The Madness of the Cross
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| One of the earliest depiction of the crucifixion, a work of graffiti from sometime between the 1st and early 3rd century attesting to the madness of the cross. Intended to mock, the inscription reads: "Alexamenos worships [his] god." |
The Exaltation of the Cross is one of my favorites – I think it’s okay to have a few favorite feasts. Last night’s vigil was wonderful. And I was reminded: You know who preaches FAR more in the Orthodox Church than a priest, don’t you? The choir. And last night, such preaching was magnificent. That singing was lovely, of course, but the words communicated to us were what really struck me last night.
What an odd people we are to be singing about an instrument of extreme torture and death. The cross as a Christian symbol is so ubiquitous today, I don’t think we stop to think about how radical a thing it was and is. A contemporary example would be to have a hangman’s noose or an electric chair around our necks as jewelry and we write hymns about their beauty. Dark stuff. And yet here we are and there they were as the infant Church considering that humiliating and horrific and shameful means of death being an instrument of beauty, life, and joy. They must have seen us as mad.
But of course, we go further than that in our madness, because we don’t just sing ABOUT the Cross, we sing TO the Cross – throughout Vespers and Matins:
“O most venerable Cross…as thou art exalted today…”
“O three-branched Cross of Christ, thou art my strong protection…”
“Thou, O Cross, a sign radiant with light…”
“Rejoice, O life-bearing Cross…”
“Thou, O Cross, a sign radiant with light, formed of stars…”
Imagine us singing as such about the electric chair? With the cruciform wood of a tree, arguably one of the worse means that humankind has ever managed to dream up for killing one another, God has used - upon Himself at our hands - as a means of restoration, healing, the granting of Life, redemption, salvation, and the making of all things anew. There is a deep poetic wisdom in this madness…this beautiful, life-bearing, love-ridden, and salvific madness.
and upon it hast Thou, the eternal King, worked salvation in the midst of the earth.
Exalted today, it sanctifies the ends of the world,
and the church of the Resurrection celebrates its dedication.
Angels in heaven rejoice,
and men upon earth make glad,
crying aloud with David and saying:
“Exalt the Lord our God and worship at His footstool,
for He is holy, granting the world great mercy!”
- Tone 1 Idiomela (by Andrew of Jerusalem) at Litya.
We are a religion rooted in the earth, by which I mean the literal and material earth. The dirt, the rocks, the water, the air, the trees, the plants, and the flesh. Through it we have been made and redeemed. That wood, that torture tool, that execution platform is what sustains this world. I believe St. John of Damascus wrote it best: "I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter…I will not cease from honoring that matter which works for my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God.”
A blessed feast to all of you mad people who celebrate today.
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