Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
September 14, 2025
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
Feast of the Holy Cross
Love The Cross!
For I was resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2 DKV)
If you love Jesus dear Christians, then learn to love His cross. Because in the one holy catholic and apostolic church every day is Holy Cross day. If it is not then it is no longer the catholic church wherein we worship: in which case our faith is in vain, and we are still in our sins.
Our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross is the supreme demonstration of the love that our God and Father has for us all. His love and also His ardent desire to bring us back home; back to Himself who IS the source of life now and always.
The cross is both the wisdom of God and the power of God that saves us from ourselves, from evil men, and from the Old Evil Foe who will always best us if we ever stray from the cross.
Scoffers object. They contemptuously ask why Christians display the sign of the Roman death penalty in their churches, wear it around their necks, and cover themselves with it as often as they pray or find themselves in desperate straits. Why do they bow before it, and kiss it with their lips? But what can you expect from scoffers, buried in ideological graves where no light penetrate?
Rationalistically-minded Christians are little better. They protest asking: why would one construct crucifixes and venerate the cross when there is so much work to be done in the world? Why indeed? Because the cross, Eucharistically celebrated in the church, is the world’s best defense against all earthly drama and trauma. And without the church’s Eucharistic intercession things would be infinitely worse. That is why.
But it is not only the theology of the cross that we preach today, but also the love and devotion to it over the ages. If we do not know church history then we are like the highest branch of a tree that thinks there is no tree below it. Woe to you O Bethsaida!
There is little reliable evidence regarding what happened to the true cross immediately after the Lord was removed from it by Joseph of Arimathea, without which there would be no salvation. Nor do we know much about the search for it in the earliest Christian decades.
We do know about the well-documented Shroud of Turin; the 14 foot long burial cloth carrying the image of a crucified man – which many Christians firmly believe to be the Lord’s own burial cloth. But the fate of the cross itself was not well known.
And that remained the case until the early 4th century when on September 14, 320 AD St. Helena the mother of St. Constantine – the first Christian emperor of Rome – discovered remnants of the true cross while making a pilgrimage in Jerusalem. And it was this amazing find that inspired her to build Christian houses of worship throughout the empire: the most prominent of which is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 335 AD. A House of Prayer that covered the site of the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection not very far away. That church still stands today cared for by RC’s and several EO bodies.
Later the holy relics of the true cross were stolen by the Persians. But they were recovered and returned to Jerusalem also on September 14th in the year 629. And so this date, September 14th, has long been celebrated by the world’s liturgical churches as the Feast of the Holy Cross. Lutherans are among those churches.
This brings us to yet another point, namely the command the LORD gives Moses in Numbers 21 which is our Old Testament lesson for today. The command to form a fiery serpent, and put it on top of a bronze pole, and command the people who were dying a slow painful death from snake bites that if they would merely look at it, they would be restored to perfect health.
This is why when we moved into this Holy House 10 years ago, in 2015, we decided to replace the large empty cross that was the central focus, with a crucifix. We did this in spite of objections by some who said that Christians may not make graven images; which is a gross misinterpretation of Exodus 20:4. An objection answered by today’s Old Testament lesson wherein God Himself plainly commanded His church to construct a graven image that would bring salvation to all who would look upon it with faith.
No doubt some of the Israelites who heard this command objected. But we never hear from them because they died the death that all unbelievers in Christ will most certainly die unless they love and reverence the cross of Jesus. For this reason the church catholic has always formed holy images, most especially of Jesus on the cross: all objections notwithstanding.
Let us also learn today that the crucifix is but an expression of today’s Old Testament lesson. And far from harming Christian faith as Fundamentalists insist to this very day. The crucifix gives form and content to our faith. And wonderful power! Power to bear our own cross, and suffer patiently, as we consider Him who bore such adversity from sinners. (Heb. 12:3)
What would happen if you came here next week and the crucifix, which informs our worship, were replaced with an empty cross? Talk about psychological shock in extremis.
You see the GLORIOUS problem with the crucifix is that once you have worshiped at the Lord’s beautiful feet – by which we mean the altar which is the cross for us today, from which we are given Jesus’s very Body and Blood, we can never be the same. But will always long for its presence, and for its proclamation: “God loved the world in this precise manner. That He gave His one and only Son to be nailed to the cross. To suffer and die the sinner’s death. So that whosoever believes in Him should not perish; but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
This what Jesus means when He says in today’s gospel:
“And I, when I am lifted from the earth
I will draw all men to myself.” (32)
“He said this to signify
by what death he was going to die.” (33)
And so let us always: Lift High The Cross. In our theology, yes. But let us also venerate and glorify the mighty Icon itself with which Christians have always covered their persons; covered their churches; blessed their children; healed their diseases; driven away sorrow; won victory over temptation; and by which they have maintained and regained their stability.