The Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross took place in the days of Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena. In the Gospel of John, which was read the day before during the All-night Vigil last night, we heard the words: ”And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up [i.e. to the cross]” (John 3:14).
And the question comes up: Why did Moses lift up the snake in the wilderness, as it says in the Book of Numbers in chapter 21 verse 9?
The Jews descended into a valley during their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, where there were many snakes. And the snakes began to attack the Jews, sting them, and the Jews began to die. Then God said to Moses: ”Make a copper serpent for yourself, and put it on a signal pole” (Num.21:8).
What does copper serpent mean? It’s shackled evil. Copper-shackled evil, unable to move, crawl, sting, spray poison. And this was the image of Christ, Who, having taken upon Himself the sins of the whole world, shackled sin, immobilized it, deprived the devil of power over us. Therefore the Son of God says: ”And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up [i.e. to the cross],that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).
And when those people bitten by snakes looked at the copper snake in the days of Moses, the poison lost its power. And we, looking at Christ,the Crucified Christ, gain support, we are given a kind of an antidote to that moral death that we could suffer.
This image of a copper serpent was carefully kept by the Jewish people as a reminder of the miracle that they experienced during the exodus from Egypt. It is in autumn that the Jewish people celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, which is called Sukkot, when they remember how they lived in tents and what temptations awaited them during their journey.
The earthly Church is called wandering and militant, for we are walking through the wilderness of inspirituality, immorality too, but the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5).
Let us look to Christ Crucified, for He was crucified for our sins and for our transgressions, He bought salvation for us at the cost of His Blood. Christ says: “that whoever believes in Him [i.e. in Christ] should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:15-16).
God the Father, Who loved the world, that is you and me, in that sad state in which we are now, gave His Son to suffer on the Cross for the sake of man and for the sake of our salvation.
In the epistle to the Romans in chapter 5 verse 8 we find the words: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom.5:8), that is we were not worthy of this Sacrifice, just as now we are not worthy to partake of His Body and Blood, therefore, with the fear of God and faith we partake of the Holy Communion in the hope of God’s mercy. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” that means that God loved the world, which needed a sacrifice, and only sinful things need a sacrifice. And He gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins and for our transgressions.
The Apostle Paul in the same epistle to the Romans in chapter 5 verse 6 writes: ”For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom.5:6). He did not die for the righteous, for human righteousness, like filthy clothes, is also covered with wickedness. He died for the wicked. Be of good cheer, brother. Be of good cheer, sister. The Lord Himself said that He didn’t come to save the righteous, but sinners. In verse 7 of the same chapter it is said: ”For scarcely for a righteous man will one die” (Rom.5:7). And why does Christ need to die for a righteous man if the righteous has no sins? But there is no one righteous! As it is stated in the same epistle to the Romans: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one” (Rom.3:10-12).
We all turned out to be prisoners of sin, even children of the tenderest age need cleansing, baptism. David said: ”I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps.50:7). It doesn’t mean that his parents were fornicators. Of course not. He had godly parents. But in the sense that Adam’s sin does not allow us to be born in purity and be conceived in righteousness. As it is said in the epistle of Paul: “From one blood [that is, Adam] there is the beginning of all sin” (Rom.5:12).
And in the epistle to the Galatians in chapter 6 verse 14 we find such words. The Apostle Paul exclaims: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal.6:14). What does the apostle Paul mean when he says this? If Christ died for my sins and crimes, as the apostle says, then I am ready to devote my life to the One who saves me and makes me righteous through faith and by faith, as the ancient prophet Habakkuk said: ”the just shall live by his faith”(Hab.2:4).
Righteousness comes from faith, not from works. For as it says in the book of Job: ”…God observes a perverse way in His angels”(Job 4:18). Do you hear, brothers and sisters, God observes a perverse way in His Angels, even more He observes a perverse way in us, created from the dust of the earth. And angels are created from the divine light.
