The Cross Central Theme of Our Christian Religion

THE CROSS

Central Theme of Our Christian Religion

by VERY REV. FATHER MICHAEL BAROUDY

Vicksburg, Mississippi

From the very dawn of history, when man was created thousands of years ago, we note man’s restlessness in trying to solve the mystery of life and the supreme purpose of living. Accordingly, the search went on throughout all the stages of history, and that probably accounts for the great progress and the scientific dis­coveries man has achieved. But with all the great and stupendous achieve­ments of men, the search for more knowledge goes on day and night. There is no satisfaction insofar as man’s restless spirit is concerned. We feel that there are still great regions to be explored, fields unclaimed, re­sources untapped. We are surround­ed by mysteries and question marks. We are ever asking questions because the desire to know more is unquench­able. There isn’t any harm in asking questions, in trying to explore life’s great possibilities, for each of us wish­es to better himself, to fulfill his des­tiny and the purpose of which he is created. Not only is there no harm in searching out for more knowledge, but to do so is commendable and praiseworthy.

The 14th of September is desig­nated by the Church as the day upon which the Elevation of the Cross should be observed. Since the cross of Christ is the central theme of our holy religion, having important re­deeming implications, we want to confront the reader with questions having to do with Jesus’ atonement in His death for humanity. The first question is, “Was it necessary for Jesus to die for us?” Well, it was urgently necessary because of God’s love for humanity to redeem us from the ravishes, the guilt and de­gradation of sin. It was, as Paul has it,. that “God wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” Sin, yours and mine, and the rest of people have made it necessary for Him to come to our res­cue, to cleanse us from the stains of sin, to present us to God as redeemed sons and daughters.

That this is the central message of Christianity and the sum of the Apos­tles’ teachings is discoverable by the casual reader of the New Testament. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” said the Apostle Paul. St. John affirms, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we con­fess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The theme of the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation is. “Christ died for our sins, rose again for our justification.” The whole concept of the Mass is to instill and to nourish us with the idea of Christ’s sacrifice for humanity. Sunday after Sunday, the priest celebrates Mass and uses the very words Jesus used on the night that He instituted the Lord’s Supper. “Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you for the re­mission of sins. Drink ye all of it, this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.”

In the Book of Revelation, John tells of a vision he had in heaven about the book of life, sealed with seven seals. “Who is worthy to open the book?” an angel with a strong voice shouted. John says he wept when it appeared that no one in heaven or on earth could loose the seven seals. But he was told not to weep, that Christ could do it. Christ then opens the book, while a chorus of angels sings. “Thou art worthy to open the seals for thou wast slain.” It took pierced hands to break the seals and make known the glad tidings that sin and death need not spell de­feat. Pierced hands, sacrificial self-giving it always takes this kind of power to lift man above sin and death.

What is the significance of Jesus’ death? The only answer, “He died that we might live, for God so loved the world!” The Christian theology is based upon this stupendous fact. There is a Negro Spiritual which asks a very searching question, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” We all were there, everyone - for He died for humanity as a whole as He died for each person singly.

Let us ask ourselves the question, what does the cross mean to me? When it is mentioned, do we think only of the first Good Friday and the hill outside Jerusalem? Is it no more than a historical fact that happened nineteen centuries ago? Unless we see it as a principle of everyday life, a way of living, of voluntary self-giving, we miss its practical meaning for us. The cross is not laid on my shoulder by another, or by accident. It is not imposed from without, but voluntar­ily assumed from within. It is going the second mile, doing more than conditions require. That impossible person at your place of work, grimly endured, is not your cross, Only when you meet his insults with, “Father forgive him,” do you become a cross-bearer. The monotony of housekeep­ing is not your cross. You take it upon yourself only when you do your work gladly, as unto God and your family.

