Brief synopsis of the readings: Today we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The first reading recounts the time shortly after the escape from Egypt. The Israelites found themselves worn out by the journey to the Promised Land and they complained bitterly to Moses. In response God sent serpents who bit and killed many of them. The remaining people repented. God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole. Those who had been bitten but did not die looked it and were cured. John’s Gospel tells us about Jesus speaking to Nichodemus. Jesus told him that the Son of Man must be lifted up (crucified) so that all who believe will have eternal life. He went on to say that God sent his only Son so that all who believe will be saved; the Son was not sent to condemn the world but save it.

Every September 14th we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, that some of us may remember as the Triumph of the Cross. In years where September 14th falls on a Sunday it replaces the ordinary readings. Most of us probably don’t think much about; the cross has become a universal symbol of Christianity and many of us (myself included) wear a cross around our neck.

But it hasn’t always been that way. Killing someone by tying or nailing them to a cross, to crucify him, wasn’t a Christian or Jewish tradition. It had a long tradition but it was often used by the Roman Empire as a particularly cruel method of execution. Without going into detail it was meant as a way of making a person’s death long, painful, and public and was reserved for particular offenses; for example this was used on slaves who murdered their masters or committed treason against the Roman government.

Early followers of Jesus would never have venerated or worn a cross as this was a symbol of horror. Only after crucifixion was outlawed, about 300 years after Jesus was crucified, did this begin to change. The emperor Constantine converted to Christianity at that time and (according to legend) his mother Helen traveled to Jerusalem and found the “true cross,” that is, the cross that crucified Jesus. Like all relics we don’t have to believe their veracity (ie, we don’t have to believe she found the actual cross) but relics can be objects of devotion.

So what does it mean today? We live in a world that tries to create distance from both darkness and death and we’re pretty successful. Stargazers often complain about light pollution and many remember fearing the dark as children, a boon for the nightlight industry. Also, and I don’t need to say much about this, we are so terrified of dying that we push it out of sight and sanitize it. When someone dies he has “passed on” or just “passed.” We even use humor: “He bought the farm.” or “He kicked the bucket.” On the other hand some of us have gory memories of crucifixes that emphasize the blood and gore; In 2004 Mel Gibson made a film called The Passion of the Christ that emphasized the gore of Jesus’ death. Also Pope John Paul II carried a cross that was particularly graphic.

But I think when we commemorate the Exaltation of the Cross we need to acknowledge the horror of crucifixion but we also need to put great weight on the idea of exaltation or triumph. When the Romans crucified Jesus they used all they knew to end life. It was their ultimate throw down. And if that’s true, Jesus’ resurrection was the ultimate throw down to them and indeed to all evil.

I have no desire to plumb the depths of the origin of evil but I think we can all agree that the horrible things we do to each other are human constructs. And I think that’s the reason we need this feast today. Two thousand years ago crucifixion was the apex of evil but we’ve gone much further. Today we have ethnic cleansing, genocide, weapons of mass destruction, and many others. Given that, it’s easy for us to look around us and fear that the cross has triumphed.

It hasn’t. Evil isn’t the only human construct; so is discipleship. While the inspiration is from God, the action is ours. Philosophers of the Enlightenment (John Locke and others) spoke of how our value comes not from an earthly king, but from God. Thomas Jefferson picked this up and made it a cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”).

We sometimes forget that. The sight of Jesus on the cross caused most of his disciples to flee rather than witness. And today despair comes just as easily. No feeling is ever wrong but our call demands that we continue to be vigilant, no matter what. In the face of masked law enforcement and the rise in fascism hopelessness may seem closer than ever but it’s not. This may sound strange but there is a certain hubris in the belief that we can damage ourselves and one another beyond God’s power to heal. Again and again we have witnessed that not only is God’s love infinite, so is his patience.

The exaltation of the cross reminds us that while suffering is always present, healing and salvation remain in front of us, even when hidden. God loved us so much that he sent his Son that we may have the tools to build the kingdom. We need only believe that and use the resolve that it provides to move us forward. Despair cannot be used as a justification for paralysis and dawn always follows midnight.

We live in a difficult time, but times have never been easy. We have not only survived but thrived through crises that seemed unimaginable at the time. At the time of Jesus nobody expected the Roman empire to collapse. In the 1300s the Black Plague (Bubonic Plague) killed perhaps 50% of the population of Europe. One hundred years ago we feared global domination by fascism and communism from just four countries (Japan, Germany, Italy and Russia).

The cross triumphed over them all because disciples like you and me refused to be defeated. And so let us look at the cross as an awakening to God’s love for us.