God’s Great Plus Sign: The Cross
Homily by Archbishop Michael St. Mary Magdalen Orthodox Church Sunday after the Elevation of the Cross
The Cross as God’s Great Plus Sign
Sunday after the Elevation of the Cross, which we celebrated last Sunday.
We are in the midst of a whole cross surrounded by beautiful flowers and plants in the middle of the congregation. And we may pay homage to the symbol.
We bow down before the cross today. We bow down not to wood, but to metal, but to Christ and His great love, of which the cross is the sign and symbol. The flowers surrounding the cross again, the fragrance, the sweetness, and beauty that is attached.
May I like to spend a few minutes examining the meaning of the cross that can be…
A little girl was at that point in her education where she was studying the mysteries. She was deeply impressed with signs—division signs, multiplication signs, subtraction signs, plus signs.
And then she came to church and she said to her father…
Her statement of course was a natural one but far more perceptive than she realized or that most of us realize who found sense that the cross is God’s great plus sign.
Let’s look at what that means.
The Plus of God’s Strength, Forgiveness, and New Life
The cross means that we do not have to rely solely on our own resources. We have the great plus of God’s power. God has placed tremendous power in nature. In one glass of water, there is enough energy to begin to propel a ship across the ocean.
Shall this God who placed such power in nature refuse His children when they come to Him in weakness, asking for strength?
If Jesus taught us anything about God, He taught us that He is the God who gives strength to the weak. Man plus God’s strength equals the ability to overcome anything that life throws before it.
To one who is burdened and cast down by the overwhelming sense of feeling that one can never be forgiven, that one can never… God’s forgiveness.
The most difficult person to forgive is oneself. But the fact that God has forgiven and accepted us should help us forgive ourselves. If He accepts us, then we can learn to accept ourselves. Sinful man plus God’s great mercy equals forgiveness.
And salvation. Plus of newness of life. So we have the plus of power, the plus of forgiveness, and now the plus of newness of life. The addition of Christ to man’s life is not a simple addition.
It’s more like adding hydrogen to oxygen and getting a new substance.
As Saint Paul put it, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away.”
Christ Himself gets a new unique expression in this world, one that has never been before. Man plus Christ equals new life.
The Plus of Eternal Life and God’s Love
The plus of eternal life. Christ took that minus sign and crossed it out by the resurrection, turning it into life’s great plus sign. Paul writes to the Corinthians in his first letter: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, for as by one man came death…”
Jesus’ own words in the Gospel of John: “He who believes, even if he dies, yet shall he live.”
Dying man plus Christ… where Scripture says, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it ever been conceived the things God has prepared for those.
The plus of God’s love. The cross is a very eloquent sign and symbol. It is a pledge that God will go to the utmost for us. Can a mother forget the child of her womb? Neither will the Lord forget any of His people.
The cross speaks. It tells us how much God loves us, how much He cares. He cares so much that He gave His only begotten Son for our sins. It says again, “Greater love has no one than this, than that he lay down his life for his friends.”
It took the limitless love of God. Never cease. From the cross we learn how great that love is, how eternal that love.
Without the cross we are left with no assurance that we are worth anything. With the cross we can sing with St. Paul: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, or famine? Nothing can separate us.”
The Plus of Victory and the Call to Be “Plus People”
And then there is the plus of victory. Ultimate victory.
This is for us to share. Saint Paul writes to the Colossians that Christ disarmed the principalities and powers, made a spectacle of them, and triumphed over them in the cross.
The cross is never defeat. From the death struggle with the forces of evil came the triumph of the resurrection—the ultimate victory.
I feel like there are two kinds of people in this world.
There are those whose symbol is the minus sign. They never add to anyone’s happiness. Rather, they take away. They leave our company not in faith, not in hope, not in love, but cold.
Thank God there are also the people of the cross. God’s people. The people who live by faith in the Son of God. The salt of the earth, the light of the world, and the love of Christ. They add to it, the light.
On this day, take a role of the cross as we look at God’s great plus signs so beautifully… and have the great plus sign of His presence and His love and His care to comfort us each and every day.
If we have sinned and we add God’s mercy, we will find forgiveness. If we are confused with what is going on in the difficult and divided world, Christ provides us with new purpose, new meaning, and makes us a totally new person.
If we are guilt-ridden and we ask Christ, He assures us of the peace of God that surpasses understanding. Faith assures us that Christ has a place for us where there is no pain or sorrow but life everlasting.
Though we are weak, we have Christ and He brings us His strength. As Paul writes, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
If we are despairing, we look at Christ—then equals hope. Hope that says do not stay the way you are. Come just as you are, and watch God make you into the person you were meant to be. The person about whom God will say, “This is my beloved…”
Christ needs to be added every day in the spiritual world.
Final Reflection
We come to reverence the cross today. We reverence not wood or metal, but the symbol of the great victory mankind has in Christ. A victory over sin and death, a victory in which we all share through baptism and faith, a victory which has changed the great minus signs of this world into the plus signs of His love.
It is a victory which makes each Christian a plus person in the world: light where there is darkness, love where there is hate, hope where there is despair, and life where there is death.
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