[Sermon delivered at St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona, The Sunday within the Octave of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Most Holy and Life-Giving Cross,
Being the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 15, 2024]
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided. Amen.
St James tells us today, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”[1] Yet here I stand in front of you, presuming to do that very thing and placing myself in danger of a stricter judgement. I know I am far from perfect and that I do not measure up to the wisdom and goodness of the Storehouse of Faith, but as the Prophet Jeremiah wrote,
“If I say, ‘I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.”[2]
Today, what burns within me is the same message of which St. Paul writes, “I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”[3]
Yesterday was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, commemorating the Finding of the True Cross by the Empress Helena and Bishop Macarios of Jerusalem in the year 327, the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on September 13-14, 335, and the recovery of the relic in the year 629 after the Persians had seized it in the year 614. In the West its observance was that of a medium-level festival, and after the Reformation its observance waned among Anglicans until the middle part of the last Century. In the East, however, it is considered one of the Twelve Great Feasts, equal in honour to the Nativity the Theotokos, the Dedication of the Theotokos, the Nativity of Our Lord, the Epiphany, the Presentation, the Annunciation, Palm Sunday, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Transfiguration, and the Dormition. I would argue that we should similarly honour the instrument of our Salvation here in the West, for too frequently, especially now, we shy away from it, because it seems so controversial. In the words of St. Paul, people are very uncomfortable with “Christ crucified,” considering this to be either a “stumbling block” or even “foolishness”.[4]
I would at this time direct your attention to the crucifix above the Altar here at St. Mary’s.[5] Look at it well. Study it. This depiction is a sanitized version of the Crucifixion of Our Lord: the wood is smooth and not rough-hewn or unhewn, Our Lord seems relatively intact despite being hung on one of the worst torturous killing machines ever devised by humankind and not as He would have been, torn, beaten, partially flayed by the scourge, and bleeding internally and externally from dozens of wounds. Still, you can see in His face and aspect here an image of the Suffering endured for our sake. Many of us shy away from that, either aghast that people would be so cruel, that God would subject His Son to something so horrible, or that senseless violence would have any meaning. It is so much of a senseless stumbling block to many that they either break away and follow sanitized and pale, anaemic versions of the Faith, or not hold to the Faith whatsoever.
As Christians, we have done ourselves a grave disservice by not teaching a solid doctrine of the Cross or of the Atonement in general. Those who shy away from the cruelty of the Crucifixion forget or choose to ignore or do not know that at our core, indeed at the core of Creation itself is a creeping corruption resulting from a rift between us and Our Creator. Sundered as we are from God the life given us at our creation wanes and does not restore, sustained only by taking from the surrounding environment, and eventually becoming no longer sustainable, and descending into the chaotic and negative, a state which we call Evil. Those who shy away from the thought of God subjecting Jesus to the horrors of the Passion and Crucifixion either forget or choose to ignore or do not know that God did not subject anything on anyone except Himself, because Jesus was not just another more enlightened human and therefore subjected to the whim of an angry God, but He IS God Himself, the incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy and Glorious Trinity. Those who shy away from the seemingly senseless violence forget or choose to ignore or do not know that in order to break the barrier of Corruption and Death and restore Humanity to Life Eternal that Life had to encounter and confront Death on its own ground and eliminate its non-existence with the eternal, all-encompassing existence of the Divine united with a redeemed Humanity.
