Looking at the Cross in Anticipation of the Triumph

Dear Friends,

Today I am thinking ahead. Next Sunday, we celebrate the Triumph of the Holy Cross. This week, I invite you to look at the cross. See it wherever you go. Observe how people value it or not. Bless others with the sign of the cross, whether they know it or not. Do all these things, so that you will be able to celebrate next week’s feast with new insight.

The only other time during the year that the cross is highlighted is Good Friday, when it is carried through the church with great reverence and the cantor sings

Behold! Behold! The wood of the cross on which has hung our salvation. And we in the congregations sing: O Come, let us adore Him.

At that liturgy, we do come forward to reverence the cross. Some touch it, kneel before it, bow their heads. In one poignant moment, a father lifted up his infant son to touch his forehead to the cross. Some believers, like this father, have internalized the meaning of the cross: it is the revelation of a God who suffers that we may be redeemed.

Christians do a risky thing when we see the death of Jesus on the cross as an act of liberation, deliverance, of the conquest of the forces of death and bondage. We believe, against all evidence, that death is not the last word, yet death is necessary if the resurrection is to have meaning.

During the long summer after Holy Week, it would be easy for believers to forget what a wondrous meaning the cross embodies.

The Anglican theologian Ken Leech reminds us that “Over the centuries, both the visual symbols and the words associated with the cross have changed and become more focused more on the anguish, the blood and the wounds, and on the personal contemplation of Christ’s suffering. But the earliest tradition was marked by a sense of triumph. The more ancient the crucifixes the more likely they are to show Christ as victor, as king, as Christ in glory…Many modern crucifixes have returned to the ancient type and show Christ in majesty, triumphant, with arms outstretched to draw all people to himself.” We Preach Christ Crucified, p 89

Triumph? Yes! The triumph of love over hate, of faith over cynicism, of persuasion over coercion, of a loving God over the forces of evil.

On Calvary, there were only few witnesses, because it takes courage to stand by the cross. Today, as believers, we stand before the cross, and as we look around, we see other believers with us. We are not alone.

~ Sister Joan Sobala