Her big celebration World Exaltation of the Holy Cross is another important celebratory station of our Church. The faithful on this day are called to honor and worship the Holy Cross of the Lord in order to draw strength and grace from it. This great Despotic feast also provides an opportunity for all of us to reflect on certain basic principles and truths of our faith, which are intertwined with the theology of the Cross.
Our Orthodox Catholic Church, which alone preserves unadulterated biblical and paternal teaching, gives due honor to the Cross of Christ, as the supreme instrument and symbol of the redemption of the human race. In contrast to the various heterodoxys, which either do not care to honor the Cross (Protestantism), or directly fight it, as a pagan symbol (Jehovah's Witnesses). Our Church instituted several times of worship and veneration of the Cross throughout the year, culminating in its great feast World Ascension Day, on September 14.
The Cross of the Lord is for the Christian faith a supreme symbol of sacrifice and sanctification, because its importance is truly enormous. The Cross together with the Resurrection act as two main axes on which the life of faithful Christians moves. The Resurrection follows the Cross and presupposes the Cross, and the Cross foreshadows the Resurrection. Without the Cross there is no Resurrection. The theology of the Cross and its great importance for the life of the Church is based on these principles.
The great apostle of the Gentiles Paul, the theologian par excellence of the Cross, often emphasizes in his divinely inspired letters that the Cross of Christ is a boast for him and for the Church. "We were not born boasting, not in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 6,13:XNUMX), because "the reason is that of the cross, to those who are cleansed, it is a particle, but to those who are saved, it is the power of God" (1,17 Cor. XNUMX:XNUMX", because Jesus Christ "begotten in wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (I Cor. 1,30) as the "Crucified(1,23 Cor. XNUMX:XNUMX). The Lord of glory "in the hands of the lawless" he was nailed to the wood of the Cross, to suffer the painful torture of crucifixion and die as a shameless criminal. But this human mischief, because of the immeasurable divine love, worked beneficially for the god-killing human race, "and God commend self-love to us, that as sinners Christ died for us. Many are rather justified now in his blood we are saved by him from wrath. For if we were enemies to God by the death of his son, much more shall we be saved in his life» (Rom. 5,8-10). Christ's death on the cross is the greatest proof of God's love for man!
The Cross before Christ's great sacrifice on the cross was built as a murderous instrument for the execution of criminals. Anyone who died by crucifixion was labeled "cursed» (Gal. 3,1:XNUMX). But after the incarnate God died as a criminal on the cross, it became a source of redemption. From a means of killing it was transformed into a pure source of life, from a repulsive and awful instrument of executioners it became a bright symbol and a channel of blessings, from a wood of pain and odors it became a refuge of rest and joy.
This paradoxical and great change took place because the immeasurable divine love and mercy did not act vindictively towards human ingratitude and
racketeering. In the bottomless divine charity there is none "space" for hate, anger and revenge. God, as the absolute love (4,8 John XNUMX), instead of revenge, returned to man mercy and granted him redemption from the bitter bonds of sin and evil and granted him eternal life. Thanks to the immeasurable love of God, the horrible murderous instrument of men was transformed into a source of sanctification and redemption. According to the high theology of the heavenly Paul the Cross of Christ from being a dishonorable and horrible murderous instrument to kill evil people, changed, after the Lord's death on the cross, a symbol of salvation, a means of reconciliation with God and a source of sanctification. Human wickedness gave God pain and death through the wood of the Cross, divine injustice and extreme charity, on the contrary, gave His executioner love and redemption! So the power of the Cross lies in the pure love of God, which is now channeled to humanity and the whole creation through the Cross.
The Fathers of our Church, bearing in mind this great truth, formulated the famous theology of the Cross. This most sacred symbol is now intertwined with the Lord Jesus Christ. From Him he derives his invincible power, sanctification and grace. That is why it is not idolatry for the faithful to worship, because worshiping the Holy Cross means worshiping Christ himself, Who is the sign and reminder of His redeeming sacrifice.
