A Homily for the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Glory to Jesus Christ.
Last week, we looked at the topic of love. Christ gave us the greatest commandment: to love God, and the second which is like the first, to love our neighbor.
Now, in this Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross, we are given the greatest sign of love a human can witness. Our Lord said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). We are used to hearing of the Cross as an act of love, but I think we fail to understand it in light of this passage.
The greatest act of love is to lay down your life for a loved one. But that is the greatest act of human love — the best that we can do as fallen creatures.
Being the God-Man, our Lord Jesus Christ goes one step further. For He did not merely lay down His life for His friends but for His enemies as well. St. Paul tells that while we were enemies of God, Christ reconciled us to God through His death on the Cross (cf. Rom. 5:10).
- So a man of great love lays down his life for those whom he cares about.
- But God lays down His life for those who hate Him, mock Him, curse Him, and are completely alienated from Him.
This reveals that God’s love is so far beyond our comprehension that what we call love doesn’t even begin to compare God’s love. That is why St. Isaac the Syrian would say that we know nothing of God’s justice, only of God’s loving mercy (Ascetical Homilies, #51). If His love is so far beyond human comprehension, how could we even begin to bear his wrath or justice?
Suffering, some might say, is a sign of God’s wrath or justice in this world. But even that is flawed reasoning.
Suffering in this world is quite unjust. We all know that intuitively because we see it playing out in world events. Politicians – sitting in the lap of luxury – make decisions that kill people by the tens of thousands and cause untold starvation, mutilation, and suffering upon innocent bystanders. Quite frequently today and throughout human history, the rich oppress the poor; the needy suffer want and deprivation, having done little more than simply exist in the right place at the wrong time.
The unjust distribution of suffering seems to follow no law or principle. Why? Because sin ruled over man instead of God, and sin knows no law. The law of sin is injustice; its rule is inequality, and its principle is tyranny (Matthew the Poor, p. 125).
If a good man [or child] suffers more than an evil man, it is because the law of sin holds sway over them both; in the rule of sin there is no just distribution (Matthew the Poor, p. 126).
But then something happened here on earth that changed everything.
God saw our suffering, and He permitted it for a time without any great intervention. He wanted us to see for ourselves that we were incapable of pulling ourselves out of this miserable cycle of sin, suffering, and death.
But then God intervened, wrapping Himself in flesh, becoming just as much of a man as we are, and taking the suffering of the world upon Himself. In the Garden of Eden, mankind fell deeply into the endless cycle of suffering. But in the Garden of Gethsemane, the dreadful fall began to be reversed. The sinless, perfect God-Man sweat great drops of blood, feeling the weight of all human suffering begin to press upon His shoulders.
It was in a Garden that humanity would invite suffering into the world.
It was in a Garden that God would place our suffering upon Himself.
And it was in a Garden that suffering and death would be defeated in the Resurrection (She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Jn. 20:15)
St. Paul writes, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Now some of you may be thinking, “That’s all well and good, but I still suffer. So, what exactly has changed?”
To that I would reply, “Yes, there is still suffering, but everything has changed.”
Before, we suffered because of sin: our sins and the sins of others.
Now, if we are alive in Christ, then our sufferings are joined to His sufferings.
Now, suffering becomes a narrow and unique path to union with Christ.
I call it “narrow” because – though we all suffer – not many of us (myself included) have learned to suffer with thanksgiving in our hearts. Not many of us have learned to embrace suffering and exclaim, “I thank Thee, my Lord Jesus, for granting me an opportunity to join my suffering to Thy divine Suffering.”
Instead, we’re inclined to fight our suffering. We pray, “Thy will be done,” when in actuality, we are thinking and hoping “my will be done.”
But if we can begin to grasp this key of divine suffering that the saints understood, it will change how we understand the structure of the New Reality – the life in Christ.
“Christ abolished sin, and reconciled and brought us to life. In so doing, He broke the fearful link that bound suffering to sin. For suffering is no longer a participation in the sin of Adam, but a participation in the love of Christ… So we no longer suffer for sin, but for Christ” (Matthew the Poor, p. 128, 129).
Again, St. Paul,
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together” (Rm. 8:16-17).
What makes us joint heirs with Christ, bearers of the Holy Spirit, sharing in Christ’s glory in the heavenly Kingdom? Co-suffering with Christ.
There is a passage in the New Testament that is extraordinarily difficult to understand unless we first grasp this concept of co-suffering with Christ. St. Paul writes, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church” (Col. 1:24).
What in the world could be lacking in the afflictions of Christ?
You and me. Your will and my will.
Your willful suffering and my willful suffering.
We must agree to pick up our cross, to “rejoice” in our sufferings, as St. Paul said, to fill the only thing that is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. We heard in the Epistle this morning,
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal. 2:20).
That is the secret of the saints. They did not fight their suffering, they did not argue with God. They embraced it, and by doing so, defeated the sin that was alive in their members, and became completely alive in Christ.
I’ll end with two quotes. First, an invitation our Lord offered us in the Gospel this morning:
“Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:34-35).
And a second is two quotes that I combined from Fr. Seraphim Rose:
“For to be Christian is to be crucified, in this time and in any time since Christ…
No wonder, then, that it is hard to be a Christian — is not hard, it is impossible… Only struggle a little more. Carry your cross without complaining. Don’t think you are anything special. Don’t justify your sins and weaknesses, but see yourself as you really are. And, especially, love one another” (Life and Works, p. 159)
End notes and references:
- The Communion of Love, Matthew the Poor (SVS Press)
- The Ascetical Homilies, Isaac the Syrian (HTM Press)
- Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, Hieromonk Damascene (St. Herman Press – the first portion of this quote comes from this source and page number, but the often shared quote “Only struggle a little more” I could not find in the book)