Homily

Today’s feast remembers September 14, 335 when a great crowd of the faithful gathered in Jerusalem for the dedication of the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, which had been renovated by Constantine. The celebration also commemorated the discovery of the wood of Jesus’ Cross. Since then in Jerusalem, this event has been celebrated every year and the celebrant priest lifts up the cross and points it in the four cardinal directions to indicate the universality of salvation. This spiritually significant celebration did not stop at Jerusalem; it soon spread to the different Churches-- first of the East, beginning with Constantinople, and then of the West, beginning with Rome. Truly it was and it is necessary to “lift high” the cross because Jesus was lifted on it in order to save humankind.
The first reading of the liturgy reminds us of Israel’s way through the wilderness, when many died bitten by poisonous serpents. This event is not foreign to the condition of many peoples today. Many ‘poisonous snakes’ wander in our world and often they are human beings who bite with poison, at times deadly poison, other human beings. Moses lifted up a bronze serpent: whoever looked upon it would not die. Moses did all this figuratively; his act prefigured the cross. John the evangelist writes of it explicitly, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (Jn 3:14), and further ahead, as if to buttress the biblical scene, he adds, “They will look on the one whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37). There is need today of exalting the cross, placing it high up so that all may see it.
But how can we exalt an instrument of torture to the extent of devoting to it a day of celebration? It is as if we celebrated the electric chair or put its images anywhere or carried it around our necks. People would certainly look at us as eccentric if not worse. Unfortunately we are so used to the image of the cross that we have lost all sense of the cruelty it represents. We no longer think about how it was one of the harshest instruments of torture of its time. But if we lose the sense of cruelty that it signifies, we also no longer understand the extent of the Crucified’s love. Today the Church, with the feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross, wants to exalt the unspeakable love of Jesus for each one of us. This is why it is good to thank God for the Cross. The preface of the Mass has us sing, “In the tree of the Cross, you, oh God, have established the salvation of humanity, so that where death sprung up there life would rise.” For this reason it is right to exalt the Cross; on that wood, once for all, love for oneself has been defeated, and love for others has triumphed definitively. The Cross is like the synthesis, or better, the culmination of Jesus’ love for us. As the apostle Paul writes in the hymn in his letter to the Philippians, Jesus started his path towards the cross when he “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” Because of love, “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave;” because of love “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” And the Father himself was so moved by the Son’s completely selfless love that He “exalted him and gave the name that is above every name.”
On the cross, life and death confront each other in one last battle; a battle which is fought in Jesus’ very body. Jesus dies, that’s true, but with him self-love is definitely defeated. In front of that cross, everyone was shouting at Jesus, “Save yourself.” But how could he who never lived just for himself save himself? His Gospel was exactly the opposite: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Mt 20:28); which we could translate, I did not come to save myself but others. He could have avoided death: he could have listened to Peter and the others who were pushing for him not to go to Jerusalem; or he could have made a small deal with Pilate who offered it to him. But he would have renounced his Gospel that, in opposition to the world and always recites, “Save yourself.” Dying as he did, Jesus saved love. We can say that finally there is someone among us who loves others more than himself; there is one who is ready to give his entire life to the point of losing it. And the apostle Paul makes us reflect even deeper by writing: “Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:7-8).