By Fr. George Dorbarakis
The Universal Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross presents before us each year that event through which man entered into the Kingdom of God: the Lord's sacrifice upon the Cross. For, according to the Hymnographer, “On the Cross the Lord slew him who had slain us; having been put to death, He brought us back to life and made us beautiful, and in His compassion, because of the abundance of His goodness, He deemed us worthy once again to live in the heavens.” We shall point out below some of the aspects of this mystery of the Cross, through which we have also been saved.
1. The Cross of the Lord: History and Mystery
Approaching the Lord's sacrifice upon the Cross is therefore no easy undertaking. Although it has historical coordinates—it took place at a particular time and in a particular place: in Judea under Pontius Pilate, as we confess in the Creed, “Who was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate”—something that no one can deny, even if he is the greatest atheist, it nevertheless far surpasses what human senses and faculties are capable of perceiving: a man suffering under cruel tortures. The Cross constitutes the greatest of mysteries, because upon it suffers God who became man, God Himself according to His humanity.
This reality is beyond human comprehension. It constitutes a depth that, in order to encounter it, man must call upon his faith. Only the person who believes in Christ can “see”—always partially and by grace—what takes place behind appearances. And what takes place there constitutes the mystery of man's redemption. For upon the Cross Christ, being God and man, “takes away the sin of the world,” abolishes the body of sin in His flesh, reconciles us with God, and opens to us the Kingdom of God.
Man is no longer a stranger and sojourner in the world, but a member of God's household and a friend of the saints (cf. Eph. 2:19). Everything is overturned—that is, everything is restored to its original, proper, and natural condition: we experience God as Father, our fellow human beings as brothers, nature as our fellow creation, and ourselves as truly one with ourselves. Through the Cross of the Lord, humanity has been healed. The poison of sin has been removed. The Resurrection has become a reality for mankind.
The taking away of the sin of the world does not relate only to the age of Christ. When Christ takes away the sin of the world upon the Cross, this means precisely what it says: He takes away the sin of every world—the world before Him, the world of His own age, and the world after Him. The sins of all people throughout all ages were lifted upon the Cross and washed away. There is no longer any unforgivable sin. Whatever sins each of us has committed, is committing, or will commit, Christ has already suffered for them.
Each one of us, therefore, has in a sense been a thorn in Christ—and this belongs to the mystical dimension of His Passion—which means that Christ was wounded and suffered for us as well. Whoever invokes his many and perhaps great sins as a reason to remain far from God is simply blaspheming the Cross of the Lord.
2. The Cross: The Revelation of God's Love
Accepting the Cross of the Lord as a mystical event leads us beyond the trap of “analyses.” Such “analyses” relativize the mystery of the Cross and reduce it to the level of human reasoning. Unfortunately, Western theology in the past fell into this trap, as did those Orthodox theologians who engaged in theology according to Western criteria.
We need only recall, for example, the attempt of Anselm of Canterbury, who reflected upon the question, “Why did God become man, and why did He suffer?” The answer he gave revealed a juridical-legal understanding of man's salvation by God: that God had to be propitiated through the suffering of His Son.
The Orthodox Church avoided this temptation. It reflected only upon the statement, “It was necessary for Christ to suffer”—Christ had to suffer—which for her signified principally two things:
1. The magnitude of man's sin: it was such that Christ's teaching alone, or even His miracles, were not sufficient for salvation. He had to offer Himself as a sacrifice in order to remove the gulf that sin had established between man and God.
2. The infinite love of God: He does not hesitate even to sacrifice His only-begotten Son so that the world might be saved. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Reflection upon the love of God also raised for the Orthodox Church the question of His justice. The justice of God was revealed upon the Cross as love, something that, from a human perspective, appeared to be injustice. This is because, from a human standpoint, the condemnation of the innocent—Christ, that is, who suffers on behalf of the sinful world—and the justification of the guilty—that is, human beings who are released from condemnation—cannot be understood.
Human justice demands the opposite: the condemnation of the guilty and the acquittal of the innocent. Thus, particularly through the Cross of Christ, it became evident that divine justice does not operate according to human standards. If it did, the human race would have had to perish because of its sin. Thankfully for us, the measure of God's justice is His infinite love.
3. The Cross: A Call to Participation
It is well known that the outpouring of so many great gifts upon man through the Cross of Christ—the abolition of sin, reconciliation with God, and restoration to the Kingdom of God—also presupposes man's acceptance of them. If man does not believe in Christ, if he does not become a member of His mystical Body, the Church, these gifts remain inactive for him and empty of content.
For, as we all know, man's salvation requires not only the grace of God but also his own will. How, then, more specifically, does one participate in Christ—that is, how does one become a partaker of the gifts of His sacrifice upon the Cross?
(1) Through Baptism. Baptism constitutes participation in the death and Resurrection of the Lord. When a person is immersed three times and raised three times from the baptismal font, the “womb” of the Church, he participates in the death and Resurrection of Christ. Through this participation he is cleansed; he “dies” to every compulsory inclination toward sin and emerges as a new and resurrected person. Christ is born within him, and he becomes a member of His Body.
“Indeed, our baptism means that we participate in the death and burial of Christ. And just as God the Father, by His power, raised Christ from the dead, so we too can live a new life. Just as, therefore, we were organically incorporated into the Body of Christ through an act that symbolizes participation in His death, so shall we truly participate in His Resurrection” (Rom. 6:4–5).
(2) Through Holy Communion. Man's participation in the Cross does not end with Baptism and, of course, the Chrismation that follows it. It continues unceasingly through the believer's participation, in repentance, in the mystery of the Divine Eucharist. For the Divine Eucharist preserves and increases the grace of God that entered into the depths of the soul through Baptism.
Thus, without the Body and Blood of Christ, the believer grows spiritually weak and withers. This means that through the Divine Eucharist the gifts of the Cross are renewed and multiplied.
Saint John Chrysostom, speaking of the Divine Eucharist, emphasizes its character as simultaneously cruciform and resurrectional:
“When you approach the dread Chalice, approach it as though you were drinking from the very side of the Savior.”
(3) Through the struggle for a spiritual life. The Christian does not become spiritual—that is, a partaker of the gifts of the Spirit of God—merely through participation in the Mysteries. Such a view would suggest that salvation is exclusively the result of God's grace, without human synergy.
He also becomes spiritual through his struggle to keep Christ's commandments. Keeping the commandments, especially faith in Christ and love for one's fellow human being, makes him “open” to the grace of God and creates within him the conditions for proper participation in the Mysteries.
This observance, however, is not easy. It requires a hard struggle against the passions and sins, and even against the evil one, the devil, who tempts us through the passions. Thus the spiritual life literally constitutes the “bleeding” of the soul, a giving of blood, according to the saying, “Give blood and receive the Spirit.” In a word, it is understood as being crucified together with Christ.
“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).
It has been said, in human terms, that the shape of the doorway into the Kingdom of God is cruciform. That is, no one can enter it by bypassing the Cross. The Cross, as essentially being crucified together with Christ, as we have seen, is the Christian's portion. It is his glory, just as the Gospel itself bears witness concerning Christ.
Through it we were saved; through it we were deified; with it we move forward.
The words one sometimes hears—“You accomplish nothing with the cross in your hand”—words unfortunately spoken even by the lips of “Christians,” are words that only the devil could utter. For him, the Cross constitutes “the wound” inflicted upon him.
For us, however, the Cross is always “the guardian of the whole world, the beauty of the Church, the strength of kings, and the support of the faithful,” just as it is, of course, “the glory of the angels.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
