Scripture Readings: Book of Numbers 21:4-9; Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 2:6-11; Gospel According to Saint John 3:13-17
This is the Feast of the Triumph or Exaltation of the Holy Cross. On this day we recount in a special way the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ over sin and death by dying on the Cross. In some ways this feast echoes our annual liturgical celebration of Good Friday, during Passiontide, the days leading up to the “festival of festivals,” Easter Sunday.
Catholics around the world typically display the crucifix, that is, the body of Jesus nailed to the wooden Cross, in their chapels and churches, and often as well in various rooms of homes, classrooms, offices, studies, hospitals, etc.
Displaying crucifixes is part of our venerable Christian tradition. We don’t normally display, at least in churches, the cross alone, without the body of Jesus. Nor do we display a cross with the Risen Christ in front of it. The latter is especially an innovation from the past fifty years or so, but in fact the long-standing and still valid tradition of our Catholic Church is to display the body of Jesus, called the “Corpus,” on the wooden Cross.
This feast is always celebrated on September 14th, on whatever day of the week it falls, including Sunday. Three events are recalled on this day:
First, the finding in 326 AD of the true cross on the Hill of Calvary in the Holy Land, by Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine.
Second, the 335 AD dedication of the original Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre (burial place) in Jerusalem on the site of the crucifixion of Jesus.
Finally, the recovery of the True Cross in 629 AD by the emperor Heraclius, after the cross had fallen into the hands the Persian emperor in 614 during his conquest of Jerusalem.
Turning to the Scripture readings for Mass today, the first reading from the Book of Numbers recounts the children of the Hebrews, in the course of their Exodus from Egypt with Moses, about the year 1250 BC, grumbling against God and Moses, disgusted with the paltry food they are forced to eat along the journey.
Grumbling or complaining is a major theme in the biblical recounting of the Exodus, providing the setting for important Old Testament themes such as waiting upon the Lord, trusting that God will do good, and the importance of the people’s acquisition of patience, faith, forgiveness, hope and self-discipline.
Moses goes to the root of the complaining and demands honesty by the people. Rather than grumbling, Moses tells them to look at what they are, what they have and what they are doing. In other words, looks at evil straight in the face, represented by being bitten by serpents, and in the midst of doing that, finding healing for their ills.
Moses mounts a bronze serpent on a pole, and when the people look at it, they recover. Is this simply superstition and idol-worship? In fact, when the people admit honestly of their bitter complaints and beg God to heal them, then they are well along the way to complete recovery. Their words to Moses are telling: “We have sinned in complaining against the Lord. Pray the Lord to take the serpent from us.”
The retelling of the episode of the bronze serpent on today’s feast clearly calls to mind Jesus dying on the cross. Jesus took on our sins of humankind of all times when he was nailed to the cross. Saint Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians (5:21) expresses the reality very succinctly: “For our sakes God made Jesus, who did not know sin, to be sin, so that in him we might become the very holiness of God.”
Looking on the cross we should see ourselves as being “in Christ,” a frequent phrase used by Saint Paul. This means being redeemed from our fallen state and able to experience our glorified state through the rising from the dead of Jesus at Easter. Whatever our sins, our complaining, our impatience, our inability to forgive, they are all taken up by Christ’s sacrificial offering on the Cross.
The Gospel text today proclaims: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that all who believe may have eternal life in him.”
This is what we profess and hold dear as followers of Jesus. We contend, in the words of the Letter to the Hebrews (4:15), that Jesus was and is “able to sympathize with our weakness,” having been “tempted in every way that we are.” As such, he is truly our Redeemer.
When we ponder the mystery of the Holy Cross, we acknowledge where salvation is to be found. We recognize too the possibility of reaching intimate and eternal union with the Holy Trinity. We are able also to recognize ourselves as we truly are, and as people being drawn to look at the Crucified Lord, who is our only hope.
Our God is always providing the way of salvation. When we confess our weakness and doubts, we find our true selves in the compassionate heart of God. Let us bend and bow down in worship before our God, our Crucified Savior, and therein find our peace and happiness.
Abbot Christian Leisy, OSB