We read in our Gospel for today that, “…[Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”[6] This is not the attitude or teaching of a mere mortal trying to promote a more enlightened moral code. Our Lord knew that the defeat of the Enemy of all Humanity would not be accomplished by everyone trying to abandon their selfish ways and being as good as possible. The system itself was broken, and Humanity’s efforts alone were, no, are destined fail. “But I’m a good person!” That assertion rings hollow, because no matter how good we are or how righteously we order our lives, as St. James told us, “…All of us make many mistakes.”[7] “All we have to do is try our best!” This also misleads us, for we “all have fallen short of the Glory of God,”[8] enduring within our very Nature a separation from God, a tendency toward nothingness and chaos and disintegration and decay, our every choice and decision, even for good, tainted by the Shadow, and ending ultimate in the Void of Nothingness.[9]
Look at the Cross. Did an angry God put Jesus there? No. Your sins, my sins, our sins put Him there, but by His choice and not by compulsion. God took on our Flesh and Nature and willingly poured Himself out in one of the most horrible ways to die to take upon Himself fully the complete weight of the consequences of our separation and to rebuild for us a new Nature sustained by Him and not subject to the evil infecting us. In Jesus, God united the Uncreated Divine with Created Human so that when Death reached out to grab the Human and drag the Human into the vortex of the Void, the Void was filled with Eternal Being, the Darkness was filled with the Uncreated Light, the emptiness of Hatred was obliterated by the fulness of Everlasting Love, and when Humanity was encompassed by Death, Death could not hold it, because in the Fulness of the Presence of God there was nothing there to keep hold of Humanity restored.
Look at the Cross. Really look at it. On it God redeemed us from the hold of Death. With the pouring out of the richness of Eternal Life and Love and Wholeness, we were ransomed from the poverty of Total Death and Emptiness and Corruption.
Christ is risen from the Dead,
Trampling down Death by death,
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing Life.[10]
Look at the Cross. It is cruelty turned to kindness. It is torture and suffering turned to healing. It is hatred turned to love. It is the payment of selfishness turned to the ransom of selflessness. It is the ultimate expression of Evil turned to the ultimate proclamation of Good. The Cross calls us to partake in the new Nature that Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ won for us. In Baptism we take up the Cross, die to our old Nature, which is already dying in Sin and Corruption, and take up our new Nature recapitulated in Him.[11] That is the true Atonement, God in the Person of Jesus Christ Our Lord taking on our fate of corruption and death and with the price of the Sacrifice of His life wiping it out. Our Lord said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”[12] The Cross calls us to lay down our old ways and to take up His ways, to lay down our selfishness, pride, pettiness, hatreds, and to pour ourselves out instead in selfless love as He has done, to embrace the new Nature that he won for us, feeding it constantly with His Life in the Word and Sacraments. God indeed loved us so much that He gave us the Son, that all who trust Him will not see eternal nothingness but instead be united with Him, our Eternal Life.[13] As He did for us, let us do so for others, showing by our example His sacrifice on behalf of us all, turning it from a stumbling block into a stepping stone, showing it to be wisdom and not foolishness, and knowing that the true enemies are Sin and Death.
Look at the Cross and truly understand what it means. Look at the Cross and truly understand its victory:
“O Lord, save Thy people and bless Thine heritage,
Grant Thou victory to [all] Christians over their enemies,
And by the power of Thy Cross,
do Thou preserve Thy commonwealth.”[14]
✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Holy Dominic, and all the saints, and the power of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross, Saviour save us. Amen.
High Altar of St. Mary the Virgin, Phoenix, Arizona during Eastertide showing the Crucifix mentioned in this sermon.
[1] Jas. 3.1
[2] Jer. 20.9
[3] 1 Cor. 2.1b-2
[4] Cf. 1 Cor. 1.22-24: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
[5] St. Mary’s has a large crucifix crafted in Oberammergau mounted on the East wall of the Sanctuary above the Altar.
[6] Mk. 8.31
[7] Jas. 3.2
[8] Rom. 3.23b
[9] Cf. Rom. 7.14-25
[10] Troparion of Holy Pascha, Byzantine Rite
[11] Cf. 1 Pet. 3.18-27
[12] Mk. 8.34b
[13] Cf. Jn. 3.16
[14] Troparion of the Elevation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, Byzantine Rite, adapted. The original reads “Grant Thou victory to Orthodox Christians over their enemies.”
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