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Exaltation of the Cross
Rev. Doug Floyd
The Clonmacnoise Crucifixion Plaque (10th or early-11th century)
Exaltation of the Cross 2025
Rev. Doug Floyd
Isaiah 45:21-25, Psalm 98, Philippians 2:5–11, John 12:31-36a
Today we celebrate Holy Cross Day or the Exaltation of the Cross. Historically, this feast commemorated the story of Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, when she discovered the cross where Jesus was crucified. According to the legend, a temple to Venus has been eracted over the tomb of Jesus. Helena ordered the temple to be torn down and excavated. She found three crosses. She brought a sick woman to the place of the crosses. She had the woman touch the first cross and nothing happened. Then the second cross. Once again, nothing happened. Finally, the third cross was brought to the sickly woman. When she touched it, she was instantly healed. Helena lifted up the cross as the True Cross of Jesus.
One thing we can say for certain is that the cross is central to our faith. As Rowan Williams writes, “There is no pre-cross Christianity.”[1] And yet, for the early Christians, the cross was shameful. Last lent, I did a presentation on the “Art of the Crucifixion,” and we discovered that there are very few images of the cross in the early church. It was seen a form of execution for the very lowest of society. “Romans almost never imposed crucifixion upon their citizens,” writes Robin Jenson, “but rather inflicted it on individuals considered to be undeserving of more humane forms of capital punishment (thieves, slaves, or traitors).”[2]
This fits perfectly with Paul’s description in our second lesson today, He writes, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”[3] Jesus Christ is humiliated as a slave, as a criminal, as the very lowest of the social order.
Jesus had warned the Pharisees of a coming judgment. Those on the inside would suddenly find themselves on the outside: cast into outer darkness. When Jesus is crucified, He becomes the outsider. He descends into darkness, the accursed, the cast aside, the desolate, the forgotten. He enters the judgment that he warned the Pharisees about. He has come to enter our judgment as well.
Though the early church embraced the Good News of Jesus, they avoided creating images of this cross. In the middle of the second century, we already begin seeing artwork by Christians in the catacombs. We see images of Jonah, of the three young men in the fire and even Jesus as a shepherd but no images of the cross.
In the early second century, Justin Martyr writes, “For they charge our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man second place after the unchangeable and eternal God, begetter of all things, for they do not know the mystery involved in this, to which we ask you to give heed as we expound it to you.”[4]
Archeologists have found a piece of graffiti about the cross dated to 200 AD. It is a picture of a man on a cross with the head of an ass. The inscription reads, “Alexamenos worships (his) god.” This graffiti is making fun of people who would worship a man hung on a cross.
“Among all the kinds of deaths there was none worse than that death,” writes St. Augustine. “Indeed, when very severe pains torment one, it is called excruciation, from the word crux (cross). For those crucified, hanging on the wood, fastened to the wood by nails in the feet and hands, were slain by a long drawn out death. For to be crucified was not to be killed by being struck down; but one was alive on the cross for a long time, not because a longer life was chosen, but because the death itself was being protracted so that the pain would not be ended too quickly. He wanted to die for us. We say too little: he deigned to be crucified, having become obedient even to the death of the cross.”[5]
Worshipping a man as God who had been crucified was unthinkable to Jews and Gentiles. And yet, the Spirit worked through this story to open hearts and establish faith communities. People all across the empire turned to this crucified man as Savior. Eventually Constantine legalized Christianity and his mother embraced the faith. The Gospel traveled throughout the world through Christian Roman Soldiers, converted pagan tribes, and Christian missionaries.
People are still turning to the crucified one as Savior of the world. Only four years ago, the English historian Tom Holland published “Dominion” where he discusses the inexplicable mystery that the church formed by worshipping a man who was executed in the most shameful manner of the empire. He sees this radical shift as the beginning of a new world that altered all of Western society.
Gradually the images followed. Images of Christ on the cross appeared in the 4th century, but his eyes were open, which indicated he was resurrected. It was not until the 10th and 11th century that images and sculptures appeared with Christ suffering on the cross. Today, it would be difficult to imagine a church without some image of the cross. Our faith is not primarily symbolized by an empty tomb but by a cross. The humiliation of Jesus is the exaltation of humans.
