The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Tuesday, September 14, 2021

John 3:13–17

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

An ancient tradition holds that after her son Constantine became Roman emperor, the elderly St. Helen, a Greek woman and a Christian, made her way to the Holy Land to see the places made hallowed by our Lord’s presence.  When she came to Jerusalem, she sought the places and things associated with the Lord’s Passion and Death, but these were not to be found.  Golgotha, the Tomb, and the Cross were revered by the early Christians, but they were lost in the destruction of Jerusalem during the Jewish Revolt of 66-70 A.D.  Golgotha and the Tomb were covered with broken pieces of the city wall and with other debris.  Inspired by a vision, she organized a search and after some time, these sites were found.  Crosses were found too, and they were touched either to a dying woman or an already dead man (tradition diverges on this), restoring health to the one or life to the other. One of the most important pieces of corroborating evidence for the finding of the Cross at this time and in this way is a letter from St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem (313-386 A.D.).  Cyril, born the year Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity.  In this letter, Cyril expresses his desire for Constantius to become more fully knowledgeable of the teachings of the Church, and in this context mentions the finding of “the Wood of the Saving Cross” at Jerusalem during Constantine’s reign.  St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan (d. 397 A.D.), a contemporary of St. Cyril, also notes the discovery of the Cross in one of his works.  A few years later, a woman religious from the West named Egeria wrote of her pilgrimage to the Holy Places and described how in the morning of Good Friday, in a church built near the site of Golgotha, deacons and priests carried in a silver reliquary containing the Cross, laid it on a table, and permitted the faithful to come forward and kiss it.  Large pieces of the Cross are preserved in the present day at Rome, Jerusalem, and Paris.  The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was established shortly after the relics of the Cross were recaptured from marauding Persians in 629 B.C.

In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, St. John quotes the Lord Jesus in a conversation he had with a leading Pharisee named Nicodemus: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.”  Nicodemus is curious about the Lord’s identity.  He has seen him overturn the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple courtyard and heard the Lord preach.  He has either seen or heard about his miracles.  He opens his talk with Jesus by confessing, “Rabbi, we know that you are come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which you do, unless God be with him” (John 3, 2).  The Lord answers him in part with these words about the Son of Man, the King who would rule the world with justice, and speaks of him having “come down from heaven”.  But this Son of Man has not come down to remain on earth, but will go up to heaven again.  The Son of Man is indeed a King, but not one in an earthly sense.  He will be “raised up”, but not as an earthly king is “raised up”.  That is, this verb is also used to mean “exalted”, as in Psalm 56, 11: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens: and your glory above all the earth.”  But the King who has come down from heaven is raised up in a different way, as the bronze serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, so that all the Hebrews who had complained against God and been bitten by serpents in punishment might be healed.  They had but took upon it.  The bronze serpent represented the consequences of their sin.  They had to face it in order to be saved.  Likewise, we must look upon the Lord Jesus, made sin for us and suffering the consequences of our sins for us, so that we can be saved.  The Hebrews looked upon the bronze serpent with fear and trembling while we look upon our Lord with awe and repentance, and faith.  The serpents were sent to punish and kill; the Son of God was sent in order to forgive and save.  We look with devotion upon the Crucifix and remember the words of the Gospel: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

The prayer for this Feast from the traditional Latin Roman Missal: “O God, Who gladden us this day by the yearly feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, grant, we beseech You, that we who know on earth the mysteries of Christ may be found worthy to obtain in heaven the rewards of His redemption.  Through the same Christ our Lord.