Walking with Jesus: Exaltation of the Holy Cross

For Sunday, September 14, 2025

Numbers 21:4-9, Philippians 2:6-11, John 3:13-17


There is a commonality in all of us reading this blog. Each person who listened to and studied the readings at today’s liturgy knows about pain. We’ve experienced suffering; we are well aware of death. They surround us. They come when expected and unexpected. No matter how and when they come, we are not ready for them. It seems that for the most part they overwhelm us. Does God know how we feel? Yes — look at His cross. One spiritual writer states that the complete response of God to your suffering, my suffering, everyone’s suffering — from all time, down through the ages — the raison d'être of God’s actions and the most important reason for His existence — is that God completely changed the story’s end. Suffering, pain and death are the instruments Jesus lived through to show us that God does love us and He knows how we feel. In Paul’s day crucifixion meant shame, debasement, degradation, loss of pride, total humiliation and removal of any value to life. Paul states how this is pure foolishness by anyone’s standards, AND God exalted Jesus because of His willingness to endure the abandonment of the cross. St. John, the theologian of the Gospel writers and the only one who was not killed, murdered or tortured because of His belief in Jesus, states God’s raison d'être:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that everyone
who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world
but that the world might be saved through Him.” — The famous John 3:16-17

Sometimes we read the Old Testament and think that God is a punishing God who doesn’t like the people He has chosen. Taking today’s text at face value depicts God as a source of danger: Many Israelites died because of the snakes. When we do this, we miss the deeper moral and spiritual truth. Numbers 21 calls its readers in ancient Israel to remember their dependence on God. The bronze serpent did not prevent the people in the wilderness from being bitten; rather, it healed them from the deadly effects of the snakebite, and it only healed those who looked toward the bronze serpent in faith and repentance — thus placing in their minds and hearts both the punishment that they would have to face if they sinned and the mercy of God that was always at hand if they repented. Am I listening? This shows God’s love. Do I want it my way, or am I hearing God’s way?

Paul explains the christological meaning of the nature and mission of Jesus in two parts: In verses 6 through 8, Jesus is the subject of the action describing Jesus’ humiliation. In the second part, verses 9 through 11 recount His exaltation by God. The two phrases identify that Jesus is in the form of God — He is equal to God. It specifies that Jesus did not cling to “being equal to God” … He did not use His exalted status for His own benefit; Christ freely gave up the right to homage that was His due. SO not only did Christ relinquish His Godlike state, HE emptied Himself of it. Jesus did take on the human condition. He humbled Himself and became obedient, adhering to God’s will. Living in a world that is alienated from God requires that one be open to the possibility of death. In a sense, Christ’s crucifixion was inevitable. It was a common punishment for slaves, the lowest level of human degradation. This is what Jesus did by emptying Himself and taking on human form. So the entire created universe is brought under His worship — His rule. Where do I place me? Am I the most important or is God in my life? Am I following me or God — the example and teachings of Jesus, or just me?

Nicodemus was the leader of the Jewish people who was interested in the teachings of Jesus but only came to Him at night, no doubt afraid of being seen by the Jewish and Roman authorities. Jesus told him, “No one has gone up to heaven except the One who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.” [John 3:13] Jesus shows us the scope of Divine Love AND the price God is willing to pay because of that love. How BIG and INTENSE and COMPLETE is God’s love! God first gave His Son in the incarnation and again in His saving death. It is this sinful world that God loved (verse 16) — and it is into this sinful world that God’s only Son was sent (verse 17). GOD LOVES ME THAT MUCH!

So I reflect on:

• Do I reflect on Jesus on the cross as being an instrument of my healing?
• Jesus takes pain and death and sin and transforms them into love for me. How am I, as a Christian, called to bring and act in terms of transforming my communal sin, pain and death into love for others?

Sacred Space 2025 states:

“God the Creator of everything loves all that He has made and He wants all of us to be saved. After we had thrown God’s plan for our happiness into disarray the Trinity came up with a new plan, which was to save us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If God has given us His own Beloved Son then there is nothing He would ever refuse us that we need for our happiness. Let us turn to Him with great trust and gratitude.”