When life gets overwhelming, our instinct is often to look down. We look down at our phones, our shoes, the floor—anywhere but up. When we’re hurting, when we’re tired, when life feels too heavy, we often close in on ourselves, but today, on this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Church invites us to look up.
In our first reading, the people of Israel are in the desert, exhausted and afraid. They grumble against God and Moses, and serpents appear in their midst. The solution God gives isn’t to take the serpents away—it’s to lift a bronze serpent on a pole so the people can look up at it and live. Imagine that: they had to look up at the very thing they feared to be healed. They had to lift their heads and trust God’s promise.
Jesus picks up this same image in the Gospel when He 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.” The Cross is our healing. The Cross is where God meets us, not to condemn, but to save.
The Feast of the Cross reminds us that God doesn’t promise to erase all the serpents in our lives—the suffering, the heartbreak, the pain. But He does promise that if we lift our eyes to Him, if we cling to the Cross, we will find hope and healing. The Cross is not a punishment. It is the place where God transforms death into life, despair into hope, shame into glory.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians gives us that breathtaking hymn of Christ’s humility: “Though He was in the form of God, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted Him.”
Here’s the mystery of today’s feast: glory comes through humility; victory comes through surrender. The Cross, a symbol of execution and shame, has become a sign of triumph and love. But friends, this isn’t just a day to admire the Cross. It’s a day to live it. And that’s where it gets challenging.
To “lift high the Cross” means we choose to forgive even when it’s hard. It means we serve others without expecting recognition. It means we walk with those who suffer, even when their pain makes us uncomfortable. It means we don’t run from our own crosses, but we let them become places where Christ’s love can be revealed.
This week, I invite you to do something simple but powerful: when life feels heavy, stop, and look up at a Cross. Maybe the one in this church. Maybe the one on your wall at home. Maybe the one you trace over your body when you pray. And whisper, “Jesus, as I look up to you, I trust You in this place of pain.” Let the Cross remind you that God’s love is greater than what you fear.
The Cross, once a symbol of torture, has become a sign of life. What God lifted high, He lifts us with it. So let’s look up, brothers and sisters. Because that’s where healing begins.
Amen.
Peace, Love and Blessings,
Father Jerry