil.
As the Israelites were saved by the bronze standard when they listened to Him and placed their trust in Him, we have to turn to Jesus in prayer when our crosses become too much, trusting Him the same way. But not asking Him to take our crosses away. No. Like He prayed to the Father, ‘Not My will but Yours be done,’ we pray for the strength and grace to accept and persevere. As St Teresa of Calcutta said, “Prayer is not asking; prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depths of your heart.”
The King who descended, then rose again, was crowned anew and now sits at the Father’s right hand. Heirs of Adam, we’re now coheirs with Christ. And that’s something the Cross gifts us, if only we dare to say yes to carrying it.
From north and south, from east and west they raise, In growing unison their song of praise.
St Helena, mother of Roman emperor Constantine, in 326 travelled to Jerusalem intent on having churches built on important sites where Jesus had been, because she had a deep devotion to Him. Her greatest goal was to find the True Cross and have a church built at Mount Calvary and His tomb. At the former site, she found three crosses, buried and forgotten. The local bishop investigated and confirmed that the crosses had held Jesus and the two thieves who’d died alongside Him. Legend has it that since she didn’t know which was Christ’s, she got a sick woman to touch them. When the woman touched one of the three, she was healed – and St Helena held the Holy Cross in gratitude.
Behind today’s feast is a celebration of three great events in our faith history:
1. the discovery of the Holy Cross in 326
2. the first public veneration of the Holy Cross in 335: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was dedicated on 13 Sep that year and the Cross was brought out the next day for veneration
3. the recovery of the Cross from the Persians: they’d taken it as a trophy during the Persian invasion in 614 but Emperor Heraclius managed to restore it in 629 to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
That was the start of our continuous veneration, adoration, of the Cross of Christ, and evidence that ‘from north and south, from east and west’ the grace and power of the Holy Cross has been drawing people to learn about the Son of Man raised high on it, and leading them to desire a deep, personal relationship with the God of all creation who loves them so much and wants to give them eternal life. The Apostles started the spread, and even conquering Rome was eventually conquered by Christ and acclaimed Him Lord. Gazing at the Cross today is seeing the Church spread out through all time and space, rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.
We stand in that army!
Soldiers in arms, brothers and sisters fighting under our crosses with the Great Cross up front and above, today we pause to bless, worship, and adore the Cross and its precious Burden that encourages us, fights with us, and asks us for help in drawing others too, to eternal life.
If you’re bowed beneath your cross, abandoned and alone, look up to the crucifix and see the same struggle, abandonment, loneliness, and know that the Christ there on the Cross, right now has your cross on His own shoulders. His Cross for Him became a crown, and if you only place your complete trust in Him and keep your eyes fixed on Him no matter how hard the path is, one day, He will place that crown on your head, too.
May the Holy Cross of Christ always remind you of the ocean of love God has for you, and may His encouragement to walk His Son’s path bloom in you each time you lift your eyes to Him.
Blessed Feast Day to one and all!
Article by Joyce Norma, HFC Blog Contributor