Tells the priest Andrey Chizhenko.

On September 27, the Church celebrates the great twelfth feast – the Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord. This is the only twelve-year holiday that is a little more than two centuries apart from the historical New Testament period, in which the earthly life of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ took place. The aforementioned twelve feast day is associated with an event that occurred much later – in 326, when with God’s help through the work of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Queen Helena, with the assistance of the Holy Martyr Kyriakos, the Cross, on which the Lord was crucified, was obtained. And Patriarch Macarius of Jerusalem exalted the Tree of the Cross over the people (hence the name of the holiday). This is how the worldwide Exaltation and glorification of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord took place. In honor of the Passion of Christ, on this day the Church established a strict one-day fast. Vegetable food with oil is allowed.

But we, with God’s help, will think a little about the holiday and try to touch the great mystery of the Cross, the great and saving mystery of the Redemptive Feat of the Son of God…

Several centuries before the acquisition of the Tree, both the Jews and the Romans tried in various ways to destroy Christianity and the very memory of the Cross as an instrument of our salvation. At that time, Christianity was always between the hammer of the Jews and the anvil of the Roman pagans. But God led His faithful through fire and water and brought us into abundance (see Psalm 66, v. 12).

The enemies of Christianity bribed the guards so that the soldiers who guarded the Holy Sepulcher, after the Resurrection of Christ, would testify falsely that the disciples stole the Savior’s Body, persecuted and killed the apostles and their disciples, and tortured tens of thousands of Orthodox Christians. A pagan temple was built over the cave where the Honest Life-Giving Cross of the Lord was located in order to outrage the shrine and hide its place of residence.

But just as the Resurrection of Christ could not be restrained by the enemies, in the same way the glorification of the Lord’s Cross could not be hidden. In due time the Cross appeared to mankind and was raised above the world forever, world without end. The Lord, with the help of the Cross, sanctified and blessed the world and continues to protect and preserve it. The Cross of Christ was called the Life-giving Church, because the Blood of the God-man was shed on His Tree and gave the world life and salvation. And since that time, the Cross of Christ shines for everyone and calls everyone to him.

The Holy Gospel contains the following words: «And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it”» (Mark 8:34, 35). This call of the Lord resounds for us now. Yes, ontologically, historically, spiritually, the Redemptive Feat of our Lord Jesus Christ has been accomplished. But now the Savior calls us to enter into this feat, to be crucified with Him, in order to be resurrected with Him. His life is our life too. It is not for nothing that the Gospel says that Christ does not carry the Cross alone; at some point, a certain Simon of Cyrene helps Him carry the Tree. The Lord opens up to human the possibility of JOINT bearing of the cross for the salvation of human. He calls us to carry the Cross with him.

But a fleshly, earthly human may ask: why should I suffer, why bear the cross and go to «Calvary»? He wants to answer like this: my dear, you will still have «Calvary» whether you want it or not. What is Calvary? This is death. Won’t you die? Will you not be crucified on your cross for cancer, accident, stroke, heart attack, gunshot wound, etc.? You will have your cross.

But the question is, for what will you suffer? For hell? Or for heaven? For what will you prepare yourself? To Herod’s incessant gluttonous feasts? To the rope and the scattered belly of Judas? To the fear of Pilate’s power and cowardice? To the furious hatred of the scribes and Pharisees, which led to the complete destruction of Jerusalem in the second half of the 1st century?

Or for God to enter into you, and enlighten you, and lead you into eternal bliss?

The Lord is calling you to Calvary. Follow him on the trail. And you will enter the Resurrection…