The Cross of Christ is now the unifying force of humanity. If the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden (Gen.3ο chap.) became a consul of evil and an enemy of the human race, the wood of the Cross became a point of reunification of people in the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. The two transverse woods, which make up the symbol of the Cross, symbolize the union of people with God (vertical wood) and the union of people with each other (transverse wood). Of course, the union of people necessarily passes through their relationship with God. The cross also represents the two hands of our Crucified Redeemer, which are opened to embrace all mankind. Within this view, the new human society in Christ has a different texture from pre-Christian and non-Christian societies. The unifying power of the Cross of Christ fraternizes people, creating the society of love, brotherhood, justice and peace.
The symbol of the Holy Cross is still the awesome power against opposing forces. Until Christ's death on the cross, as an instrument of evil, it was used for destruction and death. After God consented to be nailed and die upon it, it became a weapon against those who used it. Our Church sings triumphantly: "Lord, weapon against the devil, we lift up Your cross, because he trembles and trembles, not bearing the power of this, which raises the dead and abolishes death». The symbol of the Holy Cross is the miraculous talisman of the faithful. There is no sanctifying act of our Church that the faithful are not crucified, there is no moment of prayer that we do not make the sign of the Cross, there is no difficult moment that we do not sanctify our body with the sign of the Cross in order to shield ourselves against the forces of evil. The Holy Cross replaced all the superstitious and ineffective "prisoners" of the past. The faithful now carry Him with pride as a valuable and effective bulwark against evil, but also as a confession of their faith in the great redemptive sacrifice of Christ.
We must point out here the obvious aversion, even enmity towards the Cross of Christ, of many heretical Christian groups. As a whole, then, the Protestant world does not pay any respect to the Cross. It is known that Protestants do not make the sign of the Cross and use it only as a decorative element! Jehovah's Witnesses, even worse than them, fiercely fight the sign of the Cross. They don't even pronounce the name Stavros and instead replaced it with ...stake, even though in the beginning, they honored the Cross and had it as a permanent logo in their magazines!
The state of rapture and joy created in our souls by the presence and sight of the Holy Cross makes us endure with determination and patience the problems of life, that is, to endure our personal cross (Matthew 16,24:XNUMX), hoping all the way to coming resurrection, figuratively and literally. This steadfast faith gives us strength and makes us face life with optimism, in contrast to the papal-protestant West, which eagerly seeks bliss without sacrifice, that is, it seeks resurrection without the cross. That's why he can't meet her anywhere. Our Greek Orthodox tradition is based on the Pauline principle "and if we die with Christ, we believe that we also live together with him, seeing that Christ, being raised from the dead, does not die, his death does not dominate" (Rom. 6,8-9). This makes us stand out from the heretical West, which lives in pessimism, because of its spiritual death, having no hope of resurrection, because it does not believe in the power of the Cross of Christ and does not have the humble disposition to cross itself with Him, so that it can so to meet Him. However, in order for man to receive divine sanctification through the Cross, it is necessary to believe in Christ the Redeemer and in His redemptive Sacrifice on the cross. Also, he must crucify himself just like Christ, to be crucified with Him, of course not literally as some heretical papists do, who every year on Good Friday are crucified on the wood of a cross, but man must be crucified not his flesh , but his sinful and evil self, "the pleasures of life", as the holy hymn writer of M. Week exhorts, "so that we may live together in him (in Christ). "
The great feast of the Universal Exaltation of the Holy Cross is another opportunity for all of us to think about God's infinite gifts in our lives. Let's turn our gaze to the dazzling light of the Cross in order to dispel the dark shadow of our soul's sins. We don't have many choices, either we accept the redemptive power of the Cross of Christ and be saved, or we remain slaves to sin and bearers of evil and perish. The call to redemption is always open, we just have to make the big decision and accept it. The Lord is waiting for us.
