The Multiple Meanings Of The Cross Of Christ

Solemnity of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2025

In every Christian assembly I’ve attended, I have noticed a number of folks in the congregation wearing jewelry in the shape of a cross, usually simple silver or gold, but sometimes more intricate. On occasion I’ve seen images of Jesus hanging on the cross. And in every Catholic service, an acolyte leads the procession holding up a large crucifix as a kind of banner, proclaiming our belief in the sacrificial death of Jesus on Calvary.

But consider what is being celebrated. In another age or culture, perhaps imagine a processional gallows or guillotine or gas chamber. Remember that crucifixion was the particularly gruesome form of torture and execution in Roman culture. When the Son of God debased Himself by assuming a human nature, He came in the form of a slave, and when a corrupt judicial system condemned Him to death, it was His own people who screamed “crucify Him” repeatedly before the Roman governor. They demanded the Messiah die a slave’s death. Jesus emptied Himself of His divine status and honor so that through faith and sacrament we could be filled with His Holy Spirit and given all the graces we would need to be new Christs for our world of the 21st century. God gave His all so that we could have it all.

And don’t forget that whenever we say or write or sing “Jesus Christ is Lord,” as St. Paul told the Philippians, we are proclaiming a truth that in the first century would have landed us in jail for treason and probably end up executed by crucifixion like Our Lord. The cross you may be wearing means a great deal more than even many Christians understand.

Take yourself in imagination back to the beginning, Genesis-time. God created humans, male and female, and gave them a perfect world to tend. They were like stewards of a garden. There were simple rules. Tempted by Satan in the form of a serpent, they rebelled against the rules. They sinned. The effects of that sin were propagated down through the ages to us descendants. But God didn’t give up on us, because He loves us more than we love ourselves. He called Abraham and made him a promise, that he and wife Sarah would sire a great multitude and be a blessing to the world. Abraham’s descendants were slaves in Egypt and God worked through Moses to free them and take them to a land of promise. The vision of God was that this people, the Hebrews, would live justly and follow His rules and attract all the world to right worship.

But as you heard in the first reading, they rebelled. They even bad-mouthed the free food God provided. That brought them poisonous serpents and many were bitten and dying. So at God’s command, Moses made a bronze serpent image on a pole. Those who had been bitten could look on the image in faith and be healed.

(Incidentally, the Hebrew for “bronze serpent” is nicosheth nashath. The liberated slaves took the image with them on their journey. They called it Nehushtan.” Remember they were told by God not to worship false gods. They ended up hundreds of years later burning incense before this Nehushtan, making it a false god. Good King Hezekiah found it in the temple six centuries later and finally destroyed it. The incident shows how corrupt human nature can even take a good image and use it badly.)

The well-known passage from John’s Gospel is a kind of echo of St. Paul’s words to the church at Philippi. Jesus is the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. By being lifted up on the cross, dying, rising from death and going up to heaven, Jesus has enabled us who are united with Him in His death and resurrection through Baptism to be made worthy of being raised up like Him after we fall asleep for the final time.

One more idea. The false gods worshipped by the unredeemed world are scary. Pagans make sacrifice to them to keep them from getting angry and hurting them. Pagans worship their gods motivated by fear. But the true God, the only true God, loves the human race and every particular person in it. So loved the human race that He gave His only-begotten Son so that we might not perish. Jesus will be our judge, true, but He first has done the sacrificial work needed to redeem us from our sins. He did not come to condemn the world, but—and here our translation limps by saying “saved”—He came so the world might be cured through him.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Our culture is sick and has been sick for a long time. Without Christ and the Church, the world has tried to get well by treating symptoms. Do you feel bad? The culture sells you drugs and alcohol. Are you lonely? Turn on your computer and meet an AI friend who will tell you that you are wonderful. The disease we have as individuals and as a society is a fatal one. It might make us die prematurely, but for certain, without the true cure, it will make us die eternally. Look up at the cross of Christ, confess your sins, every one of them, because He wants to cure the whole world, one sinner at a time.