So far, I’ve been focusing upon the external aspect of the work of the cross, and how it’s shame would eventually become its glory. But the deeper story is the transformation of the heart and the hope of all creation. On this day when we celebrate Christ’s redeeming grace in the work of the cross, we must pause to reflect upon God’s grace revealed in the cross.
We need to go back and reflect on the creation story. We start with Paul’s statement in Roman’s 8:20-21, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”[6]
In Genesis 1-2, we see God creating a world that reveals His goodness. It is good and in light of creating humans, it is very good. The Lord is intimately involved for creating and sustaining every aspect of His world. The Gospel of John reveals that “All things were made through him that is Jesus the Word, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”[7] “Then John says, In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”[8] Humans were made to bear the very life and light of God. Some church fathers like St Maximos believed that Adam and Eve were translucent to this light. They shined out with the glory of God. It would seem from these early passages in Genesis and later passages like Romans 8, humans played a distinctive role is serving and ruling this creation in and through the love of God. (Moses)
Sadly, we come to Genesis 3-4. Humans turn away from God and suffer a broken communion with God and one another. By the time we get to Genesis 4, human blood is shed on the ground. Now creation is suffering directly under violence and sin and humanity. The ground is crying out for vengeance.
In his wonderful book, On the Incarnation, Athanasius emphasizes that all things were created from nothing and dependent on God for existence. To turn from God, separates humans from the very source of their existence. He writes,
[W] hen humans despised and overturned the comprehension of God, devising and contriving evil for themselves, as was said in the first work, then they received the previously threatened condemnation of death, and thereafter no longer remained as they had been created, but were corrupted as they had contrived; and, seizing them, death reigned. For the transgression of the commandment returned them to the natural state, so that, just as they, not being, came to be, so also they might rightly endure in time the corruption unto non-being.[9]
In this state of separation, humans were moving to non-being and eventually non-existence. The sin of turning away from God is the sin of all humanity and is called idolatry. Gradually, humans lose their humanity and become beasts: killing, betraying, exploiting, enslaving, and on and on. As we have seen in our own country and throughout the world. Athanasius helped me to see that sin unravels humans and ultimately all creation. In the words of Isaiah, “it is coming undone.” We physically destroy one another and the earth. We emotionally, relationally, spiritually corrupt the creation.
Jesus descends into the lowest point of this unraveling. In the age of the Roman empire, the lowest point was crucifixion, the cross. Christ assumes every aspect of human corruption in mind, heart, and body. In his death on the cross, he dies a criminal, though innocent. He is crushed, humiliated, and descends to the very lowest corruption of humans. Because Christ is fully man and fully God, he can unite to a corrupt humanity while united to an incorrupt Heavenly Father. Thus, in His resurrection, humanity is raised from the dead and up into communion with Father, Son, and Spirit.
Our union with Christ changes everything for us and for all creation. Even now, His redeeming grace is rippling out to every aspect of creation that has been subjected to futility. We long and groan and strain forward to the day when all God’s people will enter the redeemed and all creation will be raised up into His glory. In Christ, we are priests, we are God’s instruments of reconciliation. And yet, we are weak, and we grow weary. Paul writes in Romans 8
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.[10]
This is why we continue to celebrate our faith through the image of the cross. In the cross, we see the paradox of humiliation and exaltation, of death and resurrection, and sin and redemption.
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
[1] Rowan Williams, God with Us: The Meaning of the Cross and Resurrection—Then and Now (London: SPCK, 2017), 21.
[2] Robin Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023), 8.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Php 2:5–8.
[4] St. Justin Martyr, St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies, ed. Walter J. Burghardt et al., trans. Leslie William Barnard, vol. 56, Ancient Christian Writers (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997), 31.
[5] Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John 28–54, ed. Thomas P. Halton, trans. John W. Rettig, vol. 88, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 85.
[6] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 8:20–21.
[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 1:3.
[8] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 1:4.
[9] St Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, On the Incarnation: Translation, ed. and trans. John Behr, vol. 44a, Popular Patristics Series (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 59.
[10] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 8:22–28.
