Look and Live: The Cross Found, the Cross Lifted Up

Today, at Mass in Saint Helen Catholic Church, it is fitting that we begin with Saint Helena herself — and with a discovery that has echoed through the centuries.

 

In the early fourth century, after years of Roman persecution, the Church came into a new and unexpected season of peace. And Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She went not as a tourist, not as a dignitary seeking honor, but as a believer — a woman of deep faith seeking the very places where our Lord had walked, suffered, died, and risen again. Tradition tells us that in Jerusalem, beneath a pagan temple that had been built to suppress the memory of Christ, the wood of the True Cross was found. The instrument on which the Savior of the world had been lifted up had not been lost to God — only hidden for a time.

 

Now, the Church has never asked us to venerate the Cross because it is ancient wood. The Cross is not important because of its age. The Cross is not important because of where it has been. The Cross is important because of who hung upon it. It is not a decoration for a wall — it is the altar where the Lamb of God offered Himself once for all. It is not merely a symbol of suffering — it is the instrument of the greatest victory ever won. It is not merely a reminder of death — it is the very doorway into eternal life.

 

And that is why the finding of the Cross matters. Not because it gives us something to admire from a distance, but because it confronts us — every generation, every believer, every soul sitting in this church today — with the center of the Christian faith: Jesus Christ crucified. The Cross is where God's love becomes most visible. The Cross is where sin is judged and mercy is poured out without measure. The Cross is where the eternal Son of God took our place.

 

So today, as we remember Saint Helena and celebrate the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross, we are not simply remembering history. We are being called to faith. We are being called to look again at the Cross — not casually, not out of habit, not as familiar background scenery — but as the very place where our salvation was accomplished.

 

To understand what we are truly looking at when we look at the Cross, we must listen carefully to Scripture. We must hear what God Himself says about the One who was lifted up — and why.

 

Saint Paul gives us words that are both simple and bottomless in their depth. From Philippians 2, beginning at verse 5, the ESV-CE reads:

 

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

 

Feel the weight of what Paul is saying. Jesus Christ — the eternal Son of God, equal with the Father, the One through whom all things were made — did not jealously protect His rights. He did not cling to His glory. He did not demand the honor that was rightfully and eternally His. Instead, He emptied Himself.

 

Now, we must be careful here, because this emptying — this kenosis, as the theologians call it — is often misunderstood. The Incarnation was not an act of subtraction. Jesus did not empty Himself of His divinity to become man. He did not cease to be God when He was laid in a manger in Bethlehem. Rather, the Incarnation was an act of addition — the eternal Son of God voluntarily took on a human body and a human soul, while remaining fully and completely God. What He set aside was not His divine nature, but the outward manifestation of His heavenly glory. He veiled the splendor that was rightfully His, and He did so willingly, freely, and out of love.

 

Pope Leo the Great, in his magnificent sermons on the mystery of Christ, marvels at precisely this truth. He writes that the Son of God entered into our lowly condition without losing what was His own — that in taking on our flesh, He did not abandon His glory, but concealed it for our sake. The King of heaven became a servant — not because He was forced to, not because He had no other option, but because love moved Him to descend.

 

And where does this descent end? Paul tells us plainly: "obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." The cross is the apex of Christ's humiliation. It is the lowest point of His descent. A Roman cross was not merely an instrument of execution — it was designed to be an instrument of shame. It was reserved for slaves and criminals. It was public, prolonged, and degrading. And yet this is where the King of kings chose to go. This is where His obedience led Him. This is where His love for us brought Him.

 

Saint Paul himself, before his conversion, was deeply offended by this. The idea that the Messiah — the anointed King of Israel — would die on a cross was, to the Pharisee Saul, an outrage and a scandal. And yet it was precisely this radical humility that became the very center of Paul's theology after his encounter with the risen Christ. The cross, which once offended him, became his glory.

 

This is the mind of Christ. Not grasping. Not clinging. Not protecting status or demanding honor. But freely, lovingly, obediently descending — all the way to the cross — for the sake of others. For your sake. For mine. And Paul's point is not merely that we should admire this.

