Every September 14th, which this year happens to fall on a Sunday, we celebrate the feast of the precious and life-giving cross of the Lord. And we just heard, as you were listening to the gospel, we heard the account from the gospels about the crucifixion of Jesus. And this feast is placed here in the middle of September, far away from our Easter, our Pascha celebrations, which were way back in April. But if you think about it, it's about six months away from that. And after about six months, we need a reminder about the basic elements of our faith. And that's why the church has placed this feast of the cross, and we read the gospel of the crucifixion of our Lord, to remind us of the very center of our faith.
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To everyone in the world, to most people, the cross looks like foolishness. It looks like the defeat of someone. It looks like the shaming of someone. It looks like the undoing of someone, the death of someone. And yet, St. Paul says, to those who believe, the cross is the wisdom, the power, the strength, the life of God.
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Because in the cross, to remind us of the basic tenets of our faith, all of the human suffering is answered. All of the suffering of the human race, people say, where is God in the middle of suffering? And his answer comes to us from the cross. He is on the cross, answering the suffering of the world, not by anything short of coming into the world and suffering and dying. Not to remove suffering, but to transform suffering into not a hopeless thing, but something that is filled with hope.
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Because we never celebrate the cross without the resurrection. Through the cross, joy has come into all the world. It's a message that doesn't make sense, that takes a long time, even for those that are Christians for a while, to truly comprehend the full implications of what it means to be a Christian, of one that is going to appear foolish to the world, one whose hope is beyond this world, one who is not influenced or scared of the suffering in the world.
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And yet for us as Christians, what I contemplate when I think about that, when I think about these things, and when you look at the reaction, the response to whatever things that are happening in the world, when you look at the response within the society, or what are people telling us to do about those things, often what we're told to do is to become fearful, to become upset, to become intensely involved in something or another, right? There's a lot of things that are happening, and there's a lot of pressure in the political world these days. And for us as Christians, we recognize that this is happening, that the world has always been a deeply troubled and flawed place.
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And it comes from the Greek word crisis, which means judgment. And Christ stands at the cross and says, for judgment, I have come into the world to put a dividing line between the earth and the heavens. And where are we going to be in the middle of a crisis? Are we going to align ourselves with worldly things and become intensely focused on worldly things, checking the news all the time, getting involved with whatever? Not that any of those things may be wrong in and of themselves, but if that is the end of our focus, then the judgment of God, we're on the wrong side. We're on the side of this world and its confusion and chaos. When the Lord says, no, I have come for another place. I have come to inaugurate another world.
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So all I'm really saying to you is that as we encounter the things of the world, keep in mind that our focus should be not to become intensely involved in politics. Let's say, for instance, someone may become intensely involved in politics. Our response should be above that, to become intensely involved in religion. How about we become religious about our faith?
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I hope that moments like this in the church, we say, I need to increase my faith and my belief in the Lord and my action towards my faith. I need to increase my daily prayers. I need to come to the church whenever services are available, if I'm able, because that is where our focus should be on our Lord Jesus Christ above everything else.
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Because for him, we see an example. When we look at him, we see an example of something that transcends every crisis within the world. And sometimes it may be reading the news sends us into a state of crisis. Sometimes it can be a relative who's sick that sends us into a state of crisis that tests our faith. A loved one who is close to death, our faith is tested. Whatever those moments are, our response should not be to become upset, fearful, angry. All those things that the world tells us should be our emotional response. Instead, we should take those emotions that we have and dedicate them to our Lord, who bore the grief, the pain, the suffering of the world, who took all of that, was spat upon, was mocked.
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Are we offering our lives for the life of the world? Are we offering the negative emotions we have to the foot of the cross and saying, Lord, help me. Lord, help me to emulate you and to bear the burdens of the world in a Christian way. Not to encounter the burdens of our life and to cave into the negative emotions and actions and thoughts that we may have. Not to become violent in any other way, but as the Lord tells us to become violent. He says, the kingdom of heaven is taken by violence, by force.
