Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2024

Numbers 21 – 4 -9; Philippians 2:6 -11; John 3:13-17

All three of the readings for this feast focus our eyes on the Cross or its foreshadowing and our minds on life-giving paradox.

First, Moses’ standard, which has become the symbol of the medical profession, whereby those bitten by deadly serpents are healed by looking upon a bronze serpent; then Paul’s hymn to the Christ, utterly emptied of self, of Godhead, and therefore exalted, lifted up in glory; finally, John brings the two together.

The abbey church is dominated by the huge icon Crucifix made by our Dame Werburg Welch sometime in the 1930s when she was in her own thirties. The words at its base are Greek transliterated into Latin characters, words we sing at the Solemn Liturgy on Good Friday, rich in paradox. Agios O Theos: ‘Holy God’ we proclaim of the naked condemned criminal; Agios Ischyros: ‘Holy Strong One’ we declare him to be who hangs on the Cross in weakness; Agios Athanatos: Holy Immortal One we name the dying, the dead Christ.

The first antiphon of Vespers announces, ‘Death was dead when Life was dead on the Tree.’

A lesson from St John Chrysostom which we read at Vigils this year beautifully brings out the paradox: By the very means by which the devil had conquered, by these Christ conquered him; and taking up the weapons with which he had fought, he defeated him.

A virgin, a tree and a death were the symbols of our defeat, The virgin was Eve; the tree was the knowledge of good and evil; the death was Adam’s penalty. But behold again a Virgin, and a tree and a death, those symbols of defeat, become the symbols of his victory. In place of Eve there is Mary; in place of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of the Cross; and in place of the death of Adam, the death of Christ.

Who can tell the Lord’s mighty deeds? By death we were made immortal, these are the glorious deeds of the Cross.

Sr Philippa