 

His point is that we should share this mind. "Have this mind among yourselves," he says. The humility of Christ is not simply something to contemplate from a distance. It is something we are called to inhabit — to live from the inside out. Humility, Paul is telling us, is not primarily about how we dress or how we speak. It is an internal state of the heart — a settled conviction that others matter more than ourselves, and that their good is worth our sacrifice. But we cannot manufacture this on our own. And that is precisely why we need the Cross.

 

To understand why the Cross is necessary — not just admirable, but necessary — Jesus Himself takes us back to one of the darkest moments in Israel's history. In John 3, verse 14, He says:

 

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

 

To understand what Jesus is saying, we must go back to Numbers 21. The people of Israel are in the wilderness. They have been delivered from slavery in Egypt. They have seen the Red Sea parted. They have eaten manna from heaven. And yet, in their impatience and ingratitude, they speak against God and against Moses. And the Lord sends fiery serpents among them. The serpents bite the people, and many of Israel die.

 

Now notice what happens next. The people come to Moses and confess: "We have sinned." They do not argue. They do not make excuses. They do not compare themselves to people who were bitten worse. They simply admit the truth: we have sinned, and we are dying. And God's remedy is striking in its simplicity. He does not tell them to pray a certain number of prayers. He does not tell them to fast for forty days. He does not tell them to perform elaborate rituals or demonstrate sufficient worthiness. He tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole — and whoever looks at it will live.

 

That is it. Look, and live.

 

Now, here is what is theologically breathtaking about this. The very image of the thing that was killing them became the instrument of their healing. God took the form of the serpent — the source of the venom — and made it the source of the cure. And Saint Paul, in Romans 8:3, tells us that this is precisely what God did in Christ: He sent His own Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh" to condemn sin in the flesh. Jesus took on the likeness of the very thing that was destroying us — sinful humanity — so that in His body on the cross, sin itself would be judged and its venom drawn out.

 

But here is where this ancient story becomes uncomfortably personal. Because every person in this church today has been bitten. Every one of us carries the venom of sin. The Catechism of the Council of Trent is clear and unflinching on this point: original sin has wounded human nature itself — darkening the intellect, weakening the will, and inclining every soul toward disorder and self-love. This is not a comfortable truth. But it is an honest one.

 

And this is where the sermon must pause and ask a hard question. The Israelites who were healed had to first admit something: "We are dying." They could not be healed while pretending they had not been bitten. God only cleanses honest people. The bronze serpent offered no healing to anyone who refused to acknowledge their wound.

 

There is a form of religion — and it can exist in any church, including this one — that goes through all the right motions without ever making that honest admission. A person can attend Mass every Sunday, know the responses by heart, wear the right things, say the right prayers, and still never have looked honestly at the Cross and said: "I have been bitten. I am dying. I need this." The Catechism of the Council of Trent warns against precisely this kind of outward religion that lacks inward transformation — an exterior conformity that has never been accompanied by genuine repentance and living faith.

 

Jesus calls this failure to believe "earthly" thinking. In John 3:12, He says to Nicodemus: "If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" The earthly things — the historical realities, the types and shadows of the Old Testament, the plain facts of sin and judgment and the need for new birth — these are the foundation. If a person refuses to honestly reckon with these, they will never enter into the deeper heavenly realities: the life of grace, the mystery of the Trinity, the transforming power of the sacraments.

 

You cannot skip the snake-bite and go straight to the healing. You must first admit that you have been bitten.

 

And so we come to the heart of it. John 3:14-15 in the ESV-CE:

 

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

 

The remedy is the same in its simplicity. Look, and live.

 

The dying Israelites were not asked to be worthy of healing. They were not asked to have earned it. They were simply asked to look — to turn their eyes, in honest and obedient faith, toward the thing God had lifted up. And the look itself was the act of trust. It was the admission: "I cannot heal myself. I need what God has provided."

 

This is the nature of saving faith. It is not intellectual agreement with a set of propositions. It is not the performance of religious duties, however good and right those duties may be. It is a personal, honest, trusting look toward Jesus Christ lifted up on the cross — the admission that we have been bitten, that we are dying, and that He alone is the remedy.