The Bible, containing the great ideals of Christianity, would be only another book unless we Christian people embody its teachings and in­terpret it by living lives which con­form to the Divine will of God. It does not help any of us to boast of our heritage, the beauty of our ser­vices and their primacy. It does help us to search ourselves, and make an honest endeavor to live worthily, to ride above the temptations which we encounter on the highways and by­ways of life. Christ died unto sin once so that He might live unto God. Life is the opportunity God invested and entrusted us with in order to give Him the primacy, the first place in our hearts. The days, months and years are slipping by fast, bringing us nearer to the time of our departure, our flight from this world, when we take our leave of absence from this world and our spirits migrate to the place prepared for us by the Master. Therefore, we must face facts about the kind of conduct we are manifest­ing to the world. Our character and conduct result from either sound or phony faith. Professional or ceremon­ial belief in Christ could not stand the test. Sound living, victorious faith, and appreciation of the Mas­ter’s death in our behalf will enable us to live above the world, the flesh and the devil. The early Christians minced no words in telling us that, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Either a day of judgment or a day of joy will be awaiting us when we shall stand be­fore the Judge of all the earth. It will be, according to Jesus, either a resur­rection of life or a resurrection of damnation.

What should be our response to Jesus’ sacrificial love? Our response would be reflected in our attitude to­ward life, and toward all human be­ings as a whole. If our attitude to­ward people is one of honest sym­pathy, understanding and love, if we live sacrificially, giving of our time and means toward the elevation of humanity, living lives that have for their purpose putting God first, and the affairs of His Kingdom are given the pre-eminence, then it may be truthfully said that we know whom we have believed, we have a clear vision of the Man upon the cross.

The early Christians went through the Roman world telling people about a man who had been crucified and who rose from the dead. It was an arresting item of news. At first the listener would be shocked, but as the story unfolded and its meaning be­came clear, new hope and joy lighted up his face, for he found in this old story of the Galilean Peasant nailed to a cross a satisfying view of life. It turned a flood light on the mystery of human existence; it revealed the se­cret of living triumphantly over the things that get people down; it satis­fied the age-old hunger for life be­yond the grave.

The striking thing about this good news was that the road to life un­ending led by way of the cross. By giving your life you find life. By an­swering evil with good, hate with love, the world’s worst with your best, you rise with Christ from the dead! You and He were as One!

September 14, Feast Of the Holy Cross

Each year on September 14 the Orthodox Church celebrates the feast of “The Elevation of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross.” This is one of the great feasts of the Church year, and one which has an important historical background. Although one or two of the hymns for the day refer obliquely to the vision of the cross in the heavens, the actual commemoration is not that of Constantine’s vision before his battle with Maxentius on October 28, 312. On that occasion, while he was in doubt about the outcome of the impending battle for Italy, he saw in the heavens the arms of the cross stretching far and wide, and the words. “In This Conquer.” The battle won, he did begin to aid Christians, and ended by being baptized himself.

Nor does the feast as celebrated refer to the finding of the cross in Jerusalem by Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, about the year 326, according to the tradition. A great many stories sprang up about this event, but Constantine did erect a great church over the Holy Sepulchre, and in it the cross was enshrined in a reliquary. This church stood for three centuries before it was destroyed by the Persians, during their series of campaigns against the Empire. Whatever were the early feasts observed in Jerusalem in honor of the Finding of the Cross, they became overshadowed by the events of the reign of the Emperor Heraclius, which are what the Feast as it is today does commemorate.

When Heraclius was crowned Emperor on October 5, 610, after the overthrow of the unworthy Phocas, the provinces on all sides were overrun by the Persians, Avars, and Slavs. He started on a series of internal reforms, such as canceling the dole of grain, which enabled a great many able-bodied loafers in Constantinople to spend their time attending the circus and games instead of doing something useful, and in trying to improve the finances of the government. He embarked on a series of campaigns in due course of time to re-establish Byzantine rule in the neighboring parts of the Empire. The Persians had for some years been harassing Syria and Asia Minor, and in 613 they attacked the city of Damascus. The next year they took Jerusalem, and left a garrison in charge of the city. The population revolted as soon as the main body of the invading army left, and slaughtered the garrison. This brought back the conquerors, who are said to have killed 90,000 of the inhabitants, sparing only the Jews who aided them in the conquest. They took the Patriarch Zacharias and the case containing the relics of the cross back to Persia with them.

