Triumph of the Cross

In a homily by St. Andrew of Crete, from the Office of Readings today, St. Andrew muses about the reality that the passion and death of Jesus Christ consummates salvation history.  It is an interesting and a powerful expression to covey the mystery we celebrate.  To be sure its implication is the union we have with God through Jesus Christ, and the life giving properties of the action of the cross.  Also from the Readings, St. Paul reminds his hearers in Galatians that the cross conveys a new way of existing for us.  Because of the cross we do not live in the flesh but become people of the Spirit.

Very much like the Eucharist which commemorates this sacred event the Cross is a great comfort for us.  The Cross and the Paschal activity is a sign of God's great love for us.  God says "Amen" (once again) to humanity and to our identity as God's people.  But the challenge of the Cross, as St Paul implies in his various letters, we respond to this initiative of new life by acting like children of God.  When I was a Deacon, and would go out on a Friday or Saturday with my Deacon classmates, my pastor would jokingly remind me that I was a St John's 'boy' and needed to act accordingly.

At Baptism one of the first actions we do with a child is to make a sign of the cross on his or her forehead.  We then announce that the Christian community welcomes this child with great joy.  For all of it's solemnity Good Friday really is a 'good' day in that it recognizes that we are given salvation and peace through the wood of the cross.  To be sure through Christ Jesus God has broken through the pall of Sin and Evil to draw us into a sacred and holy relationship with him.

While the sign of the cross is most unique to us, it invites us to consider the place we have been given in God's household.  More over we are a special possession consecrated to new life in Christ.  So we can make bold and stand against the evils of humanity and strive for what is true, beautiful, and good.  There is that temptation to stand down from doing what is right in order to be nice to others and not offend.  But the sign of the cross proclaims a truth about our relationship with God and others which we have the responsibility of making present.  We go into the world and Lift High the Cross.