The Exaltation of the Holy Cross – Readings

(Note:When this feast is celebrated on a weekday, there is a choice of readings before the Gospel. If the feast falls on a Sunday, both readings are read.)

Commentary on Numbers 21:4-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17

The Gospel reading is from John. He compares Jesus’ being lifted up on the Cross to the incident in the Book of Numbers (one of today’s Readings), where a plague of serpents is sent against the Israelites because of their constant complaining against God. When they beg Moses for help, God tells him to put an image of a serpent on a pole. All those who look at the bronze serpent would be healed.

In a much more radical way, Jesus is also lifted up so:

…that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

And this life comes because Jesus’ giving of his life on the Cross is a sign of his Father’s love for each and every one of us. For, as Jesus will tell his disciples at the Last Supper:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

And in today’s reading he also says:

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The word “Exaltation” in the name of today’s feast means a ‘lifting up’, and in the Gospel of John, Jesus says that he, being “lifted up” will draw all peoples to himself. This ‘lifting up’ refers not only to Jesus’ being physically raised on the Cross. In John’s presentation of the Paschal Mystery, Jesus dies on the Cross, passes to new life (Resurrection), returns to the Father (Ascension), and breathes forth the Spirit (Pentecost). Jesus is totally ‘exalted’ on the Cross.

The Second Reading is from the Letter of Paul to the Philippians and contains the famous kenosis hymn about Jesus. Kenosis means an ‘emptying’. Jesus was the Incarnate Son of God and shared the divinity with his Father and the Spirit on an equal level. Yet, in order to bring us salvation and life without end, Jesus:

…emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.

He did this in service to us. He adopted our human condition totally and he even went lower than this by submitting to one of the most terrible forms of death, death by crucifixion. And all of this was to help us understand the extent of his Father’s love for each one of us.

Because of this self-giving and self-emptying:

Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name
that is above every other name,
so that at the name given to Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Hence, the Cross is a much esteemed symbol for Christians everywhere and a way by which they express their faith. We place a cross in our churches and homes, in the classrooms of our schools and in other Christian institutions. Many wear a cross as part of their dress.

We remember Jesus’ words to his followers:

…whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matt 10:38-39)

As we often sing after the Consecration during the Eucharist:

Dying, you destroyed our death; rising you restored our life.

Read more

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

The Cross is one of the most central objects of the Christian faith. It is the symbol of God’s love for us expressed by the self-sacrificing death of Jesus, his Incarnate Son.

The public veneration of the Cross originated in the fourth century. According to legend it began with the miraculous discovery of the True Cross by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, on 14 September, 326, while she was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was then built at the site of the discovery by order of Helena and Constantine. The church was dedicated nine years later, with a portion of the cross placed inside it in 335. This was a two-day festival. Although the actual consecration of the church was on September 13, the cross itself was brought outside the church on September 14 so that the clergy and faithful could come forward to venerate it.

In the year 627, during the reign of the Emperor Heraclius I of Constantinople, the Persians conquered the city of Jerusalem and removed a major part of the Cross from its sanctuary. The emperor determined to recover the relic which he regarded as the new Ark of the Covenant for the new People of God. Before leaving Constantinople with his army, Heraclius went to the church wearing black in a spirit of penance; he prostrated himself before the altar and begged God to sustain his courage. In the ensuing war, the emperor was victorious. One of the conditions of a peace treaty was the return of the Cross in the same condition as when it was removed. On his return to Constantinople Heraclius was received by the acclamations of the people. They came out to meet him with olive branches and torches. The Cross was honoured with a grand triumph.

The emperor then wished to give thanks to God by going in person to return the Cross to Jerusalem, after an absence of 14 years. In Jerusalem, he wished to carry the Cross on his shoulders, but on reaching the gate leading to Calvary, he could not go forward. He was astonished and his retinue could not understand. The Patriarch Zachary then said to him:

Take care, O Emperor! In truth, the imperial clothing you are wearing does not sufficiently resemble the poor and humiliated condition of Jesus carrying His cross.

Heraclius then removed his shoes and bejewelled robes. Wearing a poor man’s tunic, he was able to proceed to Calvary and replace the Cross. It is said the occasion was marked by a number of miracles: a dead man returning to life, four paralytics cured, ten lepers healed, 15 blind men given their sight, several possessed people exorcised and many sick people totally healed.

Read more