In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
We Orthodox Christians constantly remember and bring to our mind the Cross of Christ. When we wake up in the morning and begin to pray, we make the sign of the cross. When we sit down at the table, we also cross the food that we are going to eat. During church services we often hear and read liturgical texts dedicated to the Lord’s Cross. And even the hymns dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ are always connected not only with the Resurrection, but also with the Cross: “Before Thy Cross we fall down, O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection we glorify” (troparion to the Cross). These two thoughts about the Cross and the Resurrection are inseparable in the Church awareness. Why is it so important? Why do we constantly look at Christ’s Cross and remember it so often?
It is truly vital to reflect on it in order to prevent the memory of the Cross of Christ from becoming just a habit and the sign of the cross from becoming a mere reflex for us. Every time we remember the Cross of Christ, we must realize what it means to us. Today I would like to point out the two most important things that the Cross of Christ means to us.
Firstly is the salvation that the Lord accomplished on the Cross. The Lord shed His blood on the Cross and suffered a terrible and agonizing death so that we all could enter the Heavenly Kingdom and be saved. Now you can find descriptions of how horrible death on the cross is, and it is hardly possible to read it without shuddering. And when you realize that the Lord, the Eternal God, Omnipresent and Omnipotent, in order to save us and bring us sinners into eternal life, being sinless Himself, endured all this and was crucified on the Cross, then your heart is naturally filled with gratitude to Him. The Apostle Paul writes in his Epistles that hardly anyone would make up his mind to die even for a good person, and maybe someone would be ready to die for a benefactor. But the Lord showed us His love by dying for us sinners, and He died knowing full well that most of humanity would not accept His sacrifice on the Cross and would even laugh at it. However, the Lord nevertheless died on the Cross for the “small flock” that would accept this sacrifice. And may God grant that we may be this small flock and be grateful for what the Lord reveals to us.
And secondly, another equally important point is that the Cross of Christ shows us the image of our salvation. The Lord shows us from the Cross how we should all live. During His lifetime, Christ had nowhere to lay His head, was continuously humiliated, condemned, then was taken into custody, slandered and suffered a terrible agonizing death. And just before His death, the Lord told His disciples: “If you are My friends, then emulate Me, be like Me.” And if we are Christians not only in word, if we really want to be disciples of Christ, then this is our path—that of suffering, humiliation and terrible torment. And this is the path the Lord promised us. The Savior did not promise any of His followers a good, serene, and painless life. The Lord promised His path and His Cup—that is, the same hard life. But the Cross is followed by the Resurrection, and the cross in the life of each one of us will certainly be followed by the resurrection in eternal life too, if we bear our cross worthily, imitating our Lord.
Hieromonk Athanasius (Deryugin)
And this is the answer to many questions in our lives. Every time we feel like we’ve been treated unfairly, let’s recall how unfairly Christ was treated. Every time it seems to us that we are suffering undeservedly, let’s remember the One Who suffered much more undeservedly. And if we perceive all the difficulties and troubles of our lives precisely through the prism of the Cross of Christ, then our lives will be following our Lord Jesus Christ. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me (Jn. 12:26), said the Lord. And following Him means bearing your cross as calmly as our Lord bore His Cross.
The cross of each one of us is incomparably lighter, at the least because all of us have sins we should suffer for; but the Lord had no sins. He took our sins upon Himself, and therefore, let us look at the Cross of Christ in all the difficulties of life. And may this remembrance of the Cross, being surrounded with all that reminds us of the Crucifixion of Christ, help us perceive this correctly and build our lives properly. And every time we make the sign of the cross, venerate the cross, and pray to the crucified Christ, let us keep in mind that we must follow the same path of the cross and that it will surely be followed by the resurrection and everlasting life in the Heavenly Kingdom. Amen.
