Image Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Samuel H. Kress Collection;191.9.12)
Reading : Philippians 2:5-11 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The Emperor Constantine the Great had a mother; she was Saint Helena who went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where she discovered the very cross on which the crucifixion of Jesus happened. Her discovery in the fourth century has led to us remembering The Holy Cross on 14th September each year. On this day, Christians reflect on the central symbol of our faith, with its paradox of transformation from instrument of cruel torture into the one physical thing we can get hold of and reflect on as representing the means to our Salvation. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God died on The Cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
Different traditions deal differently with the importance of symbolism. In today’s reading from Philippians [2:5-11] Saint Paul explains that Jesus is great in our eyes because God made him so, but his own style was self-effacing. Psalm 22 often used on Good Friday and quoted in the Passion Narrative reflects on a sense of rejection and abandonment.
If you have not spent time thinking about that The Cross really means to you, make the most of today. Arguments about its use and display in our churches are one thing, but more important is whether it can stop to think about the truth of who you are and what you can become because of Jesus’s death on The Cross and his subsequent resurrection.
Saint Helena was the mother of an important historic figure later venerated in her own right. I suspect that when she found what may have been The Cross in Jerusalem, she will have felt small. Her veneration was the work of others, in the same way that Paul describes Jesus’s veneration.
A Prayer
Lord God, sometimes we can be self-absorbed and self-important. We talk about our achievements and some of us are concerned about our status; how other people see us. Forgive us and give us the grace to accept that anything worthwhile in us is solely the result of the submission to The Cross of your only Son, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.