Sunday before the Exaltation of the Cross; Commemoration of the Dedication of the Holy Church of the Resurrection of Christ Our God (335); Forefeast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross; the Holy Priest-Martyr Cornelius the Centurion
Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17
Read Galatians 6:11-18
Most of the correspondence we get nowadays is a combination of pixels, not even written on paper, let alone handwritten! St. Paul is ending his letter with an even more personal and important appeal to his audience and so he takes the pen from his scribe to finish off this letter personally. His message is simple, direct, and especially difficult for us in our modern world: The cross was not simply an historical abnormality or exception, but the norm for any Christian.
St. Paul is locked in a battle with the Judaizers, who are trying to convince Christians that they need to be circumcised and observe the Jewish Law. Through his letter, St. Paul shows that they are in fact simply trying to avoid the unpopular difficulties and suffering that necessarily come from following Christ. The Judaizers are only really interested in keeping up appearances: saving their own skins by cutting off other people’s foreskins! The sign of a true Christian is not circumcision, but what St. Paul says he possesses, the “marks of Jesus on his own body.” In other words, St. Paul is boasting because he has been found worthy to suffer for Christ, as Christ suffered for us. This has always been the “mark” of a Christian against the world, a world which insists “save your own skin by all means necessary!”
In your own daily life, what are those other assurances, programmes and “lifestyle philosophies” which need to be crushed beneath the power of the cross? Is it a “wellness culture” with its false promises of immortality through a balanced life? Is it financial security with its lie that if you are only financially secure enough, you will never be in want? Is it autonomy which holds that if you are only able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and with whomever you want, you will finally be free? Brothers and sisters, we have been crucified to these lies and them to us. St. Paul shows us through this letter, and his witness as a martyr, that the forces of this world cannot defeat Christ or a true Christian, they can only kill him. He shows us that the only path to resurrection is through the cross. Let us joyfully take up our crosses and carry them, witnessing to the world the path to true life and love.