Today we are celebrating, one day in advance, the Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Lifegiving Cross. On this feast we remember the Cross, in certain events in history and in its universal life-giving power. Christ descended into hell, filling all things with himself. No-one and no part of creation is excluded in Christ’s offering of himself on the Cross, all of creation is embraced in God’s love.

Metropolitan Kallistos points out that the term Universal indicates an essential element of this feast:

The power of the Cross extends to every part of the universe, and the salvation which it brings embraces the entire creation. That is why, in the ceremony of the Exaltation, the priest turns in blessing towards each point of the compass: ‘The four ends of the earth, O Christ our God, are sanctified today’ as we sing in the troparia for the feast. [Festal Menaion: P.51]

During the Divine Liturgy we say:

In the night in which [Christ] was betrayed, or rather gave himself up for the life of the world.

In this we see both the universal nature of the Crucifixion – it is for the life of the world and also its voluntary nature: or rather gave himself up for the life of the world.

It is impossible for us to fully comprehend the nature of the love Christ showed to us on the Cross. Metropolitan Kallistos gives us some pointers in The Orthodox Way. He indicates that the true meaning of the passion is found not so much in Christ’s physical suffering, but in his spiritual sufferings, he says:

Here is the extreme point of Christ’s desolation, when he feels abandoned not only by men but by God. We cannot begin to explain how it is possible for one who is himself the Living God to lose awareness of the divine presence. But this at least is evident. In Christ’s Passion there is no play acting, nothing is done for outward show. Each word from the Cross means what it says. And if the cry ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me’ is to signify anything at all, it must mean that at this moment Jesus is truly experiencing the spiritual death of separation from God. Not only does he shed His blood for us but for our sakes he accepts even the loss of God.
…
Hell … is the place where God is not. (And yet God is everywhere!). If Christ truly ‘descended into hell’, that means he descended into the depths of the absence of God. Totally, unreservedly he identifies himself with all man’s anguish and alienation. He assumed it into himself, and by assuming it he healed it. There was no other way he could heal it, except by making it his own. Such is the message of the Cross for each one of us. However far I travel through the valley of the shadow of death, I am never alone.
[Orthodox Way (2018): P112]

The Cross shows us that love is stronger than death. Christ is Risen, but his victory is already in the Cross. What is this victory, this is the victory of suffering love. In the words of one priest on his release from prison camp: Suffering has destroyed all things. One thing alone has stood firm – it is love’ [Orthodox Way: P.114].

Suffering love, that of Christ’s love on the Cross is not merely an example for us, but much more than that, again in the words of Metropolitan Kallistos:

[Christ’s] suffering love has a creative effect upon me, transforming my own heart and will, releasing me from bondage, making me whole, rendering it possible for me to love in a way that would lie altogether beyond my powers, had I first not been loved by him. … Christ offers us, not a way around suffering, but a way through it; not substitution, but saving companionship. [Orthodox Way: P.115]

Glory to Thy precious Cross, O Lord.

Given by Father Richard