Third Sunday of Lent; Veneration of the Precious Cross

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

We're at the midpoint of our pilgrimage which leads to Holy Week, and of course, with Holy Week comes the celebration of all the events of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. So, here we are remembering the cross on which Christ was crucified.

I think it's amazing when you look at the iconography of the cross. We have a beautiful icon in the back and another in the Holy Altar. While in the flesh, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ's body would have gone limp as He hung on the cross, yet when we see the iconography, His hands are held open as though He is holding up the world. And it's true that He is holding up the world—in love, in grace, and in power.

When I look upon the cross, I see the vertical beam as it rises up from this fallen earth and points the way to heaven and eternal life. The horizontal beam of the cross stands between heaven and earth, binding mortal man to the struggle between sin and death. Our Savior is depicted at this remarkable juncture between heaven and earth.

The intersection of the cross represents the heart of man and the paradox of conflicting desires. On the one hand, it represents our desire for everlasting life in the ever-expanding love of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. On the other hand, it represents our attachment to the fallen world of sin and death through pride and the love of earthly pleasure and honor.

When we gaze upon the Son of God hanging upon the cross with the sure and certain knowledge of the resurrection, we behold the intersection of humanity and divinity, of mortality and immortality. In this moment of realization, we are called to re-establish the very priorities of our life. Yes, we are called to submit ourselves in love and obedience to the service of Jesus Christ our Lord and His Holy Church. Toward this end, we must resolve to struggle against our fallen nature in its vain quest for earthly pleasure, honor, and glory.

Brothers and sisters in Christ our God, we must wake up. The time is short. Let us wake up and realize that all the worldly things we do in this life will be quietly defeated by the ravages of aging, sickness, and death. On the other hand, everything that we do in this world to serve our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ and our families in the context of His Holy Church will sustain us through the ravages of aging, sickness, and death and will translate our mortal bodies and souls from earth to heaven, from mortality to immortality, in the eternal and heavenly kingdom of our merciful God.

The cross is the eye of the needle through which we must pass in order to enter into eternal life and salvation. We have our divine and holy example: In obedience to the Father, Jesus Christ mounted the cross, crucified the mortal flesh, and broke the bonds of sin and death for all who believe and follow His example in the perfect humility of faith, hope, and love. Let us remember that the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Christ was followed by the outpouring of the life-giving and eternal Holy Spirit, which embraces all that believe in Him unto sanctification, eternal life, and salvation.

Again, let us hear the precious words of our Savior: "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. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."

"Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power." These, of course, are the words of our Lord and Savior as recorded in the Gospel of St. Mark, which was read today.

In Corinthians, St. Paul speaks beautifully: "For 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. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.' Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

In Ephesians, St. Paul says: "For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity."

"Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."

Obviously, the cross is the standard of our holy faith. I think that we all should, and can, and will need to ask ourselves: how can I live the life of the cross? While all that the gospel and the epistles say about the cross is profoundly exalted and raises up our hearts and minds, we're still left with: so what must we do?

During COVID, we were reading the General Confession. It's a very interesting list of pretty much all the common sins that we might commit, and it's also, I think, a pattern for how we live according to the cross. For example, the first is idle talking. If we were to live according to the cross, we would renounce idle talking. In renouncing idle talking, we would be picking up the cross of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. We would renounce judging others and criticizing them, and in so doing, we would be faithful to the cross. We would renounce our pride and seek humility, and in so doing, we would follow the path of the cross. We would renounce our hard-heartedness, and in so doing, we would be following the path of the cross. We would renounce envy, anger, slander, inattention, and negligence concerning our salvation. In renouncing these things, we would be picking up our cross and turning our hearts and minds to the salvation and love that our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ shines down upon us. We would give up carelessness, indifference, impertinence, irritability, despondency, bitterness, disobedience, and complaining. In so doing, we would be picking up our cross.

The cross, on the one hand, is profound and exalted. And so it is that we embrace this profound and exalted divine reality in our hearts and minds. But the question is, how do we put it to work? We put it to work by denying all of our passions, all of our worldly judgments, and all of our worldly attachments, and giving ourselves to our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ in humility and prayer, taking up our cross.

On this day, let us decide to pick up our cross in simplicity and humility and prepare for the coming of the death and resurrection of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.