REFLECTION:

Funny thing—last weekend, I noticed something about one of our altar servers. She’s a young adult, and apparently she recently got a tattoo of a cross on the back of her neck. I had never noticed it before. But as we were processing into church, I happened to look up and there it was—a cross right in front of me. The actual cross bearer was a little farther ahead, and I started to giggle to myself: “Well, I guess this is the processional cross I’m following today!” At least I knew I was going in the right direction.

Whenever people ask me to bless a cross or crucifix, I usually add a little phrase to the prayer of blessing: “May those who gaze upon this cross be reminded of the great love God has for us.”

And maybe that is the question this feast asks us today: What do we see when we look at the Cross?

Because objectively, the Cross is not a beautiful thing. It was an instrument of torture, humiliation, and death. If we had lived at the time of Jesus, we probably would not have wanted a cross hanging in our homes, around our necks, tattooed on our bodies, or standing prominently in our churches.

But something happened to the Cross because of Jesus.

In our first reading, the Israelites are bitten by serpents, and God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole. Those who had been bitten were told to look upon it, and when they looked, they lived.

Then Jesus says in the Gospel, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”

Again, that invitation: Look. Look at the Cross. But what do we see?

Some might see suffering. Some might see pain. Some might see sacrifice. Some might see their own crosses—the illness they are carrying, the relationship that is struggling, the grief that has not gone away, the burden nobody else knows about. But Jesus tells us what he wants us to see when we look at the Cross: love. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

The Cross is the great sign of how far God is willing to go because he loves us. God takes something that represented death and turns it into a sign of life. He takes something that represented defeat and turns it into victory. He takes something meant to humiliate and raises it up as the sign of our salvation.

And maybe that is why we need crosses in our churches, in our homes, around our necks—and apparently even on the back of our altar servers’ necks! Because we forget. We forget, especially when life becomes difficult, just how much we are loved.

So today, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, when you look at the Cross, don’t just see wood. Don’t just see suffering. Don’t even stop at seeing death.

See love.

And when you are carrying a cross of your own, look again. Because the Cross reminds us that suffering does not have the final word. Sin does not have the final word. Death does not have the final word. Love does.

So perhaps the prayer I use when blessing a cross can become our prayer today: Whenever we gaze upon the Cross, may we always be reminded of the great love God has for us.