What is a person’s Cross? It is the whole life of a human being who has fallen away from God. In paradise, man was connected to God, and all his days were filled by God’s presence.
When man severed this connection, he lost the beauty and purity of life and found himself on earth, a land overgrown with weeds that became his place of exile. His life turned into a constant struggle with sin, his desires, and with his fellow humans.
What is our cross? It is our life and all the sorrows, pains and trials that come with it that we must accept as the inevitable price of our sin, our separation from God and our wilfulness. "Take up your cross and follow Me", as the Saviour tells us. (Mark 8:34). The Lord opens for us the gates of Heaven through His Cross. Dying in excruciating pain, He delivered us from the curse that lay upon all humans.
There were two crosses next to the Lord’s. A robber, hanging on one, had sinned but accepted his torment as his just payment and the ending that he had deserved with humility. Because he had humbled himself and took his Cross, he was able to see God near him. But the other robber hanging on the other cross did not see the Truth, refused to take his Cross and bear it voluntarily, and the presence of God created nothing but wrath and anger in his cold and rebellious heart.
“The Cross is the guardian of the world. The Cross is the beauty of the Church… The Cross is the glory of the angels and the wounder of demons.” (Exapostilarion of the Canon of the Feast.) It is the God-given weapon of believers. What had served men as an instrument of brutal torture became a sacred object, a weapon of salvation, a reminder of the One who suffered for love and the salvation of man. Bearing the burdens of another and giving our care and empathy brings us closer to God. God is always around when people are in difficulty and need help and love.
We must overcome the sin within and defeat the flesh, but we cannot accomplish this only by ourselves. In illness, we cannot be healed without love and divine intervention. The Love on the cross that saves all mankind is the only remedy for death. But it is not easy for someone who lives for themselves and their flesh, and who was born into sin, to embrace this Love and experience its life-giving power.
"Take, eat; this is My Body… Drink… all of you. This is My Blood…" (Matthew 26: 26-28). These are the fruits of the Life-Giving Cross, the fruits of Love. The Cross became the Tree of Life. Its fruit is more than a creation or a piece of physical matter, but the Creator Himself. Immortality is only possible in God. The fruits of the Tree of Life are there for every repentant soul that looks for its Saviour, its Doctor, who heals with His love, Holy Blood and Body. It is a miracle that the Lord takes upon Himself the human sin, enters the worldly flesh and brings the human soul, corrupted by sin, back to life with His one touch.
We all wear a pendant cross on our chest. It reminds us that we are all partakers of eternal life that is achieved by dying and resurrecting from the dead. How often do we hear the call of the flesh to leave our cross behind, descend from it, pity ourselves and say that this life of sorrows and trials is more than we can bear, that we are too weak for that! But by coming to the Cross once, and seeing the Lord hanging with his hands spread out and nailed to its ends, and by venerating it, one comes to appreciate the smallness of our sorrows by comparison with the suffering that is revealed to us through the cross of Christ's love.
The Lord comes to earth. He is coming to redeem humanity and reopen the gate of Heaven. But not all the people will wish to enter. How do we enter Heaven? By the way of the Cross. Why the Cross? Because the sacrament of God's reconciliation with man is performed on the Cross. The Lord dies on the Cross, and by doing so, offers Himself up to others. This sacrament of Love brings us to life in eternity. The fruit of eternal life is born of God's love that man had once rejected in paradise.
At the words of the priest "With the fear of God and faith draw near" we partake of the Fruit of life and unite with God. Like the robber on the Cross, who heard from Jesus: “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise”. (Luke 23). And so we hear as we take Сommunion: "The servant of God, (name), partakes of the precious and all-holy Body and Blood of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, unto the forgiveness of sins and unto life everlasting."
But life everlasting is only possible in paradise. Yet time and again, we repeat the mistake of our forefathers: when in paradise, we begin to hide from God and before too long we lose our connection with Him. When the priest brings out the Gospel Book and a blessing Cross, and people confess, repentance is also done through the Сross, and each penitent is reunited with God.
We all carry our invisible Cross, and we must carry it to the end, to our very last breath. We know that time corrupts our bodies and multiplies our illnesses and pains. But the Lord is in our midst, and the trials, sorrows and pains on this earth will also multiply the love that reaches us from the very Cross from which the Lord is calling us towards the Kingdom of His Love.
Each Christian crosses himself after waking up in the morning. The sign of the Cross begins our day. And each day in our Christian lives ends with a prayer and the sign of the Cross. The spirit of strife and evil will always look for a way to enter our hearts and minds, but we know very well that the sign of the Cross is our mighty shield against the evil of the world and the fallen angels trying to deceive us into thinking that God does not need us and has abandoned us.
A cross crowns every church, our vessel of eternity. It is like a beacon showing us the way. It calls us to prayer and repentance and guides us to our encounter with God. The Cross is our source of strength, our victory and the banner under which the faithful spirits gather and proceed to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Archpriest Andrey Lemeshonok
Preached after the Divine Liturgy on the feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross on 27.09.2020.
