Friday the 13th seems an appropriate day to be heading into Saturday’s Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It brings to mind another Friday, the one that we call “good” — although it must have seemed anything but “good” to the disciples who witnessed it.
But here is the glory of the Cross: that when God became man, taking on flesh for the express purpose of entering this day and suffering that horrible death — it launched him into glory. The very worse thing the devil could do turned out to be not just ineffective; it was instrumental in lifting Jesus to power.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
Photo by Zeus on Unsplash
It is the same for us.
Last Sunday, we heard these words of Jesus: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27).
Crosses will come our way in life, but they need not defeat us. In Christ, we can pick them up and carry them. We can unite our suffering with his. We can carry our crosses knowing that if we have died with Christ (as we have in baptism), we will also live with him. As St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (Rom 6:9). That same resurrection power assures us that suffering and death DO NOT have the final word.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
Sit before the Cross today and behold the One who went before us. Look on his wounds. See his blood, that river of grace by which we, too, are saved and lifted up.
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I can’t think of a better passage to help me meditate on that than this one, Philippians 2:5-11—
Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
God bless you as you ponder his word!
© 2019 Sarah Christmyer
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