In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We’ve reflected a number of times, beloved in the Lord, that the Christian calendar follows pretty closely the general structure of the calendar of the Second Temple. That’s most obvious, I suppose, in the spring with Pascha, and then early summer with Pentecost. It’s also clear in the autumn as well; perhaps not so obvious for the feast of Sukkoth, but certainly Yom Kippur, which the Orthodox Church celebrates on September 1, isn’t it? The [Indiction], the crown of the year, as we call it. And then a week in the middle of September, and if the feast of the Holy Cross falls on a Sunday, then it’s two weeks: we celebrate the Christian version of Yom Kippur, the feast of the Atonement in the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

We begin this with the gospel of John; we begin with reflection on the meaning of the cross. We will be doing that this week. Wednesday is the feast of the Holy Cross, and like every Wednesday is a fast day. The night before, Tuesday night, we will be serving the Divine Liturgy here, a Vesperal Divine Liturgy, for the feast of the Holy Cross. And I know, as many of you who can come will be here for that.

This morning, I take only one aspect of the cross, with three points, of course, but one aspect of the cross. The cross is the place where Jesus dies. The cross is an instrument of torture and death, the place where Jesus dies. In the understanding of the holy cross, therefore, we should consider the meaning of death, for without considering what death is, it will not be obvious what it means when we say that Christ has overcome death and is victorious over death. Now it seems to me that death within the Christian faith is fed from two considerations: death as it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, and secondly death as it appears to Jesus.

Let’s talk about three things this morning. First, death and sin. God says in the Hebrew Scriptures to our first parents, “On the day you eat of it, you will die.” That day. In these early chapters of Genesis, there’s a lot of emphasis on the yom, the day. Yom ehad, day one, and going on all the way through, through the six days of creation. “On the day you eat of it, you will die.” Notice he does not say, “On the day you eat of it, I will kill you; you get the death penalty.” It doesn’t say that; simply: “You eat it; you die.”

When I was a boy, there were certain containers in our house that had skull and crossbones on them. I think our can of Drano had that. It’s supposed to be real easy: You eat this and you die! It’s not a punishment inflicted by anybody, but you eat it, you die. I’ve noticed nowadays they don’t have the skull and crossbones because death is too hard for Americans to think about, especially little people; it’s kind of shocking to them, so now they’ve put on a picture of Mr. Yuk: You eat of it, you won’t feel so good. That is so modern! You eat of it, you won’t feel so good. No, you eat of it, you will die!

See, the curse of death is not imposed from without; the curse of death is inherent in the fact of sin. Death is not a punishment that God inflicts on us for sin. Death is not a punishment in the sense of something imposed from outside. In the words of Karl Rahner, a man who deserves, I think, to be read more than he is, “Death is sin made visible.” You see, God in Genesis 3, beloved, is not a judge pronouncing a judicial sentence; rather, God is simply analyzing a situation, because death does not come from God! It comes from sin. The second law of thermodynamics was not in the beginning a property of nature. It became a property of nature by being a fact of history. Death has nothing to do with God’s creation. In the Bible, death is unnatural. Death is not part of God’s plan.

In Genesis 3, God spells out what death means. Let me summarize it for you: You will work hard on this earth until you return to it. If someone climbs up a tall building—we have some fairly tall ones here in Chicago—and he flings himself off of that building, his death is not a punishment to him! It’s just what happens when you fling yourself from tall buildings and you’re not wearing your blue suit and your red cape. That’s what death is.

Second, in the history of Scriptures, death is not the path to God. How could death be the path to God if it was simply the embodiment of sin? In the Hebrew Scriptures, beloved, death is not the separation of the soul from the body; it is separation of man from God. Contrast the sentence of death in two cases. I’ll give you this contrast. The contrast between Socrates and Hezekiah. Let’s just review in our minds the basic facts. Socrates goes for his trial at the beginning of the Euthyphro, and he’s on the steps in the Euthyphro, and you have this dialogue. He goes into his trial, the Apology, and then there are two dialogues that follow the trial. One is the dialogue with Crito, and most especially the dialogue with Phaedo.

This story from the fourth century [BC] portrays the death of Socrates. Socrates, we note, is not reluctant to die; on the contrary, when he drinks the hemlock, he’s going to be freed from the body—a very, very Greek idea of death. So he’ll be freed from the— Maybe David should illustrate this; you could explain it better than I can. [Laughter] When we get downstairs, at coffee hour, you explain it. See, for Socrates, death represents the liberation of the soul from the body. So death is a benefit!

Contrast that with the death—or at least the prophecy of the death—of Hezekiah, four centuries earlier. Look at what death means for Hezekiah in Isaiah 38 and 2 Kings 20, because they’re pretty much the same story. Hezekiah does not look upon death as a liberation at all, because if he dies, he’s not going to be able to go to the Temple any more. If he dies, he’s not going to be able to pray; he will be unable to sing the songs. See, for Hezekiah, death is not a benefit; death is a distinct loss. But most of all, it’s the loss of God. Death represents the loss of God. You see, his attitude is that one we find in Genesis. “On the day you eat of it, you will die.”

Socrates was a dualist; Hezekiah was a realist. For Socrates, death was a benefit; for Hezekiah, death was a curse! Let’s get Hezekiah’s perspective on death from the word of God quoted according to that version of the Scriptures beloved of the apostles, the King James Version. [Laughter] “The grave cannot praise thee. Death cannot celebrate thee. They that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth.” The loss of emeth, the loss of truth. “The living, the living”—he stresses that: “The living, the living: he shall praise thee as I do this day.” There are plenty of examples parallel to this in the book of Psalms. One can notice that in quite a number of the psalms. “Don’t let me die, because there’s no praise of you in the netherworld.”

