Today offers us a special opportunity. It's not often that we wear red in the midst of Ordinary Time on a Sunday in the late summer, but each year on September 14 we do celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and this year it just happens to fall on a Sunday, a good day we might say to consider the salvation won for us.
The Exaltation of the Holy Cross celebrates God’s plan of salvation in both death and resurrection of Jesus, and for many it also celebrates the cross itself the instrument of salvation, an instrument to be venerated in itself.
In our exaltation of the cross we consider that while we venerate the cross, it is Jesus who is lifted up upon it. We consider that in today’s gospel Jesus tells Nicodemus that the Son of Man must be lifted up. At later place in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all to myself.” I would like for us, today, to reflect on the “lifting up” of Jesus.
Indeed, this feast, above others, offers us an excellent opportunity to consider how we lift up Jesus in our world today and to explore the deeper meanings implicit in that lifting up. We might also consider what it is that we will accomplish in lifting up Jesus in our times.
In the gospel reading Jesus connects his being lifted up to Moses’ lifting up of the bronze serpent in the desert, which we heard about in our first reading today. The lifting up of the serpent provided healing for any who would gaze upon it. The idea of healing, of reconciling and fixing what has gone wrong plays a crucial role in understanding today's message. Even in our times the symbol of the medical arts is a serpent mounted on a pole.
Because of Jesus associating his being lifted up on the cross with Moses’ lifting up of the serpent, we can understand the story of the bronze serpent as revealing a type of Christ. It is a foreshadowing of Christian salvation. However, even more, the serpent reveals the presence of Christ long, long, before the time of his birth. It is an example of the in-breaking presence of Christ in the world coming from the time of completion. In the context of Christianity, it is Moses making Christ present. It reveals a theology of final hope.
Much of the deeper meanings of our feast today have to do with our making Christ present in our world—a world in which no one could argue against the need for healing and reconciliation. Therefore, we should ask ourselves what are the things that we do to lift of Christ. In other words, how to we show the world Jesus? How do we make Jesus present to the world?
Several years ago I was involved in the initial interviewing process of diaconal ministries for the diocese, and I had the opportunity to ask several aspirants how they personally make Christ present in our world. One particular fellow told me that he “wore Jesus on his sleeve” so to speak. He said that for him it was important not to be ashamed in any way of being religious. Therefore, he chose to wear a big cross and to let everyone know that he was a religious person by outward signs. I wonder how many of us have the same or a similar idea of lifting up Christ in this way?
Having come from an evangelical background and converting to Catholicism, I know that it’s common for many folks to believe in things like verbally witnessing, praying before meals and in public, even carrying bibles or maybe handing out tracts. I’m not one to criticize or judge others’ religious practices, but I’ve got to wonder whether this is really the best way to lift up Christ in our world.
In our own Catholic tradition we have our ways too of being religious as a way of presenting Jesus to others. We have our popular piety, our venerations and adorations, our private and public prayers. There may be some among us who feel that the Church has lost numbers because the old tradition of devotions has slipped into the past for many of us. We may say, “If we would only lift up the cross again in the old ways.” Frankly, I’ve even heard criticism that our parish church here doesn’t have a traditional crucifix, and probably on occasion there may have even been one or two serious discussions of replacing our “resurrection cross,” though the resurrection is also a strong symbol of Christ lifted up.
Without any doubt at all, I believe that it is absolutely imperative that we lift up Christ in our world today really and not just in symbolic ways. However, to be effective in this I believe that we must explore what it truly means to be Christ in our world because the image of Christ that the world sees is the face of the Christian religion that we represent in our actions and attitudes. Too often the image that we lift up is merely an idol. That is, it is a false image of Christ. Too often what the world sees is a small and hard-hearted Christianity, a weak imitation born out of false notions and judgmental attitudes. Too often we lift up not Christ but false religion in his place.
Just as looking upon the bronze serpent brought healing, so too our concern should be with healing and reconciliation. Too often in our world we Christians have gotten it into our heads that our role, rather than being reconcilers, is to be against all the damnable sinners and infidels of our society. However, this was not the message of Jesus! Far from it.
Jesus came and ministered to those who were most in need of mercy, and that too should be our role in the world if we wish to reveal the true face of Christ. It ought to be obvious to us that there is a world crying out in need, and if we are afraid to go into that world, if we prefer the cozy comfort of suburbia, and I have to say as much as I too like it, then we’re failing.
Jesus placed himself at the service of the poor of the world. It could not be more obvious that we too are to be at the service of whoever is on the outside, or the wrong side, of the society in which we live. This is certainly a large part of the message in Pope Francis’ exhortation, Joy of the Gospel.
To lift up Jesus in our world is to lift up those who are hungry, persecuted, brutalized, discriminated against, made marginal, or just denied the basic dignity inherent in every human being.
The New Testament reminds us that true religion is being at the service of widows and orphans. We ought to aspire greatly to religion that imitates Jesus in his self-emptying, as the reading from Philippians today shows us. His is the action of total love in that he makes giving complete. He pours out his divinity and takes upon himself humanity, but not just any old comfortable humanity. Rather he takes on the suffering of humanity revealed in the cross, but not only in the cross. Rather also in an ignominious execution on the cross.
Indeed to lift up Christ in our world today is to lift up the cross again. However, it is to do it again, and again, and again, in a habitual lifestyle that imitates the self-giving of God in Christ and his pouring out of himself. More than being about what the world considers to be religious, we have to go beyond and reveal Christ in how we heal and reconcile in our world today. It’s all about transforming the world through what we do, through our lifting up the true cross of salvation.
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