View all episodes
By Rev. Doug FloydRev. Doug Floyd
The Clonmacnoise Crucifixion Plaque (10th or early-11th century)
Exaltation of the Cross 2025
Rev. Doug Floyd
Isaiah 45:21-25, Psalm 98, Philippians 2:5–11, John 12:31-36a
Today we celebrate Holy Cross Day or the Exaltation of the Cross. Historically, this feast commemorated the story of Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, when she discovered the cross where Jesus was crucified. According to the legend, a temple to Venus has been eracted over the tomb of Jesus. Helena ordered the temple to be torn down and excavated. She found three crosses. She brought a sick woman to the place of the crosses. She had the woman touch the first cross and nothing happened. Then the second cross. Once again, nothing happened. Finally, the third cross was brought to the sickly woman. When she touched it, she was instantly healed. Helena lifted up the cross as the True Cross of Jesus.
One thing we can say for certain is that the cross is central to our faith. As Rowan Williams writes, “There is no pre-cross Christianity.”[1] And yet, for the early Christians, the cross was shameful. Last lent, I did a presentation on the “Art of the Crucifixion,” and we discovered that there are very few images of the cross in the early church. It was seen a form of execution for the very lowest of society. “Romans almost never imposed crucifixion upon their citizens,” writes Robin Jenson, “but rather inflicted it on individuals considered to be undeserving of more humane forms of capital punishment (thieves, slaves, or traitors).”[2]
This fits perfectly with Paul’s description in our second lesson today, He writes, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”[3] Jesus Christ is humiliated as a slave, as a criminal, as the very lowest of the social order.
Jesus had warned the Pharisees of a coming judgment. Those on the inside would suddenly find themselves on the outside: cast into outer darkness. When Jesus is crucified, He becomes the outsider. He descends into darkness, the accursed, the cast aside, the desolate, the forgotten. He enters the judgment that he warned the Pharisees about. He has come to enter our judgment as well.
Though the early church embraced the Good News of Jesus, they avoided creating images of this cross. In the middle of the second century, we already begin seeing artwork by Christians in the catacombs. We see images of Jonah, of the three young men in the fire and even Jesus as a shepherd but no images of the cross.
In the early second century, Justin Martyr writes, “For they charge our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man second place after the unchangeable and eternal God, begetter of all things, for they do not know the mystery involved in this, to which we ask you to give heed as we expound it to you.”[4]
Archeologists have found a piece of graffiti about the cross dated to 200 AD. It is a picture of a man on a cross with the head of an ass. The inscription reads, “Alexamenos worships (his) god.” This graffiti is making fun of people who would worship a man hung on a cross.
“Among all the kinds of deaths there was none worse than that death,” writes St. Augustine. “Indeed, when very severe pains torment one, it is called excruciation, from the word crux (cross). For those crucified, hanging on the wood, fastened to the wood by nails in the feet and hands, were slain by a long drawn out death. For to be crucified was not to be killed by being struck down; but one was alive on the cross for a long time, not because a longer life was chosen, but because the death itself was being protracted so that the pain would not be ended too quickly. He wanted to die for us. We say too little: he deigned to be crucified, having become obedient even to the death of the cross.”[5]
Worshipping a man as God who had been crucified was unthinkable to Jews and Gentiles. And yet, the Spirit worked through this story to open hearts and establish faith communities. People all across the empire turned to this crucified man as Savior. Eventually Constantine legalized Christianity and his mother embraced the faith. The Gospel traveled throughout the world through Christian Roman Soldiers, converted pagan tribes, and Christian missionaries.
People are still turning to the crucified one as Savior of the world. Only four years ago, the English historian Tom Holland published “Dominion” where he discusses the inexplicable mystery that the church formed by worshipping a man who was executed in the most shameful manner of the empire. He sees this radical shift as the beginning of a new world that altered all of Western society.
Gradually the images followed. Images of Christ on the cross appeared in the 4th century, but his eyes were open, which indicated he was resurrected. It was not until the 10th and 11th century that images and sculptures appeared with Christ suffering on the cross. Today, it would be difficult to imagine a church without some image of the cross. Our faith is not primarily symbolized by an empty tomb but by a cross. The humiliation of Jesus is the exaltation of humans.
