THOUGHTS OF A MONK

“Dead Ends”

Exaltation of the Cross
Sept 19, 2005

Have you ever been lost driving a car?  You’re out on the road going down streets that don’t go where you want to go.  This recently happened to a few of us on an overnight trip to Montreal.  We were looking for a bookstore that deals in Orthodox literature.  It turned out that the store was really in the proprietor’s home.  Finding that house was a real trial, and we were using a map!!  We would get to intersections and not be able to make the turns we intended to make. We would find a street we wanted only to discover it was a one-way street going the other way! We finally got to the street we were looking for, but it was a dead end, after a few more turns and turnarounds we finally found the place.  When we left, the proprietor showed us how to get to his place by making only two turns off the main road!  Dead ends on the road are usually just frustrating, but dead ends in life can be devastating.

Today, we continue our celebration of the feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross, now there is a symbol of a dead end!  Father Alexander Schmemann wrote in his Journal in 1982 “Christianity is the overcoming of dead ends. The sin of our civilization is to deny the possibility of such an overcoming.” In Christ’s day, the cross was the ultimate sign of humiliation, destruction and death. In fact Jesus’ death on the cross was supposed to bring an end to him, his followers and his message.  So the cross was to be Jesus’ dead end, literally.  Yet the Cross was transformed by Christ into a symbol of new life. In today’s gospel, Jesus says to each of us individually: transform yourself, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.

But the world is enticing and its message, sometimes blatant other times subtle, is to self-centeredness.  The world will constantly place before us all kinds of behaviors that it says will lead to a better, more abundant, life.  It is a mirage.  One can almost hear a voice whispering in the background of our consciousness as the world’s image of abundant life is laid before us: self-promotion (if you don’t’ toot your own horn, who will?), possessions (how can you live without more and better and new and improved products), political goals (if you ruled the world all problems would be solved), personal ambitions (when you control your future you will be truly happy), personal comfort (your life should be the exception to nature, you should never suffer want or pain), personal health, beauty and well-being (you, unlike all others, will always be beautiful and live forever). We might call these our personal set of Mosaic Laws of Life. But when they become unrealizable, then we live in constant fear of the future that says you can’t survive without all this. All these worldly enticements are intended to keep us focused on the self and its self-defined future needs. But Christ says, forget about the future, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. If we focus just on ourselves, our personal goals, needs, even fears, then we are setting ourselves up for endless disappointments. Just like the Law of Moses, we can never achieve all these things because they are endless. This is why the way of the world is a dead end.  We’re being set up not for a better life but for bitter disappointment and despair. Christ points to a different way.

This is what St. Paul discovered and wrote about to the Galatians. He had followed the Law of Moses to the letter and yet was unable to fulfill it completely. Thus, seeking righteousness through the Law became a dead end.  It was simply a constant reminder of his failures.  It took the revelation through Jesus Christ for St. Paul to realize that one cannot earn what God as a matter of grace has freely given. When the Gospel asks: “what can anyone offer in exchange for one’s life?” this rhetorical question is simply saying you can’t buy or work your way into God’s good graces, or into heaven, because God needs nothing from you, God needs you. We can struggle to do all sorts of good works, or achieve a whole host of personal goals but we can offer none of this in exchange for our life, which has no price, since it is a free gift from God. 

So, if we receive life and life eternal as a free gift from God, what are we to do with this life?  Christ says to us: “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” Two thousand years ago this meant to set off on a terrible path of a person condemned to death by crucifixion, shouldering the heavy beam to which one will be nailed, lifted up, and pilloried at the place of execution. Metaphorically it means to venture on a life, which is as difficult as the last walk of a person condemned to death.

But it can have another meaning. Some commentaries suggest that the cross refers to the Hebrew letter tau or the Greek tau that resembled a cross.  In the Old Testament and later symbolism this could be a sign of divine protection, a mark of divine ownership, which also demanded of its bearer a radical dedication to the divine will.  In the prophecy of Ezekiel (9:4ff) we read, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark (tau) upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” In like manner the meaning of Jesus’ words would be: Take God’s sign on yourself as a sign of radical self-giving to God!

A friend of our community often reminds us that whenever we enter into a serious discussion or discernment process we have to be open, honest, and truly present to the discussion and not vested in the outcome.  The dead ends of this world are all about being vested in outcomes that we have pre-determined that we need. We have a map; we can find that house without any problem. Well, maybe not.

Christ’s relation to us did not start with our decision to believe in him. It began rather with the historical fact of his self-sacrifice on the cross for our sake, which was rooted in his love for us. This love is the origin of our salvation and only love on our part can show that we have indeed received God’s gift in Christ.  Faith alone does not secure our salvation, unless it passes the test of love. This test is a daily one that will end only with our last breath.  St. Paul says it over and over again in his Letter to the Galatians where he wrote of “faith working through love” (5:6), through love be servants of one another (5:13) and recognize that the fruit of the Spirit is love (5:22).

Christ’s love for us, which led to his death on the cross and his resurrection, overcame the dead end of the cross and made it the key that opens the door to everlasting life.  Glory be to Jesus Christ!