Sermon on the Veneration of the Holy Cross

23 March 2025

Today my beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, is the third Sunday of Great Lent. Today, our Mother the Church presents us with the celebration of the veneration of the precious and life-giving Cross of the Lord. The Church wisely presents the Cross to us in the middle of the forty day fast in order to remind us of the Lord’s suffering and death which preceded His life giving Resurrection (preparing us for Holy Week), and to strengthen us to continue in the labour of fasting. For our own suffering via the cutting off of our will must precede our own Resurrection in glory.

The Synaxarion for today paints a beautiful and most vivid image of the Cross as a staff of support for the faithful. It contrasts the Cross with a leafy tree that gives shade to the weary traveller. It explains to us that just as God planted the Tree of Life, which was a type of the Cross, in the midst of paradise, the Holy Fathers planted the veneration of the Cross in the centre of Great Lent to give rest and spiritual refreshment to the Orthodox observing the ascetic practice of fasting. Christ comforts us who are journeying through the wilderness of this world, until He leads us up into the promised land, the heavenly Jerusalem.

The Cross being placed in the middle of the fast reminds us that the Cross is central to the life of every Christian. Saint Isaac the Syrian writes, “The Cross is the door to mysteries.” What mysteries? The mystery of God’s love for mankind. It is through the Cross that both God’s love for man and the severity of sin is made manifest. This is what Saint Paul meant when he wrote, “…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rm 5:8). The same great Syriac theologian and bishop Isaac says that God could have saved us in any way He chose. Yet he chose to save us through His death on the Cross firstly, to fulfil Divine justice, which unlike the erroneous teaching of the schismatic West does not mean to satisfy the wrath of God the Father, but that everything is done for the right ordering of creation. For example, our forefathers Adam and Eve fell by a tree (the tree of knowledge) , hence we are restored by the tree of the Cross. The first Adam fell through disobeying the commandment. Christ, the New Adam, raises humanity and restores human nature by being totally obedient to the will of the Father, as the Apostle Paul writes, “He humbled Himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even death of the Cross” (Phil 2:8).  The second reason He chose to save us through the Cross was so that God’s love for man would be openly manifest. Saint Isaac the Syrian sums it up when he writes, “God the Lord surrendered His own Son to death on the Cross for the fervent love of creation. For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son to death for our sake (cf. John 3:16). This was not, however, because He could not have redeemed us another way, but so that His surpassing love, hereby manifested, might be a teacher to others…If He had anything more precious, He would have given it to us.”

In todays Gospel reading, Christ tells us what we must do to be His true disciples. “If anyone wishes to follow after me,” He says, “let Him deny Himself.” To deny ourselves means to cut off our fallen will. To follow Christ and be united to Him we must deny our wants and desires, the passions and sins which keep us enslaved to the devil. Denying ourselves anything is a completely foreign concept in our modern secular society. However, as Christians, we must be in the world but not of the world. When the world indulges in gluttonous eating, Christians fast. When the world shuns virginity and praises fornication, Christians struggle to remain pure for Christ. When the world is full of hatred, Christians pray for their enemies and bless those who curse them. The Lord says we must take up our Cross and follow after Him. Our Crosses are our sufferings, sorrows and adversities. The path to union with Christ is littered with difficulties and sufferings. We must accept these with joy, knowing they are sent to us for our salvation. To follow after Christ means to emulate Christ in His labours and self-denial and to obey His commandments for He said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

The fact that our salvation was accomplished through the Cross causes the demons to tremble before it. It is the invincible weapon of the Christian. Let us therefore venerate the Cross with faith and as we journey towards Holy Pascha cry out, “Thy Cross do we venerate O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection do we glorify!”

Deacon Ambrosios Theodorou