(Homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross)
Today we have the grace to
celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, also known as the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross. It is an
immovable feast, little wonder we are celebrating on a Sunday. This Feast commemorates not only the finding of the True Cross, but also the
spiritual and redemptive significance of Christ's crucifixion. A symbol of
suffering and salvation, the cross becomes the heartbeat of faith. Today we
must vehemently affirm that exalting the cross of Christ means exalting the
boundless love of Jesus, the infinite love of God.
The Feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross celebrated
every year on the 14th of September recalls three
historical events and I would like to make a panoramic presentation about them,
so that you understand more what we are celebrating today. the first is the Discovery in the year ad 320 of the true cross of Jesus
Christ by Saint Helena Saint Helena was the mother of the emperor
Constantine; the second is the dedication of church built by
Constantine in the year 335, on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and
Mount Calvary; the third is the restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem
by the emperor Heraclius II. Above all else, the feast also celebrates the Holy Cross as the instrument of our
Salvation, his salvific Death on the Cross and his Resurrection through
which death Was Defeated and the doors of Heaven opened to all of us
sinners.
The first reading (Num. 21:4-9) gives
us a wonderful insight into human behavior and God's Divine intervention.
We cannot but remember that during their wanderings in the desert in
Sinai, the Israelites suffered from a series of self-inflicted punishments as a
result of their short-term memory losses. They failed to bring to heart,
to remember the good things God has done for them. The chosen people forgot the goodness of God, His Covenant and His
constant provisions for their many needs. One thing we have to learn from the whole episode is that God never provide for their greed, rather He
provided for their needs, when they were hungry God gave them Manna From
Heaven etc.
In the episode of today’s first reading
from the book of Numbers, we see the communal disobedience and rebellion
of the Israelites, the chosen people. And God intervened to their rebellion with
immediate punishment thus: “The Lord sent among the people serpents, which bit
the people so that many of them died.” Upon seeing the plight of the people
bitten by snake, Moses pleaded with God, and God showed them mercy. God healed
them with the symbol of the same creature He used in afflicting them, a bronze
serpent: “If anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked at a bronze serpent and
lived.” As we can see, God does not take away the punishment or the affliction
that He has sent, and again, he does not make the snakes disappear.
Instead, He provided them with a healing solution to their pain and affliction. Interestingly,
God did not take away the snakes, but he gave them a cure or solution for the
snake bite. This is because God has a bigger
and greater plan for them, while the Israelites focused on the snakes and their
bites, God was looking a bigger picture. He was planning for an eternal
solution. Indeed, in the Gospel passage we see God’s everlasting plan and
solution.
The Gospel (Jn. 3:13-21)
presents the continuation of the dialogue and encounter between Jesus and
Nicodemus. Prior to this moment, Nicodemus had come to Jesus at night to ask
what he must do to inherit the kingdom of God and our Lord told him that he
must be born again. In that encounter Nicodemus asked threefold questions (vv. 2.4.9) and each of the questions
gave rise to a pronouncement from Jesus. The first part of the discourse
explains the necessity for rebirth as an essential requirement for entrance
into the Kingdom of God. The second part from which the passage of today’s Gospel
is taken, explains that this rebirth can only be realized through the “lifting
up” of the Son of Man, that is, the death and glorification of Christ; and that
is the heart of today’s Gospel narrative.
Jesus in response to Nicodemus,
affirmed that no one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come
down from heaven the Son of man and just as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the desert, so must the son of man be lifted up. The symbol of
healing in the first reading prefigures Christ as presented by John in the
Gospel, “As Moses lifted the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be
lifted, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” It was as
result of His love that God sent the Israelites a bronze serpent as a symbol of
healing, but that love reached its apex, through the lifting and crucifixion of
the Son of man. However, Satan is that snake that never goes away but
the Good news is that the Son of man has been lifted, His lifting is an
evidence and manifestation of victory and triumph.
We may well affirm that God’s ultimate desire for everyone is salvation.
And for the realization of this desire, Jesus speaks of his total self-giving
and the mystery of the Cross. In fact, St. Paul puts it thus: “Christ Jesus,
who offered himself as a ransom for all” (1Tim.
