Our week began with Christ saying, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”How fitting that we end our week with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross!
This feast commemorates the event in which St. Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, discovered the Cross around 1,700 years ago, buried under a pagan temple that had been built on the site of Christ’s crucifixion. The temple was torn down and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built in its place. As Christians we hold the Cross in high regard; even though our Protestant brothers and sisters have, for the most part, rejected the use of statuary, crucifixes, and other forms of sacred art in the practice of their faith, the Cross yet remains. One cannot separate the Cross from Christianity.
And thus we come again to Christ’s word: if we do not embrace the Cross, we cannot be His disciple. He does not say that we will be a deficient disciple, that the Cross is only for those who wish to take discipleship to an extra level. Rather we cannot be His disciple at allif we do not embrace the Cross. Why is this? First, because Jesus is “…the Way…” (John 14:6), and thus we must follow Him; did He not say as much on Sunday? “…come after me…” He says. Being a disciple of Jesus means following Him, imitating His life, for if we do not do so how can we claim to be living the life that He gave to us from the Cross? If we do not imitate Him, that life is dead in us. How can we hope to reach Heaven unless we follow the one who came from Heaven? Only He knows the way, for, “no one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.”
Second, we must embrace the Cross because when we reject the Cross, we reject the One upon it. “…so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” To spurn the Cross is to spurn Christ; to reject Christ is to reject the love of God, and Heaven is unobtainable for the one who rejects the love of God. The Cross is the key to Heaven; it is our shield against every foe, the instrument of our healing from sin’s every wound, and the sign by which God pledges His undying love for us. If we do not take up that Cross, if we do not embrace it, if we do not cling to it as if it were the only piece of driftwood keeping us afloat on a raging sea, then we have no hope for salvation.
“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”