"Joy
to you, precious cross of the Lord, guide to the blind, physician to
the sick and resurrection to all the dead.
You lifted us out of corruption and removed the curse; through you we
have been made godly, and the power of hell has been completely destroyed.
Therefore seeing you today lifted up by our priests we exalt Christ
who was suspended on you,
And we bow down low before you, seeking forgiveness and great mercy."
(Hymn of the Holy Cross Feast)
The Orthodox theology of the Cross is at once Cross-Resurrection. We
must have both at the same instant if it is to make sense at all. For
us the Cross is a joyous victory, overwhelming to the imagination and
too wonderful to comprehend.
As in Constantine's dream this is the symbol by which we have triumphed
over the forces of evil, darkness and death. In the classic analysis
of drama where every plot ends in either tragedy or comedy we dare to
affirm that the plot of life is a comedy; not that it is comical, as
we today understand comedy; rather, that the principal characters of
life, Adam and all his offspring, have triumphed over the tragic elements
of existence through the victory won by Jesus of Nazareth.
We Orthodox glory in the Cross-we kiss it and wear it on our breasts,
we mark our houses and bless our persons with that sign of life; yet
the very joy we find in it is an offense to many persons who view life
as a tragedy.
Much of today's youth movement must be put in that category; for all
their good intentions, there is not much of a positive, triumphant nature
in their songs and writings. They speak of peace and love, they pity
the world and, sadly, themselves also. This tragic view of life permeates
modern art; for example, a painting of Christ's cross by a young American,
Rico LeBrun recently acquired by the Cleveland Art Museum. Its title
is. "Shroud on the Arm of the Cross." Besides showing the
nothingness of death and its senseless tragedy, the dark streaks of
wood clinging to the white tatters of the shroud by blunt wedge nails,
a soldier's spear in the shape of a Spanish pike hinting at the Inquisition,
a starved dog like Picasso's "Guernica" beasts yelping up
at the cross, impatient for the death of his meal dying above him, and
high above the Crown of Thorns like the crest of death itself, marking
the artist's inability not only to understand Christ's redemptive death,
but any hope in life's force, and the unwillingness to go beyond physical
pain to the meaning of suffering.
In our joy of the Resurrection theme, we Orthodox Christians are accused
of a tendency to pass over the stark terror of the cross, seeing it
for the cruel instrument of death it was; yet the Elevation of the Cross
Feast is meant precisely to correct such an impression. We are brought
to the Cross for that purpose.
Touched as we are by the tragic, sympathetic understanding of life our
young people display, we point to the lack of any goal, any idea which
transcends the tragic in their understanding of life. Their emotions
are in fact pre-Christian; sympathetic, but pagan. For Christians, life
in itself is not the greatest good, nor pleasure our human purpose;
Christ is asking us to be sons and daughters of God, and to take the
responsibility for transforming the world with love. By his life, death
and resurrection he has shown us what true values are.