2:5b-6a). Jesus indicated a symbol to Nicodemus, that bronze serpent that
was lifted by Moses for the healing of the Israelites bitten by the snakes (cf. Num. 21:4-9). Similarly, “the Son
of man will be lifted up” (Jn. 3:14),
Jesus will be lifted up and he will save who turns his gaze towards him. The serpent that Moses raised is nothing
but a prophetic prefiguration of the crucifixion of the Son of man. In the
context of the Israelites whoever that looked on the serpent was healed, but
now we are called to turn our gaze towards the Son of Man, therefore now
whoever that looks at the Crucified with the eyes of faith, will have eternal
life. The Israelites that looked at the
serpent regained only physical health, but whoever that fixes his gaze on the
Crucified-Risen Lord gains fullness of life (Jn. 10:10) and the blood and water that gushed forth from his
pierced side (Jn.19:34) is a true
fountain of eternal life.
In the passage, the evangelist affirms strongly that the cross is an act of divine love per
excellence: “for God so loved the world that he gave his Only Son” (3:16). Verse 16 reveals the initiative of the Father, who offers his Son, a
supreme expression of his love for the world. This is equally in connection
with the opening words of the epistle reading. Without mincing words, at the heart of the Johannine affirmation
about God’s love, is the revelation that God wants our salvation at all cost,
God “wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth” (1Tm. 2:4). Love is greater than sin. The phrase “God so loved the world” is the
central verse of the Gospel of John, and even believed to be the summary of the
Gospel and the entire Scripture. It is a verse with words replete with
stupor each time we hear it.
Our evangelist puts the verb “God so loved the world” in past
tense (aorist tense), to indicate that the love God has for us is not something
to be realized in the future or something that happened momentarily, rather the tense of the verb indicates the
certainty and realism of this love, for he continues to love us even when we
stray. Through the death and
crucifixion of his Son, God demonstrates that his love for us is not a long
distance and disinterested love affair. In the Gospel, the evangelist
John told us that it is by believing in the "exalted Jesus" that we
have eternal life. Whoever believes in Christ does not die but has eternal
life. This expression: "He does not
die", somehow contradicts our sense and existential experiences, for as
mortals, we will die one day. Here, the "not dying" that Jesus speaks
about is to be understood from the perspective of a faith that believes in
eternal life, that fullness of life that begins already here on earth.
The second
reading (Phil. 2:6-11) presents the
hymn of St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians, which in no small way illustrates the mystery of Christ’s self-emptying
in his death and supreme exaltation. This hymn is often called the Carmen
Christi, and the Carmen Christi situates the death of
Christ in its total context. St. Paul speaks of the kenosis (self-emptying) of Christ, “who,
being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be
grasped. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human
beings are; and being in every way like a human being” (Phil. 2:7). St. Paul points to his glorification thus: “And for
this God raised him high, and gave him the name which is above all other names”
(Phil. 2:9). In
this Christological presentation, the identity of Christ was revealed: Jesus is
the Son of God, who in order to save man, became man, through an itinerary of
suffering, humiliation and death. The Cross that is being exalted is the
instrument par excellence of his kenosis and glorification.
Beloved in
Christ, by means of today’s Feast the Church reminds us that exalting the Cross
of Christ means exalting the boundless love of Jesus, the infinite love of God. Today as we celebrate the Feast of the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross we want to renew our allegiance and belongingness
to the One, who made the Cross worth exalting, for in the words of St. John:
“They will look to the one whom they have pierced” (Jn. 19:37; cf. Zech.12:10). To us as we meditate and ponder on and
on, on the event of Jesus on the Cross, is as if He whispers to the ears of
our heart: “I did not love you, just for
joke”. Hence our meditation on the Exaltation of the Cross of Christ has to
inspire us to contrition and pains for our sins, but also to hope, to love and
to a sense of gratitude. In the words of St. Paul, “the message of the Cross is
foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the
power of God” (1 Corinthians 1: 18). In the words of St. Rose of Lima, “Apart
from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.” Let us pray and ask Jesus
to draw us to Himself, for His word says: “when I am lifted up I will draw all
men to myself” (Jn. 12:32). May the
two horizontal extensions of the Cross and the arms of Jesus outstretched in
them continue to be for us a shield for protection and divine coverage. Amen!!!
Happy Feast to you all!
(Fr.
Vitus Chigozie, SdC)
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