The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
14 September 2025

 I want to focus on the selection from the Book of Numbers.  It is important for this feast, but also for appreciating the sacramental life that is such second-nature to Catholics.  The Catholic Faith professes belief that God’s decision to unite Himself to the created world by taking on human flesh in the incarnation has important implications.  One implication is that matter, the stuff of the ordinary world around us, can be used by God and raised to a special purpose.  God’s use of created things means that just beyond what our senses can perceive in the ordinary is a deeper reality of things extraordinary.  This implication is a foundation of how we understand the sacraments, those seven special gifts of God’s life and power.  For example, water is part of the natural process of giving birth, water supports life, and water is used to wash clean.  In and of itself, the substance, the stuff of water has no power to bring about spiritual life or to wash sins away.  However, when employed by God in the sacrament of baptism, water is part of the process of coming to spiritual birth, baptismal water supports the life of the soul, and baptismal water cleanses us from sin.  Sacraments, because they are established by Christ, are obviously New Covenant realities that did not exist in the Old Covenant.  However, given that Catholicism can be so misunderstood and suffer from claims of not being Bible-based, I think it is so important for us to see just how consistent with Scripture our faith is.  I want to make a claim that some might find surprising.  Though sacraments, properly speaking, are new covenant realities, the logic and principle of the sacraments, meaning how sacraments work, is already present in the Old Covenant and visible in selections like today’s from the Book of Numbers.  In other words, hundreds of years before Jesus established the seven sacraments in his Church, the idea of what a sacrament is can already be seen in God’s action in the Old Testament.

 Consider the event of the first reading.  God’s people complained about the harsh conditions in the desert as He was leading them away from Egypt.  As punishment for their rebellion against Him and their lack of faith, God sent poisonous snakes.  Those who were bitten died.  When the people cried out for mercy, what was God’s response and solution?  God gave the curious instruction that Moses was to make the figure of a snake and raise it on a pole.  Those who looked up at the snake were saved from the effects of the poison.  That is the logic and the principle of how the sacraments work.  And that is in the Old Testament, well before Jesus and well before his Church!  There is nothing about bronze, or the shape of a serpent, or about raising something on a pole that saves a man from the poison of venom.  God certainly didn’t need to use such things to save His people.  But He chose to use the matter, the ordinary stuff of the world to be a vehicle by which he would accomplish this saving action.  And thus, something that has no life-preserving power (bronze, serpent, a pole) does have such power when employed by God according to His will.  While we may not know why God chooses to act in this way, we might reasonably suggest that, in at least some cases, God chooses to respond to His people’s needs in sense perceptible ways so that His people know He is present and active.  He Himself doesn’t need sense perceptible ordinary things.  But in His mercy, He chooses at times to make use of such means for human beings who do interact with the created world through the senses.  The event of the bronze serpent shows us the logic and principle of the sacraments, and it shows us this at work even in the Old Testament.

Now let’s look at what the bronze serpent teaches us about the Holy Cross.  First, notice the inconsistency in the complaint of the people.  They complain that God has taken them into the desert “where there is no food or water”.  Yet, the very next complaint is, “We are disgusted with this wretched food!”  In other words, yes, the desert is harsh, but God provides for them.  The issue is that they simply do not like the way God provides nor what He provides.  In fact let’s recall, God had already given them water from the rock, quail, and the bread-like substance called manna.  So, when we read that the Israelites express disgust at this wretched food, we should recognize those words for the ingratitude and sacrilege that they are.  It is deeply offensive to God’s generosity.  And thus, the punishment of the saraph serpents.  Also, notice how God answered their prayer for mercy.  The Israelites asked Moses to “pray the Lord to take the serpents from us”.  God answered the prayer, but He did not take the serpents away.  Rather, He provided a method by which the people could be preserved from the effects of the venom.  The very implication of making a bronze serpent to be looked upon means that the saraph serpents were still there, people were still being bitten, but now they had a way to be saved.  And what was that way?  Those bitten had to look upon, to gaze upon the bronze serpent.  What did that accomplish?  The people had to look upon the effects of their complaining and rebellion against God.  He would not let them forget their rebellion and its effects, even as He devised a plan to save them.  The people had to look upon the bronze serpent and see in it a reminder of what their rebellion had brought to them.  One wonders, did everyone who was bitten look upon the bronze serpent?  Did some do so believing that God would save them?  Did others lack faith and refuse to obey, refuse to look upon the serpent, and so die?

The bronze serpent is clearly a type of how the Lord himself would be lifted up, exalted on the Cross.  The Cross of the Lord fulfills this event from the Book of Numbers.  Have you ever heard criticism because catholics typically have not empty crosses, but crosses bearing the corpus, that is the image of Christ on it?  Some make the claim that this is a sign that Catholics think Jesus is still on the cross, as if he has not resurrected.  That is as silly of a claim as suggesting that because we like Nativity Scenes at Christmas, we still think Jesus is a baby in a manger.  But more to the point, it is Jesus who saves us.  It is Jesus on a cross that saves us.  It is not an empty or bare cross that saves us.  Again, the Book of Numbers: Did God instruct those bitten by snakes to look upon the pole only?  No, He instructed them to look upon the serpent.  It is not an empty or bare pole that saved them.  Just so, we look upon a cross bearing the Body of the Lord because it is he who saves us.  And why is it important that the cross have the Body of the Lord?  Because, just like the bronze serpent, we are to look upon the effects of our sin.  When we look upon the Son of Man lifted up on the cross, we must see and acknowledge what our sins do.  They are deserving of death and they brought about the death of Jesus, the Son of God.  God Himself came to pay the price for our sins.  Only a fool would dismiss his sin and pretend it does not have real consequences.  Let’s be clear, it is not an empty, thoughtless looking upon the Lord on the Cross that saves.  The Gospel says, “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”.  Our gazing upon the Lord cannot be a passive or empty act.  It must be done with faith and conviction for it to communicate its saving effects to us.

At Holy Mass we come to participate in, and to have presented to us, the same saving grace of the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.  Have we complained or disregarded God’s action?  Have we committed our own sacrilege by disregarding the Holy Eucharist as somehow “wretched food”, or receiving it unworthily, or almost ignoring it?  Do we look upon the image of the Lord’s cross in a passive way, glancing but not letting it drive us to truly believe and change our lives?  Do we ignore the effects of our sin by rarely confessing, even though seeing the Son of Man lifted up should be a reminder of our sinful rebellion?  Do we see in the image of the exaltation of the Holy Cross the sign of how “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”?  Do we have gratitude for the love of God and let that love motivate us to love Him with repentance, faith, and worship?  At every Holy Mass, in the midst of the desert of our own struggles, we have presented to us the one same lifting up of the Lord, who gives himself to us as food, a saving remedy for the venom of sin, and protection on the journey to the Promised Land of Heaven.  Yes, we look upon Christ, and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2), because by his holy cross he has redeemed the world!