This event was regarded by all the Christians as the greatest possible disaster, since they regarded the sacred relics as the palladium of the city. Added to this was the insolence of Chosroes, King of the Persians, who taunted the Christians with their religion and their Lord, who so obviously had failed to deliver them. For the next eight years Heraclius was busy with the Avars, and was not able to go out against the Persians until 622. He waged six campaigns between 622 and 627, and finally defeated Chosroes and his generals decisively, but at great cost. The Empire was in great danger: in 626 the Persians were in Asia Minor right across the Bosporus from the City, while their barbarian allies were encamped on the north in Thrace. But Heraclius managed to fight them all off, and restore some control.

He brought back to Jerusalem the Patriarch and the relics of the cross, which had not been molested. The populace demanded to see and venerate the relics, and accordingly they were solemnly elevated for all to see and reverence. The Emperor took a part of the sacred wood back to Constantinople with him. From the time of the finding of the cross by the Empress Helena, small bits of the wood were sent all over the world as most sacred relics, and the part which remained, although large, was still portable.

The hard-won peace of 626 left both the Persian anti Byzantine empires exhausted. At this very time a new danger appeared on the horizon: both Chosroes and Heraclius received letters from the Arab Mohammed, who invited them to adopt Islam, his newly founded faith. They both declined, but their contacts with the Moslems were to be many and difficult. In 629 Arab attacks on the empires began, and in 635 Damascus was taken, and Jerusalem in 637. Heraclius went back to Jerusalem and removed the sacred relics to Constantinople for safe keeping, but the Patriarch remained behind to greet the new rulers.

The ceremony of Elevation as performed in Church is actually a patriotic one, with prayers for the Rulers and their people, for Church and State, and for their establishment and preservation. The key to the observance is to be found in the Hymn for the Feast, the Troparion, which runs as follows:

“0 Lord, save thy people and bless thine inheritance:
To our Rulers grant victories over the barbarians,
And by thy Cross protect thine own Estate.”

To the Byzantines, their Empire was the civilized world, the Oikoumene, the habitation of law and order; outside the pale were the barbarians, the people who spoke some other language that no one could understand, and whose ways were violent and strange. The Christian religion was a part of this, the vehicle of salvation and civilization. This is the heritage that was transmitted down through the ages by the Byzantine Empire, the struggle for civilization against the power of the destroyers. When we celebrate the feast today, we should have this in mind; it is apt that the Feast of the Cross is always a Fast. This paradox is striking, but accentuates the understanding our ancestors had that victory comes hard, and that nothing good is achieved without sacrifice.

The Elevation of the Precious and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord

The Elevation of the Precious and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord

By Archpriest Leonid Kolchev

For a long time the Cross served as the instrument of a shameful punishment, exciting fear and disgust among people, but from the time that Christ sanctified it by His Blood, it became an object of pious respect and veneration for all Christians. However, this did not become universal at once. The very life-bearing Tree on which the Lord was crucified laid in the ground for many years until it was revealed to the world in a miraculous manner. 

Whenever the waves of persecutions directed against Christians died down and they emerged, tormented and bloodied, from the catacombs and caves into God’s light, signing themselves with an extensive sign of the cross, then it was that Konstantine the Great, who more than once had felt the power of the Cross, decided to find the same Tree to which the Body of Christ had been nailed. His eighty-year old holy mother Helen took upon herself this sacred task. Arriving in Jerusalem she spent much time and means to discover exactly where the Cross of the Lord was hidden. She managed to establish the fact that soon after the Resurrection of Christ the Jews had deeply filled up the crag of the Lord’s tomb, since it was a living monument of their rejection of the Lord. There, covered by rocks and all sorts of refuse, was discovered the life-giving Tree of Christ with the crosses of the thieves. In order to weaken the respect of the early Christians towards the holy places, in later times the heathen had placed idols upon Golgotha, had built a temple in honor of the shameless goddess Venus. Later it was found that a certain old Jew, Judas by name, on the basis of written family traditions, knew exactly where the Cross of Christ was hidden. For a long time he did not agree to reveal his secret and only forced by hunger and poverty did he lead the Empress Helen and Patriarch Macarius to Golgotha. Pointing to the exact spot, he said : “Here you will find the Cross of your Christ.’’

