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The Universal Exaltation
of the Cross, and Its Scandal for the World
adapted from the
blogspot Orthodox Christian Meditations
by Father Steven Kostoff
As we behold the Wood of the Cross exalted on high, let us magnify God who in His goodness
was crucified upon it in the flesh. [Small Vespers of the Feast]
We are approaching the Feast Day of The Universal Exaltation
of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross - to give the Feast its full title. This is the day that we liturgically
commemorate and venerate the Cross that will be placed in the middle of the church toward the end of Great Vespers.
The Feast will then have a full "octave" for its celebration – thus making it an eight-day Feast which
serves to stress the importance of the Cross in the life of the Church and in our personal lives. To further turn
our attention toward the Cross, we recall the Third Sunday of Great Lent - the Adoration of the Cross; and the less well-observed
Feast of the Procession of the Cross on August 1. And, importantly, every Wednesday and Friday is a day of commemorating
the Cross, one of the reasons that we fast on those two days on a weekly basis.
Prominent though that the Cross may be for Christians, it is the Apostle Paul
who very succinctly and profoundly captured the unbelieving world's attitude toward the Cross in his well-known text:
For Jews
demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to
those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. [I Cor
1:23-24]
This leads the
Apostle to one of his most astonishing and paradoxical insights:
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the
weakness of God is stronger than men. [I Cor 1.26]
The "scandal" for the unbelieving Jew would be the claim
that the Messiah was crucified. The "folly" for the Greek/Gentile would be the claim that the divine would
even enter the realm of flesh and blood and "become" human, let alone suffer death on a cross. Yet God, in
and through Christ, transformed what is shameful, weak, lowly and despised - a crucified man - into "our righteousness
and sanctification and redemption" [I Cor. 1.30]. The entire passage of I Cor 1.18-31 deserves
careful, close and constant study.
It remains fascinating, and highly instructive, that even non-Christians who profess
to have a great respect for Jesus Christ, struggle terribly with the scandal of the Cross. This is clearly the
case with Islam. Jesus is treated with great respect in many passages in the Qur'an: even to the point of acknowledging
His virginal conception in a passage that clearly resembles the Annunciation from the Gospel According to St. Luke!
[Qur'an, 3.45-47]. However, the Crucifixion is treated in a way that bears no resemblance to the Gospel accounts:
"yet they did not slay him, neither crucify him, only a likeness of that was shown
to them." [Qur'an 4.156-159]
The Muslims believe that someone else - a figure unidentified by the Qur'an - was crucified in the place of Christ,
but not Jesus Himself. The Muslim scholar Dr. Maneh Al-Johani wrote: "The Qur'an does not elaborate on this
point, nor does it give any answer to this question."
Clearly, the "scandal" of the Cross is too much for Muslim sensibilities, since Jesus is for them a great
prophet sent by God. Muslims further believe that Jesus was raised to Heaven, yet before He died, clearly
an odd teaching that again is meant to completely distance Jesus from His crucifixion. If there is anything that is
agreed upon today among New Testament scholars - believers and skeptics alike - it is that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death
by crucifixion by orders of Pontius Pilate in the early 30's of the Christian era. This lends a certain fantastic quality
to these claims of the Qur'an.
There
is a close resemblance here with an early Christian heresy known as docetism from the Greek word meaning
"to appear." In other words, it only "appeared" that Christ was actually crucified and died on the
Cross. St. Ignatius of Antioch [+c. 110] vehemently rejected this heresy in its initial inception, early in the 2nd
c.
Be deaf, then, when anyone speaks to you apart from
Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David, who was of Mary, who was truly born, ate and drank, was truly persecuted under
Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died ... He was also
truly raised from the dead, when His Father raised Him up ... [Epistle to the Trallians, 9]
St. Ignatius very poignantly asks: what is the purpose of suffering
martyrdom for the Lord (as he did in the Roman arena) if the sufferings of Christ were an illusion? Should a Christian
suffer in the flesh if his Lord did not?
But if, as some
godless men - that is, unbelievers - say, his suffering was only apparent (they are the apparent ones), why am I in bonds,
why do I pray to fight wild beasts? Then I die in vain. Then I lie about the Lord. [To the Trallians,
10]
We do not "worship"
the Cross. We worship the One Who was crucified upon the Cross for our salvation. Indeed, with the Apostle Paul
we call Him the "Lord of glory." [I Cor 2.8]. Jesus Christ was not merely a prophet in a chain of prophets
sent by God. He is the fulfillment of the prophetic testimony to His coming, as He is the fulfillment of the Law.
[Mt 5.17]. There are no prophets to follow Him with any further additions to the Christian revelation. We believe,
as we chant in the Second Antiphon of the Liturgy, that He is the "Only-begotten Son and immortal Word of God
... Who without change didst become man and was crucified." The Cross remains "an unconquerable token
of victory," and "an invincible shield." In fact, it is for this reason that in our practice, we,
kiss with joy the Wood of salvation, on which was stretched Christ the Redeemer.
[Small Vespers]
Christianity
does not exist because of what it holds in common with other great world religions, but because of what is unique and distinctive
about it, primarily the Incarnation, redemptive Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is because of
our love for Christ that beginning on the personal level, we must promote and practice mutual respect, tolerance and peaceful
co-existence with sincerely believing people of other religions. I see no other way for those who claim to follow the
crucified Lord of glory. However, this should in no way undermine our sense of Christian distinctiveness - "And
there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved"
[Acts 4.12] - but actually demonstrate our loyalty to Christ Who never compels but invites - with outstretched arms upon the
Cross.
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