Exaltation of the Cross 2025
Numbers 21:4-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17
What a pity the name of this feast has been altered. It used to be known as the Triumph of the Cross, rather than the Exaltation of the Cross.
“Why is that a problem?” you may ask. “Don’t the two words amount to the same thing?” That, I assume, is what the liturgists thought, but they were not entirely correct, which I attribute to the decline of the Classics. Ototototototoi as Aeschylus and Aristophanes would have said—in effect, “Woe is me!”
There is a subtle difference, arising from the nature of a Triumph in the Roman Republic, and subsequently in the Empire. St. Paul, as a Roman citizen, knew the difference. In 2 Corinthians 2:14, he writes about “God leading us in Christ’s Triumphal Procession”.
That is because, in Rome, a Triumph was a special event. It was an honour bestowed on a particularly successful general, who was allowed, in contravention of normal law, to lead his army, fully armed, through the streets of Rome. In the Triumphal Procession, which was greeted enthusiastically throughout the city, would be carried the booty which had been gained, often including exotic animals, wild or tame, and a group, representative of the prisoners whom he had captured, especially their tribal chiefs, who would subsequently be executed or sold as slaves.
Thus, the Triumph of the Cross meant, not only that the Cross has been exalted—raised up high—but that it brings in its wake all those whom it has captured and taken to itself: ourselves first of all, but also the powers of evil which have been overcome by Christ’s death on the Cross.
Notice that it is the Cross which is awarded this Triumph. It is not only the Resurrection which marks Christ’s victory, or achieves it, but his submission to, and acceptance of, His Passion and Death. The Resurrection may be regarded as the fruits of victory, but that victory, and hence the Triumph, are achieved through the Cross.
This is pointed out in that passage from the Letter to the Philippians which we have just heard. This is thought to be an early hymn, used in the liturgy, celebrating Christ’s self-emptying, beginning with His taking human flesh, but carried to its full extent by Jesus’ acceptance of death. It is because of this total self-emptying, in His acceptance of the Cross, that God the Father has raised Him, via that same Cross, to Resurrection.
Exaltation, raising up, is certainly a major aspect of this Feast. Jesus, lifted up on the Cross, is both the sign and the means of our healing and salvation. He refers, in today’s Gospel passage, to the episode described in our First Reading from the Book of Numbers, when the grumbling Israelites were attacked and bitten fatally by the “fiery serpents”. The bronze serpent, lifted up on a pole by Moses, was the sign and source of their healing, their rescue from death, but it was also a sign of the far greater rescue and healing which were to be achieved by Christ, lifted up on the Cross.
What is the significance of all this to us? It seems to me that both the Triumph and the Exaltation concern us. By His acceptance of the Cross, Christ has captured us, leading us in His Triumphal Procession, not to be enslaved or executed, but to be liberated into new life. Through being lifted up on that same Cross, He has become both the sign and the means of our healing. St. Paul tells us that he glories in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and so should we, always looking upon the Cross, every cross or crucifix, with reverence.