Death in the Hebrew Scriptures means the inability to speak with God, the inability to hear his word. In the Hebrew Scriptures, death is not portrayed as the path to God; it is the path away from God. “On the day you eat of it, you will die.” Death is separation from God, the loss of worship. You know, Socrates, wise as he was, had no idea that death was rooted in sin. Socrates did not know that; that has to be revealed. It’s revealed in the sacred Scriptures. For Socrates, death was a fact of nature; for Hezekiah, death was the heritage of history.

What then shall we say in point three of the death of Jesus? We Christians believe, and we place all our hope, that in Christ and only in Christ death is reversed. In Christ, death, instead of being a path away from God, becomes the path to God, not by reason of death, but by reason of Christ. You see, what is important is our communion with Christ. That’s what’s essential: our communion with Christ. For the Christian, death means what? Death is the removal of the veil, to make the truth obvious. For the Christian, this emeth, this truth of God which Hezekiah feared to lose, this truth of God is revealed in death.

Death is the continuation of the Christian life. It’s not the perfection of the Christian life. By no means! The perfection of the Christian life will not occur until salvation occurs, and salvation occurs—in the New Testament, salvation occurs when Christ comes back and raises our body. Salvation is something we look for, when Christ comes back and raises our body. Meanwhile, death is the continuation of life—if the life we’re talking about is our life in Christ.

To be a Christian means what? It means to be with Christ. That’s what it means to be a Christian: to be with Christ. Some time, note the very curious way St. Mark describes the calling of the original apostles. He says Jesus picked these twelve for what? To be with him, and then he sent them out. He picked the twelve for companionship; he picked the twelve to be with him. That’s what it means to be a Christian: to be with Christ.

And that’s how death is described in some of the most tender points of holy Scripture, in the 23rd chapter of the gospel of Luke, where it tells the story of a man hanging to Jesus’ right. We presume it’s to his right, because that’s where the sheep are placed, and the goats are placed to the left. Can you all see that crucifix over here? The lower bar: notice the lower bar points up on Jesus’ right hand, points down on his left hand: a very simple little device to remind Orthodox Christians of what Jesus says to the thief on his right. “Today, you will be”—what? “You will be with me. You will be with me in paradise.” You see, the thief was already with him, wasn’t he? The thief was already with him. “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The thief was already with him, but “Today you will be with me in paradise.” He uses a Persian word, “paradise,” a borrowed word from Persian. “Be with me in paradise.”

In the epistle to the Philippians, Paul is not sure he’s going to survive his imprisonment. I believe that Philippians was probably written from very early in the 50s, and I believe it was probably written from Ephesus. I don’t believe it’s the same time as Colossians and Ephesians, but that’s neither here nor there. But Paul’s not sure he’s going to survive, and he says, “I don’t know what I should prefer. If I continue to live, it’s beneficial for you, but if I die,” he says, “that’s a kerdos, that’s an advantage, my advantage.” The word he uses there is analysai. Analysai is hardly ever translated literally because it has several literal meanings. Analysai means to break camp, if it’s in the army; if it’s in the navy, analysai means to weigh anchor. It has two different meanings, whether it was army or navy, and you can make your choice on that, at least before the Army-Navy game. You can make your choice on that. [Laughter] But it means to leave; analysai means to leave: whether I should leave, to depart, to be what? With Christ.

In 1 Thessalonians 4, we should be caught up in the air. He’s describing the Rapture; he’s describing being carried up on the last day at the end of time, the end of history. The Rapture does not occur until the end of history, though. We’ll be brought up into the air, and we shall always be what? With the Lord! See, there’s the Christian life, and that’s what death means. Death holds no fears for those who die with Christ. Death in Christ is simply the unveiling of God’s truth. Everything depends on our union with Christ. That’s why in Philippians St. Paul says, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is a benefit.”

Union with Christ cannot be destroyed or impaired by death. Sometimes Christians become so aware of this that they’re eager to die—not like Socrates, because Socrates doesn’t know what death means. Christians are sometimes eager to die. I take the example of the second bishop of Antioch. Let’s go back to the second bishop of Antioch, who was on his way to die in Rome in the year 107. I just love Ignatius! He’s one of those notorious Antiochian clergy, like John Chrysostom. Read the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch! You’ll start living a serious Christian life when you read those seven letters. They’re online; they’re in paperback. God has seen to it to get those seven letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch into the hands of everybody. I think they’ve been translated into Chinese: the seven letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch. Look through those letters, how he’s eager to get to Rome in order to die to be what? With Christ. Always to be with Christ. He longed for Christ.

I’ve always looked upon that as a goal to be aspired to. I haven’t reached that stage yet. I’m still kind of clinging to this world. That’ll be taken care of for all of us. Union with Christ, my beloved, is how we face death. This is the meaning of the cross.

Now each Sunday, in fact, each time we have a service here, how do we close every service in the Orthodox Church? What’s the closing rite of every service? We kiss the cross of Christ. Now because this is the week dedicated to the holy cross, you’ll kiss the cross of Christ in a more solemn way. You’ll see that—those of you visiting will see that a little later. We actually do that. We kiss the cross of Christ because why? We love the cross of Christ, because we love Christ.

Back when I was a student at Southern Baptist Seminary, years ago, we didn’t kiss the cross; we just sang about it.

I will cherish the old rugged cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.

The last thing we do when we leave, before we leave the church, is we kiss the cross of Christ. We seal what we have just done in our worship. We kiss the cross of Christ, and then we go out. We go out, with a kiss of the cross of Christ still on our lips, to face the world. All of us hope to die, as I’ve seen so many people die, kissing the cross of Christ, because that cross is our passage to God by reason of our communion with Christ. Amen.