Third Sunday of Great Lent - Sunday of the Holy Cross
On this Sunday in Orthodox churches around the world, the congregation
will follow a small cross in procession around the church. The cross is
garlanded with flowers and greenery and, at the end of Divine Liturgy,
the congregation will kiss the cross and take home a piece of the
greenery for their own icon corner. Why? Because this small cross is
a symbol of a larger cross: a cross big enough to hold a man, with
ropes and nails, arms stretched out, left to slowly suffocate on his
own blood. This is not a comfortable image. This is how humanity
treated the Author of Life, and is a central truth of the Christian
faith. But the greater truth is this: Christ was not held to the cross
by nails and ropes, but by love. So all-consuming is God's love for us
that he willingly endured rejection, scorn, denial, and finally one of
the most horrific deaths ever conceived by the mind of humankind, all
to prove that love. By this act of sacrifice the cross, a device of
unimaginable torture, has become the Holy Cross: a symbol of
unconquerable love.
When we read the account of the Crucifixion in the Gospel of St
Luke, we learn that there were two thieves also crucified with Jesus,
one on the right and another on the left (it is possible that there
were more - crucifixion was not an uncommon form of execution at that
time). One of those men cursed and mocked Jesus, but the other rebuked
the first and asked Jesus to remember him in His kingdom. Of the
second, we are told, Jesus promised that he would be with Him in
Paradise. Of the first thief... nothing is said. For this reason, it
is common to see the Holy Cross depicted in Orthodox iconography with
the footrest slanting upwards. Thus the Holy Cross is not only a
symbol of the love of God, but also a stern warning to each one of us.
You who are reading this: you may live for another fifty years, or you
may not see this summer. Perhaps this will be the last thing you read
before you meet your Maker. None of us knows the hour of our death:
only that it is inevitable. Will you go to Judgment with your soul
corroded by hate and bitterness? Or will you strive to live with a
heart full of love so that, like the penitent thief, when you confess
your sins to the God of Love, you may be remembered in Paradise?
Fr. George