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Let's become warriors in our own heart for the truth, for the love of God, for taking the thoughts, the actions, the feelings that we may be tempted to do, and instead looking as an example, our Lord Jesus Christ, who again took the feelings, the negative feelings, and was quiet and offered himself to God, who took all negative thoughts that he may have had against those that persecuted him.
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And by action as well, the Lord on the cross, us on our own little crosses, even coming to church for, I told somebody yesterday, I was at a wedding last night, and I said, I have to work tomorrow, so I can't stay for the dancing at the end of the wedding. And they said, oh, how long is your service? And I said, we go from 8:30 to 11:30. And they said, oh my goodness, I'm going to go somewhere else. No, I'm just kidding. They didn't say that. They could have thought that. But for us, we suffer a little bit even in the church by coming. We offer ourselves to God. We pray. It's a little bit of work to pray. But that is the best work we can do, is to offer ourself in prayer.
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Again, to come Saturday evening for Vespers as a way to prepare ourselves and to detox from our week in preparation for Sunday. So I'm encouraging all of you. It's a beautiful thing. Growing up, we had, as an altar boy, actually everyone, you had to go Saturday night if you were going to receive communion on Sunday. And we're not saying that, but that would be an amazing thing to make our weekly practice, to come and pray on a Saturday evening in preparation for Sunday. That's called being religious, even beyond just coming on Sunday, right?
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Saying our prayers at home, all these things, taking the feelings, taking what we have, and using some force and some willpower to offer ourselves to our Lord for our own salvation and for the betterment of the people around us, to bear the burdens of our life and of the world in a Christian way by offering it to Him in prayer, in that great work, the great work of prayer.
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And I thought to myself, I always, I sometimes make the excuse of having four kids and say, I'm too busy to do that. And I shouldn't do that. I should offer myself in prayer, even when it's difficult, for the work of prayer to prepare ourselves for the divine liturgy. So even if you can't make it to Vespers on a Saturday, I encourage you, read the prayers that are in your prayer book.
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And if you don't have a prayer book, there's some in the hall you can get. I have some I can give you, too, if you like. They're all in there, beautiful prayers to prepare us for coming to the divine liturgy, to again detox us, to separate us from the world, to raise our minds, our feelings, our actions themselves to our Lord Jesus Christ, who raised himself on the cross so that we could look at him and say, this is the God that we want to follow, the humble, the suffering Lord who came for the salvation of the world, who bore our stripes, who bore our suffering and transformed suffering into joy by his resurrection.
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I hope this gives you even a couple things to think about as you think about our life in Christ, our Christian life, preparing for communion, living our life, going out into the world with bravery, knowing that our Lord has won the victory over everything, over every threat, over every evil. The Lord is victorious. Nothing can harm those who are with the Lord.
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The elevation of the Holy Cross is a time to renew our efforts towards spiritual development for ourselves and our children. It is imperative that we all take up our cross and traverse the road of Christian orthodoxy, and to live with goodness, righteousness, and truth, and protected by the power of the holy and life-giving cross. There is no other emblem more honorable and holy for the Christian heart than the Holy Cross.
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The cross of our Lord is the means of our salvation. On the cross, the Redeemer spread out his hands, and by his sacrifice, returned the sinful man to the grace of God.
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Supporting the sacred mission of Hellenic College and Holy Cross enables us to focus and to have a strong awareness of our Christian conscience, our history, our sacred tradition, and our church. It is for this reason that I call upon you to support and participate in the education of our young people who have been called to serve Christ and his church.
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Because if you think about it, this building is a large space, and every week you have 200 people. Imagine 200 people coming, if you had a large house, and 200 people came every week with candles and oil and breadcrumbs and so many things. There's a lot of work to do to maintain it and to make the house of God beautiful. So if you're interested in coming and being part of it, and it's so nice, because usually when you come to clean, it's a little quieter in the church. You get to prayerfully be in the church and make it beautiful, to treat it even better than you treat your home with beauty, with cleanliness and order and everything, as it should be, since it's God's house.
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