So far, I’ve been focusing upon the external aspect of the work of the cross, and how it’s shame would eventually become its glory. But the deeper story is the transformation of the heart and the hope of all creation. On this day when we celebrate Christ’s redeeming grace in the work of the cross, we must pause to reflect upon God’s grace revealed in the cross.
We need to go back and reflect on the creation story. We start with Paul’s statement in Roman’s 8:20-21, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”[6]
In Genesis 1-2, we see God creating a world that reveals His goodness. It is good and in light of creating humans, it is very good. The Lord is intimately involved for creating and sustaining every aspect of His world. The Gospel of John reveals that “All things were made through him that is Jesus the Word, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”[7] “Then John says, In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”[8] Humans were made to bear the very life and light of God. Some church fathers like St Maximos believed that Adam and Eve were translucent to this light. They shined out with the glory of God. It would seem from these early passages in Genesis and later passages like Romans 8, humans played a distinctive role is serving and ruling this creation in and through the love of God. (Moses)
Sadly, we come to Genesis 3-4. Humans turn away from God and suffer a broken communion with God and one another. By the time we get to Genesis 4, human blood is shed on the ground. Now creation is suffering directly under violence and sin and humanity. The ground is crying out for vengeance.
In his wonderful book, On the Incarnation, Athanasius emphasizes that all things were created from nothing and dependent on God for existence. To turn from God, separates humans from the very source of their existence. He writes,
[W] hen humans despised and overturned the comprehension of God, devising and contriving evil for themselves, as was said in the first work, then they received the previously threatened condemnation of death, and thereafter no longer remained as they had been created, but were corrupted as they had contrived; and, seizing them, death reigned. For the transgression of the commandment returned them to the natural state, so that, just as they, not being, came to be, so also they might rightly endure in time the corruption unto non-being.[9]
In this state of separation, humans were moving to non-being and eventually non-existence. The sin of turning away from God is the sin of all humanity and is called idolatry. Gradually, humans lose their humanity and become beasts: killing, betraying, exploiting, enslaving, and on and on. As we have seen in our own country and throughout the world. Athanasius helped me to see that sin unravels humans and ultimately all creation. In the words of Isaiah, “it is coming undone.” We physically destroy one another and the earth. We emotionally, relationally, spiritually corrupt the creation.
Jesus descends into the lowest point of this unraveling. In the age of the Roman empire, the lowest point was crucifixion, the cross. Christ assumes every aspect of human corruption in mind, heart, and body. In his death on the cross, he dies a criminal, though innocent. He is crushed, humiliated, and descends to the very lowest corruption of humans. Because Christ is fully man and fully God, he can unite to a corrupt humanity while united to an incorrupt Heavenly Father. Thus, in His resurrection, humanity is raised from the dead and up into communion with Father, Son, and Spirit.
Our union with Christ changes everything for us and for all creation. Even now, His redeeming grace is rippling out to every aspect of creation that has been subjected to futility. We long and groan and strain forward to the day when all God’s people will enter the redeemed and all creation will be raised up into His glory. In Christ, we are priests, we are God’s instruments of reconciliation. And yet, we are weak, and we grow weary. Paul writes in Romans 8
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.[10]
This is why we continue to celebrate our faith through the image of the cross. In the cross, we see the paradox of humiliation and exaltation, of death and resurrection, and sin and redemption.
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
[1] Rowan Williams, God with Us: The Meaning of the Cross and Resurrection—Then and Now (London: SPCK, 2017), 21.
[2] Robin Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023), 8.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Php 2:5–8.
[4] St. Justin Martyr, St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies, ed. Walter J. Burghardt et al., trans. Leslie William Barnard, vol. 56, Ancient Christian Writers (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997), 31.
[5] Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John 28–54, ed. Thomas P. Halton, trans. John W. Rettig, vol. 88, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 85.
[6] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 8:20–21.
[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 1:3.
[8] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 1:4.
[9] St Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, On the Incarnation: Translation, ed. and trans. John Behr, vol. 44a, Popular Patristics Series (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 59.
[10] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 8:22–28.