With piety, burning with impatience, the people started to work, animated by the sweet-odour emerging from the earth at that spot. Sure enough, soon there were found three well-preserved crosses which were exactly alike by their exterior shape. It was therefore impossible to ascertain which of them was the Cross of Christ, since the board with the inscription J.N.KJ. was lying separately. The perplexity was dispersed by Patriarch Macarius who said: “If Providence did not favor the leaving of the Lord’s Cross in the ground, will it allow it to remain unknown now? Will it allow us to give honor to a robber’s cross in place of the Lord’s Cross? God Himself will show us the Cross of Our Saviour.” With these words he commanded that the crosses he taken to the home of a grievously-ill woman. Here, after fervent prayer, he placed on her the crosses, one after another. The first two did not show any effect on the sick woman, but as soon as he placed on her the third cross—the ill woman immediately felt herself healed and arose from her bed. Giving praise to God, everyone unanimously recognized this wonder-working cross as the Lord’s. It was pleasing to the Providence of God to reveal new glory for the life-bearing Tree. Just at that time a dead man was being carried to burial past the house of the woman who had been healed. Filled with faith, the Patriarch, in the presence of the Empress and a great multitude of people, stopped the sorrowful procession and began to lay the crosses upon the dead man. And the same one of them which gave health to the sick woman, resurrected the dead man. to the indescribable joy of the surrounding populace. All those present could not be controlled in their desire to venerate the precious Cross and kiss it. Since this was impossible because of the tremendous gathering of people, Patriarch Macarius stood upon an elevated place, and with help raised the Cross high in the air several times so that it could, at least, be seen by all. Bowing down to the ground with piety, the people cried out : Lord, have mercy!’’ It is from this festive act of the raising or elevation of the life-giving Cross of the Lord that today’s feast received its name. In this glorification of Christ’s Cross, His very enemies were forced to give it veneration. Judas, with whose help the Lord’s Cross was found, received Holy Baptism with the name Cyriacus and, little by little, being elevated in the degrees of the Priesthood, later occupied the place of Patriarch of Jerusalem, and later still was made worthy of a martyr’s crown.

What is the later history of the Cross of Christ and where is it now found?

In the year 614 the Persian King (Shah) Khosroes captured Jerusalem and along with other treasures abducted the Tree of the Cross. After 15 years when the Persians were defeated, the Cross was returned. At the triumphant meeting of the returned Cross the Emperor Heraclius, himself decided to bear this treasure from the Mount of Olives to the Church of the Resurrection. At the gates of Golgotha, however, some invisible force stopped him and the more he tried the stronger was the power that held him back. Then it was revealed to the Patriarch in a vision that it was not right for the Emperor to go in such majesty and brilliance where the Saviour Himself, carrying His own Cross, went in such poverty and humiliation. The next day. having divested himself of his footwear and extravagant raiment, dressed in simple clothing, the Emperor took the Cross upon his own back and without any hindrance carried it to the Church. This was 14 September of the year 629. Later this Cross was taken apart in particles by the Faithful and today there is not, it would seem, any country where particles of this most precious sacred object is not preserved in churches and even by individuals.

And Christians of the whole world piously honor this life-bearing Tree.

‘‘It is worthy and right to venerate Christ’s Cross,” says Saint Demetrius, the Metropolitan of Rostov. “for through this blessed Tree was death slain and life granted.” “This sign.” teaches another prelate, John Chrysostom, “both in former and present times opened closed door’s, removed the power of ill-bearing substances, made poison ineffective, and healed the mortal bites of beasts.”

Come, faithful, let us bow to the Cross of the Lord lying before us and, following the example of the ancient Christians, let us say with compunction : Lord, have mercy! Through the might of the precious and life-creating Cross, save us sinners. Amen. *

* A sermon by Archpriest Leonid Kolchev. Translated by D.F.A.