Sermon on the Sunday after the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
Originally Preached in the Orthodox Cathedral in San Francisco
According to the Church calendar,1 yesterday was the day in which St. Helena found the cross, i.e. the wood to which the Lord Savior was nailed, and which was long hidden, being buried in the ground and covered with the rubbish carried out of a thickly populated city—Jerusalem, which soon after was crushed into ruins by the soldiery of revengeful Rome. Found, the Cross of Christ, found! Imagine, will you, that great joy of Byzantine’s sainted Empress. It was the cross of her life to find the cross for the life of the world. But you, my hearers, have you found your cross? You have no cross? One without a cross is not a Christian.
When you came to the Church asking for baptism, and in the presence of witnesses you took the oath, that you renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his angels, and all his service, and all his pomp, and that you join unto Christ, then and there was your cross. Have you lost it? If so, you may find it again in repentance, in the sacrament. The father, mother brother, sister, each have their cross; the teacher, the pupil, the traveler, the official, the merchant, the sailor, the soldier, each has his cross. The golden-robed priest enveloped in the fragrance of incense, and the monk in his black cowl, each have their cross. Men will sometimes forget that they have a cross. They should not wait for failure, or a calamity, or sickness, or a death to remind them of their obligations, they should ever be reminded by the constant vision of the entire sacrifice and merciful cross of Jesus Christ. It is a mercy, i.e. a special favor if you are brought face to face with your cross, though it be unawares and painful at the time. Professional men, but especially pastors and overseers, often find their cross in the many crosses of a multitude of different characters in the people with whom they come in contact.
The 14th of September was not alone the finding, but also the exaltation, the uplifting of the life-giving cross. Then the Bishop of Jerusalem with his fellow-workers exalted the cross on high, that all may see it, and now, likewise, did our Bishop with his clergy uplift it, that all may endeavor to uplift themselves to the highest example of purity, truth, sacrifice, that we lie not low under the burden of the cross. It is not sufficient to find the cross. The cross was made to be raised up, and with its outstretched arms to gather in all who would be elevated unto its glory. What do we see in the uplifted cross? Steadfastness of holy purpose, or intention, submission to the will of God, silence, quiet in the midst of the noisy world, hushing the voice of dispute, solitude, alone, without friends, and yet not alone, meditation, prayer, love, sympathy, sacrifice.
Oh, how beautiful and infinite are these miracles of the cross. The very conception of them is too immense for our strength, our patience, and our understanding. Let us take but one word, sympathy, and learn of it what the Word of God would us know, in our narrow limits, of the cross.
What is sympathy? It is not condescension. It is not pity. It is not merely saying, or even feeling, “I am sorry for you”. If it stops there it is not sympathy. To sympathize is not merely to sorrow for another person, but to sorrow with another person. And sympathy is intensely practical. If it expends itself only in feeling, it is but sentimentality. Sympathy, true sympathy, gives not only the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look; it puts forth its hand to help, and is a messenger of comfort and strength. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ”, St. Paul wrote the Galatians. We know that the life of this great. Apostle was just what his injunction to the Corinthians was:—”Who is weak, and I am not weak, who is offended, and I burn not”.
Politic people, and flatterers, would have us be assured, that never before was there greater sympathy between man and man; never were there more institutions for the relief of want and suffering; never was there greater tolerance of divergent opinions than in the present time. It may be so: but we are still very far from realizing the Apostolic ideal. Sometimes, indeed, it would almost seem as though the breach between class and class was wider than ever. Of old the merchant lived among his employees, the territorial magnate surrounded by his tenants. In the country the owners of the soil are almost always absent, leaving the care of their estates to an agent, and taking themselves but little interest in those whom they employ. What sympathy can exist amidst classes so widely remote? the poor clerk and the proud agent or director with a fat purse? What fellowship, where the one knows so little of the other?
But, however little we may enter into its spirit, the Gospel of our Lord is a Gospel of Sympathy. It tells us that, whether others care for us or not, God cares for us, feels with us, bears our griefs, and carries our sorrows. The Incarnation is the expression of the sympathy of God with mankind. When our Lord Jesus became Man, He identified Himself with humanity, in all its weakness, in all its sorrow. An unflagging outpouring of sympathy, an untiring energy of benevolence, a continuous oblation of self-sacrifice—that was the life of the Son of Man upon earth. Many a one has borne his or her poverty more bravely because Jesus Himself was poor; again and again it has helped men in the furnace of temptation to think that He knows what sore temptation means, for He has felt the same. And the mourner in dark and lonely hours has found comfort in the remembrance that Jesus wept at a human grave and knows all the bitter longings of his soul.
To conclude,—we have seen how, even in His Passion, and amid the throes of impending death, “In all their affliction He was afflicted”. Whether for the soldiers who were ignorantly deriding His dying, woes, or for the poor robber seeking pardon for the sins of a lifetime, or for His widowed mother, soon to be left alone in a harsh, unfriendly world, for whom He adopted as a son in His visible absence St. John the evangelist, Jesus had words of loving sympathy for all. O, let us thank God for this revelation of His love. Learn that whatever your trouble—whether you are mourning the mistakes of ignorance, or whether you are doubting the possibility of forgiveness, or whether you are crushed by the solitude of bereavement,—Jesus cares for you. Although He knows all, still it is your duty to make your wants known, speak out, confess, and pray. He is touched with the feeling of your infirmities. He can hear your griefs and carry your sorrows. Tell Him of your trouble; come boldly to the Throne of Grace, casting all your care upon Him for He careth for you. O, that we but cared the least bit for Him, and the Lord work in this world.
A few days ago I returned home from Alaska. There we have a number of schools. Some of them are supported by the parishes, but most of them are supported by the Bishop and the Church in general. Among these schools, there are three of which you should know something, and about which it is my duty to speak. They are orphanages, homes for children without parents, without friends; little Aleuts, Indians, and also white children, who perhaps would starve or decay in the filth of extreme poverty in some of the villages, to say nothing of their education. The Bishop deals out to these homes all he can possibly set aside from the Church funds, but the schools are increasing, and so is poverty and disease in a number of the villages. We have about 10,000 brethren in Alaska, who are Orthodox Christians. Into this field, which is rightly ours from the beginning, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Moravians, and other missionaries have gone. They went to Alaska for converts as much as for any other purpose. In some instances, side by side with our little orphanages, poor schools, and struggling missions, these different sectarian preachers, supported by rich people in Washington, New York, Boston, and other places, thinking of course that they are doing the right thing, have erected grand homes, industrial schools finely equipped, cheerful meeting houses, and are gathering in our children, the children of the Christian Orthodox Church. The priests and their assistants, the school teachers, are working hard, one holy man especially, who with a large family, has given himself up entirely to the noble work. Our good Bishop is economizing and trying to make all ends meet, but for lack of Christian help, it is sometimes impossible.
The winter is coming. The Christmas holidays are near, and people are preparing their silks and jewelry, and thinking of bonbons and ice cream, while many children in the hard climate of the north would be unspeakably delighted with a pair of new warm stockings.
Beloved, the Bishop has ordered next Sunday’s collection at Liturgy to be distributed among these schools for poor children in Alaska. Let us now, having this opportunity, rightly celebrate the finding and the exaltation of the life-giving Cross of Christ. Amen.
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Publisher’s Note: This sermon was originally published in the Russian American Orthodox Messenger, Supplement, 1902, pp. 307-14.