The Holy Cross: The Symbol of God’s Love

The Holy Cross: The Symbol of God’s Love

And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of the Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha, … John 19:17

 
The Holy Cross upon which the Savior of the world opened the gates of the Kingdom of God, is the symbol of God’s love for us, his sons and daughters.  Indeed, as we look upon the Cross of Jesus, and contemplate the meaning it gives our lives, we come to realize that we are like the two thieves that hung on each side of him, but unlike Jesus we are guilty, incomplete, lost, and uncertain what the very meaning of our lives has been.  All four Gospels relate that there were two criminals crucified with Our Lord, but it is Luke’s Gospel that tells us that one came to faith:

"One of the criminals who was hanged railed at him, saying, 'Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!' But the other rebuked him, saying, 'Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.' And he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' And he said to him, 'Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise'" (Luke 23 39:43).

 
Like the “Good Thief” known in tradition as St. Dismas, all we can do in our inability to save ourselves, our inability to re-construct our lives, in our uncertainty about the future of our existence, is to cry out to the Holy One, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  It will be at that moment, of totally letting go of our own failed powers, that we will be opened to receive the “love that saves and redeems”, the love of God poured out from the “blood of the Savior” who was crucified so that we can truly live.  As one of the earliest Church Fathers, Saint Irenaeus (c.202 AD) said in his famous work Against Heresies: “For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God.”

- Rev. David A. Fisher

The Fathers of the Church especially the Eastern Fathers, in their preaching and writings, constantly express that the Christian life is a process of metanoia (transformation), theosis/deification (becoming god-like), because the Father has bestowed the Holy Spirit upon those who have been baptized and entered into the community of faith - the Church.  What we call the “life of grace” is nothing more than living in and with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that Scripture says, “groans within us,” shaping us into the “image and likeness of God” as we were intended to be from the moment of creation.  

In a very real way the Holy Cross speaks to us of God’s intention in creating us.  If we examine Sacred Scripture we find that the first words of Genesis in the Septuagint Version (Greek Version) of the Old Testament begins with the same words that we find in the first verse of John’s Gospel, “?ν αρχ?” (en arché) “In the beginning…”  In the beginning according to Genesis unlike all the other things God created, on the sixth day, “God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”  John’s Gospel proclaims:

In the beginning was the Word,

    and the Word was with God,

    and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things came to be through him,

    and without him nothing came to be.

What came to be through him was life,

    and this life was the light of the human race;

the light shines in the darkness,

    and the darkness has not overcome it. …

And the Word became flesh

    and made his dwelling among us,

    and we saw his glory,

    the glory as of the Father’s only Son,

    full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-4, 14)

 
What Genesis and John’s Gospel reveals to us is that the Word of the Father, the Word who is God was present from the moment of our creation, in fact we are created in his image.  So when from the Holy Cross, Jesus says, “It is finished” (John 19:30) we must ponder what is finished? What is finished in this sacrifice, in this act of redemption, this victory of love over hate, this act of freedom from the bondage of ignorance and sin?  What is finished is the act of creation, for now through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can truly enter the path of theosis, of being formed in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.  

Jesus on the Holy Cross reveals to us the God who is love.  That from the Holy Cross the veil that has veiled the truth of God has been lifted.  Now with eyes that see in the light we see that God has never left us alone, that he calls us to be formed into the image of the Son, which means we too must take up our crosses and follow him, to learn, imitate, and become the children of God - beings of love.