 

Jesus tells Nicodemus — a man who was deeply religious, deeply learned, deeply sincere — that he must be born again. Nicodemus had the outward religion. He had the knowledge. He had the devotion. And yet Jesus tells him that without this new birth, without this inward transformation that comes from looking to the lifted-up Son of Man in genuine faith, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

 

Now, here is where we must affirm something beautiful and true about the Catholic faith. The Mass is precisely the place where this "looking and living" is made present and accessible in every generation. Just as Christ emptied Himself in the Incarnation, He continues this self-emptying in the Eucharist. The glorified Lord — the One who has been given the name above every name — humbles Himself under the appearances of bread and wine to feed His people. Pope Leo the Great, reflecting on the mystery of Christ's sacrifice, writes that the offering made once on Calvary is the eternal source from which the Church draws life — and that this sacrifice is made present again at every altar.

 

This is the breathtaking continuity of the faith. The cross that Saint Helena found in Jerusalem is the same cross that stands at the center of every Mass. The Christ who was lifted up in first-century Judea is the same Christ who is present on this altar today. The invitation to "look and live" that was extended to dying Israelites in the wilderness is the same invitation extended to you this morning.

 

But — and this must be said with love — the Eucharist does not automatically transform a soul that has never honestly looked. The sacrament is not a mechanism. It is an encounter. And an encounter requires both parties to be present — not just physically, but personally. The Catechism of the Council of Trent is clear that the sacraments confer grace on those who receive them worthily — and that worthy reception requires genuine faith, genuine repentance, and genuine hunger for the life that only Christ can give.

 

To receive the Eucharist while still refusing to admit the snake-bite is to come to the feast without the wedding garment. It is to stand before the bronze serpent with your eyes closed.

 

But to come honestly — to come with the admission "I have been bitten, I am dying, and I need You" — is to open yourself to the full, transforming power of what God has provided. And what God has provided is not merely forgiveness of past sins. It is not merely a ticket to heaven after death. Jesus says in John 3:15 that whoever believes in the lifted-up Son of Man may have eternal life — and this eternal life, as John makes clear throughout his Gospel, is not merely a future reward. It is a present participation in the very life of God. It is the life of the Holy Trinity flowing into a human soul right now, today, in this life.

 

This is what the Cross accomplished. This is what the Mass makes present. This is what honest, obedient faith receives.

 

Now Paul takes us from the humiliation of the Cross to its glorious consequence. Philippians 2:9-11 in the ESV-CE:

 

"Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

 

Notice the word "therefore." God's exaltation of Jesus was not arbitrary. It was not simply a reward tacked on at the end. It was the direct and necessary result of His obedience. Because He humbled Himself — because He did not grasp, but emptied — because He descended all the way to the cross — therefore God has highly exalted Him. The path to the name above every name ran directly through Calvary.

 

This is the vision of God that the Cross reveals. Not a God who rewards the powerful and the self-sufficient. Not a God who exalts those who grasp and cling and protect their status. But a God who is Himself an eternal Trinity of self-giving love — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — each pouring out in love toward the others, and toward us. Pope Leo the Great, in his Sermons on the Passion, writes with great force that the very glory of Christ's resurrection and exaltation cannot be separated from the humility of His cross — that the two are not in tension but are one single act of divine love.

 

And now Paul tells us that the response to this exaltation is universal worship. Every knee shall bow — in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is not merely a future event. This is the reality into which the faithful are invited every time they gather for Mass.

 

When you kneel at this altar, you are not performing a private religious exercise. You are joining a chorus that fills all of creation. You are taking your place in the heavenly liturgy — the eternal worship of the Lamb that the book of Revelation describes, the worship that never ceases, the worship in which every creature in heaven and earth participates. The Mass is where that eternal reality intersects with human history. It is where the once-for-all sacrifice of Calvary becomes present and accessible to you, here, now, today.

 

And the goal of this encounter — the goal of the Mass itself — is precisely what Paul describes in verse 5: "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus." By receiving the body and blood of the One who emptied Himself, we are being formed into people who can empty themselves. By feeding on the humility of Christ, we are being equipped to live with the humility of Christ. The Eucharist is not merely a memorial. It is a transformation. It is the means by which the mind of Christ — that radical, self-giving, others-centered love — is formed in us and sent out into the world through us.

 

This is what the Cross accomplished. This is what the exaltation of Christ means. And this is what every Mass is for.-F.D.