Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Feast of The Exaltation of The Cross

Friends, today we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
How strange this feast would have sounded to someone in the ancient world!
The triumph of the cross!
It would have been analogous to someone speaking today of the triumph of the electric chair
or the exaltation of the noose.

The cross terrified people in Greco-Roman times, and that was the point.
The cross was state-sponsored terrorism, a form of capital punishment reserved for those who had in the most egregious ways
undermined the authority of the Roman state.

So why are we celebrating the triumph of the cross?
There is only one possible explanation,
and that is the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
All the attempts to soft-pedal and explain away the Resurrection are ruled out by this feast.
If Jesus was a victim of that terrible cross tout court,
then we should all go home.

Once they had taken in the experience of the Resurrection,
the first Christians turned with rapt attention to the cross,
convinced that in it they would find something decisive.
Somehow, in the strange providence of God,
that cross was ingredient in the very process by which God would save the world.

+++Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven,
the Son of Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him. +++

There is only one possible explanation, and that is the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

No, Christ's death on the cross is payment (propitiation) for our sin. His wounds (nail prints, crown of thorns, stripes) are for our healing.

No, Christ's death on the cross is payment (propitiation) for our sin. His wounds (nail prints, crown of thorns, stripes) are for our healing.

No, you misunderstand.
Yes you are correct about the propitiation...
(Scott Hahn's popular phrase handily comes to mind)-

"Jesus paid a debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay."

So yes, who couldn't agree with that?
Though, as I type this I can see the Crucifix on the wall, its not something we "celebrate" Is it?
Some don't even like to see the crucified Christ on the Cross,
but it serves us daily to remind us of that payment of "nail prints, crown of thorns and stripes was done for me.
I would not think you sound as if you have a crucifix?

So why are we celebrating the triumph of the cross?
There is only one possible explanation, and that is the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

What your missing is that The Feast of the "Exaltation" of the CROSS-
does not dwell on, or celebration a Roman execution- or The murder of Christ nailed to it..
but rather Christ's conquering of Death over that sin that causes death-
Death has been conquered -
HE is Risen! He lives- he is not dead.
We do not forget the Sacrifice in Exalting the Cross.

We are Easter people- We celebrate in the Cross
The Resurrected Conquering of Christ over sin and Death.

Just a same page misunderstanding...

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