Father Christopher Zugger

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

You may or may not know this, but in Communist China there is another wave of anti-religious activity. Under the disguise of saying that all religions must adapt to Chinese characteristics, the political drive has been to force all clergy of all faiths to preach loyalty to the Communist party first, teach about what is called Xi Jinping Thought, and then deal with religion. The first signs of what was coming were when Communist Party leaders announced a few years ago that they were scandalized when traveling by train through the eastern provinces and they saw church towers topped by crosses. The first religious object that they went after was the Cross, and orders came from Beijing demanding that crosses be taken down from the churches, from over church doors, from people’s yards, and even inside houses. The whole new war on faith in anything other than communism that is now raging in China began with a war on the Cross of Jesus Christ and within two years over 2,000 Chinese Catholic and Protestant churches lost their crosses in just one province.

The cross is the ultimate symbol of Christianity – early Christians made the sign of the cross slowly and with reverence, and it was considered to be the 8^th sacrament for quite some time. We wear crosses, we put them up on the walls and atop the churches, and all over Europe many private homes have shrines of the cross in the front yard, and you find them along the roads. Priests make the sign of the cross for the creation of holy water, and holy oil, to give absolution from sin, to bless people and to bless religious objects. Muslims mock Christians as people of the cross, but that is exactly what we are supposed to be, true people of the Cross.

The Divine Office tonight and tomorrow makes use of a number of Old Testament images, with the goal of showing how God slowly prepared humanity, and the people of Israel in particular, for the Cross.

The Tree of Life was the central tree from which Adam and Eve could eat – it was the source of immortality, so its fruit was eternal life, not for its own sake, but so as to live with God. The Ark of Noah was made of wood and provided refuge to Noah’s family and the animals that he rescued by being obedient to God. Jacob blessed the children of Joseph with his arms opened like a cross. Moses’ rod was used to open the Red Sea so that the people of Israel could escape not only from slavery but also idolatry and sin; when they encountered the bitter water at the oasis of Marah, Moses threw wood into it so that the water was cleaned and the people and animals could drink safely; he knocked on the rock at Meri bah to bring water out of a rock for the thirsty Israelites.

His wooden staff was adorned with the image of the bronze serpent and those who would look up and see that staff, lifted up above the Israelites, found healing from the poisonous bites of the real serpents. Moses stretched out his arms in the shape of a cross so that the Israelites could defeat the Amalekites.

All of this leads us to the mystery of the Holy Cross of Jesus Christ. In John, chapter 3, Jesus said that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so I shall be lifted up for the whole world to behold Me. On that cross, Christ Jesus gave Himself, in full obedience to the divine plan. The paradox of the Cross is that it brings us life through the death of the Lord. Like the Ark, it is the instrument of saving souls. Through veneration of the Cross, through pondering the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross,  we come to learn that it is only the cross that offers rescue of souls, healing from poison of sin, and opens the door for us again to eternal life with God. Ironically, the Communists recognize that, and whenever they would take over a church for secular use in Europe and Russia, they almost always obliterated the crosses, just like the Chinese Communists are doing now.

Adam and Eve were bitten by the serpent of temptation in the Garden, and they ate of the tree of knowledge, and forfeited life with God. Jesus restores that life – the Cross destroys the sting of death that entered the world though the original sin, and the Cross is our refuge, the sanctuary of our souls, the secure place where we find the radical love of God who became incarnate for our sake, suffered for us, and opened the gates of heaven to us. A Chinese man in Shanghai told a foreign reporter back in 2014 when the campaign against crosses began in eastern China, “The cross is the glory of us Christians.”

It is supposed to be our glory, our most sacred symbol, the instrument of our salvation. There is no Easter without Good Friday, there is no entrance to heaven without having fought against sin and the devil himself. We may have to fight against the poison of sin, but just as the Israelites were healed of poison by looking upon the staff of Moses, so too we are delivered from the power of sin by putting our trust in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. If even Communist atheists know that, then surely, we as practicing Christians must know and live as if the cross is our glory. As the early Church said, O Crux, ave spes unica! O hail the Cross, our only hope!