Why did Christ die on the cross? Why did He choose such a death for Himself? Couldn’t God have saved us by a willful decision? He could, answer the Fathers of the Church. But God has chosen a way of our salvation that is more suitable for us. After all, man has sinned, and the Son of God becomes a man. After all, man fell under the curse of sin, and the Son of God hung on a tree. The Scripture says: “…he who is hanged on a tree is accursed of God” (Deut.21:23) and He took upon Himself the curse of our sins and transgressions. It is said, “without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb. 9:22), He bleeds. It is said, “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), He dies on the cross.
And in the epistle to the Colossians in chapter 1 verses from 19 to 22 the apostle Paul writes: ”For it pleased the Father that in Him [i.e. in His Son] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him [i.e. Christ] to reconcile all things to Himself [God the Father], by Him [by Christ], whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross”(Col.1:19-20).
And the very form of the cross consists of a pole facing from the earth to the sky and a crossbar for stretching hands. The pole symbolizes the reconciliation of the earthly and the heavenly on the cross, the outstretched hands, giving the shape of a cross (stavros), symbolize the love of God: He is ready to embrace us from the cross with the love of the Father. Thus, through the Son, we are reconciled with God the Father, and peace comes between earthly and heavenly.
And then Paul writes: ”And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh [i.e. in the flesh of Christ] through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight [in the sight of God the Father]” (Col.1:21-22).
What does it mean? That we become holy and blameless, because when Christ ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father, from that moment God the Father looks at us through the wounds of His Son and sees us holy and blameless, for by the blood of Christ we are washed from all sin. The Apostle Paul writes: “You were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20), at the price of the blood of the Lamb of God.
Honoring the cross, we honor the cross as the altar on which the Greatest Sacrifice was offered. And looking at the cross, we can stop moral death, when the sinful poison has already penetrated into our body, and what is even more terrible, has penetrated into our soul.
Why does He die on the cross? Through the tree (Greek word stavros) of the knowledge of good and evil, sin entered this world, through the tree (Greek word stavros) of the cross of Calvary, sin is defeated, and we become holy and blameless being cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. Through our foremother Eve, sin entered the world: she plucked it from a tree and gave it to her husband, being still in virginity; through the Ever-Virgin Mary, salvation came into this world, and the light of hope shone.
And at the cross of Calvary all of us who believe in Jesus Christ in the person of John the Theologian are adopted to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!””(John 19:26-27). Truly, the Blessed Virgin, to whom we were all adopted at the cross of Calvary, is the source that gave birth to our salvation.
For in Christ there are two natures, divine and human, and the human flows without any male seed, only from the Blessed Virgin Mary. And when you partake of the Body and Blood, do not forget that body and blood are categories of the human body, and Christ receives everything human from His Mother. Therefore, we partake of what He received from Her, we become partakers of both the Son and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Holy Communion is salvation as the fruit of Calvary’s suffering, torment, death agony of the Son of God, His redemptive death. The Holy Fathers say: “Everything makes sense. His suffering to death cleanses us from the temptations that exist before committing a sin, His very death cleanses us from the sin committed, His Holy Body at the moment of Communion heals our body, His Holy Blood cleanses and saves our soul.” Therefore, when we partake of the Body and Blood, we partake of that totality, the integrity of the immaculate and holy being, which is given to us in the streams of the Blood of the Son of God.
The Cross connects earth with heaven, as we read in Paul: ”and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven”(Col.1:20). The cross proves the love of God the Father to us, as we have read: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16).
The cross is the praise of the righteous, the power of kings, the unspeakable joy of believers. On this day we exclaim: “We worship Thy Cross, O Lord, and Thy holy Resurrection we praise and glorify!” For where there is Golgotha , there is death, where there is the death of the Son of God, there is His Resurrection, where He dies, He mortifies your sin and my sin, when He rises from the dead, He resurrects your soul and my soul. For whatever He did, He did for us, for the sake of man and for our salvation!
Happy feast to you, beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord!
Translated from Russian