Feast of the Triumph of the Cross: Jn.3,13-17, "The Wisdom of the Cross"

One of our greatest avoidances, if not the greatest, is suffering. The last thing that we would want to experience is to suffer. We want to live an easy, comfortable life. We frown, or grimace, or squirm at whatever brings us face to face with difficulties, hardships, and problems. Whenever we meet them, we try to skirt away and hide from them. But rarely are we successful in fending them off.

Sometimes, when the strong blows of life hit us, we tend to think that, somehow, it is the will of God. Perhaps, he gives us what we deserve out of the wickedness we do against ourselves, against our fellowmen, against him. The hatred we sow is the same hatred we reap. The anger that we sow is the same anger that we gather. Then, the blows are not as painful. But when a multitude of problems arrest us when all along we feel we are living meritoriously, we question the goodness and justice of God. He would seem to have shut his eyes and allowed Injustice to prowl freely.

Yes, we have a great dislike for anything that makes life inconvenient and difficult for us. We do not like crosses in our life. We do not want to suffer. But isn’t it true that gold has to pass through extreme heat to reveal its luster and glory? A diamond needs to endure many cuts to sparkle more brilliantly. A seed does not sprout unless it is buried in soil. The baby learns to stand on its own feet after innumerable falls. An athlete could never do without undergoing the rigors of daily exercise. A religious sister lives her call only as she turns her back on the pleasures and the comforts and the luxuries of the world. “If you want to come after me, then take up your cross and trace my steps.”

In the Scriptures, God shows us a different way of looking at the cross, at suffering. Exodus narrates that God sent poisonous snakes that bit many of the Israelites. He did this to warn and chastise them; they were constantly complaining, they were wanting in faith. To save from death those bitten, God had Moses set up a serpent on a cross, so that any one who looked at it would be cured. This was going to be an anticipation of the grace of salvation which would flow from the cross of Jesus.

God's way is truly far different from man's. For he used the instrumentality of suffering to bring new life to a dying, if not an already dead, world. The story of Noah has this message. The world in which Noah lived was overflowing with wickedness, corruption and lawlessness. Men and women had very loose morals, and they grieved God. He even got to regret having created the world. But finding favor with Noah, he ultimately decided to renew the earth, and not destroy it totally. He had the earth suffer the utter horror of the great flood. But with this suffering came the promise of new life. The earth was transformed, and God filled it with the blessing of fruitfulness.

But the cross is not only a symbol of the power of God. More significantly, the cross is the ultimate symbol of the love God has for sinful, broken humanity, for us. We are a sinful people, and our sinfulness qualifies us only for death – death forever. But despite our wickedness, God still sees a very good reason to buoy us up from the pit of death – He loves us so much! Love is the reason, the only reason. And so even if it hurt to see his Son, Jesus Christ, suffer, God sent him to take up the cross, walk the distance to Calvary, and get himself nailed and murdered. By that hurting way, Jesus accomplished the great mission of saving the world. The cross brought back to us the grace of eternal life we lost through sin.

Now, who are we not to love the cross?

Job, in the Old Testament, was a very happy man. He had everything a man wanted in life. He was a wealthy but more importantly, a holy man. Then, suddenly and drastically, God took back everything: his beautiful family, everything he possessed, everything. That must have been a very heavy cross to carry. But Job showed that, after all, he did not lose everything. He did not lose what mattered most: his faith. Amid his poverty, he still found reason to shout to the world, “God gave, and God has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

The cross is a gift. Let us keep in mind that it was through the triumph of the Lord on the cross that we became heirs of everlasting life. Time and again, we evade the cross because we fail to see that it is out of love that Jesus gives us the cross. He gives it so that we, too, might fight the fight of the faith . . . and emerge victorious.

May the Lord grant us the wisdom to understand that life flows from the cross.