It is 312 AD. Constantine, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, is about to do battle with Maxentius, Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Before the battle begins, Constantine sees a vision of a flaming cross and hears the words, “In this symbol you shall triumph.”
He did triumph and became Constantine the Great. His triumph was indeed also the triumph of the Holy Cross and a change in world history—thanks to Constantine’s mother.
Helena, Constantine’s mother, was a Christian. Constantine’s father, Constantius, had been emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. In his youth he had joined with Helena. They had one child, Constantine. As Constantius’ political career developed, he divorced Helena to marry a woman more politically correct. Helena and Constantine were quietly sent away.
Nonetheless, when Constantius died, his son became emperor. He had always remained close to his mother. Constantine brought her back to court life. In 326 he sent her on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with unlimited access to his treasury in order to discover and recover the holy places. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, Helena built or expanded churches at Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives.
Jerusalem had never quite recovered from its destruction by the Roman Emperor Titus in 70 AD. The Roman Emperor Hadrian had built a temple to Roman gods over the site of Golgotha where Jesus died. Helena ordered it torn down to construct a church there. As the excavation began, three crosses were discovered. When a man who had died was touched to one of them, he came back to life. A woman who was very ill also was healed when she touched this cross. Helena and others therefore concluded this was the true cross.
Part of the cross was sent to Rome, part to Constantinople, and part became the basis for the Church of the Holy Sepulcure in Jerusalem. The cross in Jerusalem was dedicated on September 13-14 in 335. It was placed in the church on September 14. Thus, we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross today.
A Watershed Moment in History and Christian Practice
The “True Cross” and this feast day have figured large in church history. This feast in many religious communities through the centuries has been the dividing time between the summer work in the fields with its more generous portions of food and sleep and the winter schedule more dedicated to study and penance.
The triumph of the Holy Cross in Constantine’s life set the stage for the transition of life in Europe from “Pax Romana” to Christian culture. Constantine gained a military victory that enabled Rome to stand against barbarian invaders for another hundred and fifty years. He ended the persecution of Christians and participated in the Council of Nicea, which proclaimed Christ as True God AND True Man. This Council gave the Church our Nicene Creed and a solid foundation with which to fight Arianism. What he began led to Christianity becoming the official religion of Rome in 380.
As Rome fell to invaders from the north in 476, the cross became a symbol of Christianity under siege. Christians survived the Dark Ages by living a life based on the image of the cross. They were ascetical beyond what us moderns can imagine. Except for cloistered religious, they knew little of Christianity. But they believed it. Their lives centered around it. In a time when death was all around all the time, the symbol of Christ’s victory over death became the symbol of hope through the darkness.
The Holy Cross in Today’s Readings
I look at today’s readings. The reading from Numbers is a short version of the story of when the Israelites grumbled and doubted God’s care in the desert. God told Moses to make a bronze symbol of the snakes that bit the people and raise it up. When someone who had been bitten looked at the seraph (nice word for snake), they were healed. This event is noted today as a prefiguration of the cross and its ability to heal us if we focus our attention on it.
The Gospel is a part of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, the Pharisee who questioned and “came to Jesus by night.” In this part Jesus gives the WHY of the cross:
“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 hat the world might be saved through him.”
God’s nature is Love. Love is to will the good of the other. God loves the world (ALL of us, everybody and all that is in nature) so much that God came into our world to be part of it. That meant God chose to be subject to the evil which is the absence of God, the absence of goodness/love. This evil is inevitable if God gives freedom—which love does. If we as humans did not have freedom, we could not truly love. Love must be free. God is free to love us. He gives us the option to love Him—and others—or not. We must choose the way of God—or not. To the point that people do NOT choose love—they make crosses for others; they perpetuate evil in the world.
God, through Jesus, could still only be God. He could only be who He was and is: goodness. He did not come to condemn. He came to save—how? It is symbolized in the cross. The cross represents EVERYTHING that evil could do to Jesus, who is the Christ—humiliation, injustice, suffering, abandonment, and death. In the cross, Jesus took it upon Himself. It temporarily killed his human nature and body.
But Jesus IS GOD. The cross gave God the means by which God’s goodness triumphs over evil. On the cross, GOD HIMSELF chose to die so that evil might be fully overcome. Active evil as sin entered the world because of human disobedience, pride, and selfishness. When God, remaining fully God, AND also becoming fully man, chose to offer himself in obedience on the cross, everything begun in Eden was changed—transformed—made new.
That instrument and symbol of torture therefore became the instrument and symbol of triumph.
We suffer. We suffer from the evils that God died on the Holy Cross to save us from. We die.
Yet to me, that image of the Holy Cross outlines the way out in our current crises and the temptations of our post Christian world: The vertical beam says to me: Trust God and remain faithful, while living in the here and now with other Christians. The horizontal beam says: Reach out to those outside the Faith or who are barely within it. Reach out in Truth to tell the wondrous stories of God. Reach out in compassion to show mercy and give healing.
Prayer:
Jesus, keep me near the cross. Today. Help me carry and die to self on the crosses life sends me today. Help me hang in there, choosing, like Christ, to remain good—even if evil pummels me. Help me live on the crosses of my life until You, Lord, tonight say “it is finished” for today. Help me see the path of choosing good, not evil, is the path of living in Beatitude. The path of Beatitude chooses to let go of evil when evil comes and not pass it on. It is the path of the triumph and Exaltation of your Holy Cross. Help me live it today, Lord. Lead me, guide me.
