Many readers will not be familiar with Holy Cross Day, which falls on 14th September. Why not celebrate the cross of Christ? From a Christian point of view, it is the central event in human history. The Latin word for ‘cross’ is ‘crux’. And my expensive education taught me that the genitive of ‘crux’ is ‘cruc-is’, giving us the word ‘crucial’ and ‘excruciating’. The definition of pain itself is derived from the instrument of torture to which Christ surrendered.
Is Holy Cross Day redundant given Good Friday when Christians commemorate the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ? Holy Cross Day technically celebrates the ‘invention’ of the cross. This might sound like the day on which the story of Christ’s death was made up or written down. Dan Brown would rub his hands if that were the case. That said, Dan Brown doesn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. The idea that the church ‘decided’ that Jesus was divine in the 4th century is pure moonshine. We will come back to tall tales a little later.
I do believe, however, that there’s something valuable in remembering the physicality of the Cross itself. The Anglo-Saxons thought so a thousand years ago and I think they were onto something. Let me explain why:
Too Many Dates
My education can kick in again. Mr Hooper’s terrifying vocab tests were not in vain. The word ‘invenio’ means ‘I find.’ The Invention of the True Cross is the day on which the cross of Christ was found in Jerusalem in the early fourth century: on 14th September. One of my sources says the year was 326. Another says it 330. Another source has the day of commemoration as happening on 3rd May but that may have been the day that a portion of the Holy Cross was recovered by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius after it fell into the hands of the Persians. This was celebrated in some places as ‘Roodmas’ or ‘Crouchmas’ including various parts of England who beat the bounds of the parish on that day. The Roman church removed this May feast day in 1960, and 14th September was made the day of The Feast of the Cross – exalted, invented, recovered.
The protagonist of the popular story of the Invention of the Cross is St Helena, mother of Constantine. She made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem after her son converted to Christianity. Others say she was sent in order to find the cross of Christ which would give some kind of protection against Constantine’s enemies. St Helena found the cross – and the other crosses of the criminals – and had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built on the site. Some say 14th September is the date on which the Church was consecrated. Nine years later. Or was if five years? Let us not argue over precise dates of something that happened about 1700 years ago or, some would say, didn’t happen 1700 years ago.
The Anglo-Saxons loved this story enough to commit to parchment in a poem called Elene by a poet called Cynewulf. The Anglo-Saxons were fascinated by the Cross of Christ. I’ve mentioned before another poem of the period called The Dream of the Rood, telling the story of Christ’s death from the perspective of the tree selected to become the cross itself. It is an extraordinary reflection on the bittersweet shame and honour of being covered in the blood of the saviour of the world.
Legends of the True Cross
There are other stories about the cross such as those found in The Golden Legend, a medieval compilation of stories relating to saints and festivals. It was famous enough to be one of the first books printed by Caxton in England in 1483. One story about the cross is that it originated from a tree grown from the Tree of Knowledge, planted by Seth on Adam’s grave. The tree grew and was felled by Solomon for his temple but deemed unsuitable. So it was used to build a bridge. When the Queen of Sheba came to visit the wise king, she crossed the bridge and prophesied that the wood would bring about a new covenant, causing Solomon to bury it. Fourteen generations later, the buried wood was unearthed and fashioned into the Cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified.
We can shake our heads in pity at this apparent fiction with no basis in the Bible – or reason – but who doesn’t love an origin story? At the end of The Magician’s Nephew, we learn that the tree that Digory grew in his backyard had come from the core of the apple he brought back from Narnia for his dying mother. When that tree was made into a wardrobe, it became a portal back into Narnia for the Pevensies. Isn’t that beautiful?
How much more beautiful and significant is the Cross of Christ? Why not speculate that the wood came from the Garden of Eden? No wonder stories abound of the potency of fragments of the true cross, scattered across Europe. Many years ago, I heard it joked that if all those fragments were put together, you would probably have enough wood to build Noah’s ark.
Touching Talismans
Our hearts yearn for sacred but potent items. The story of Helen finding the True Cross of Christ seems to be undermined by its convenience. But is it any more convenient than the Lost Ark of the Covenant being found by a rugged Professor of Archaeology with a stylish hat and whip?
These are not modernistic tales. It is easy to forget the magic or supernatural in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Marcus Brody says that “An army which carries the Ark before it is invincible." Therefore, the Nazis must not have it. It is odd that such Antisemites should place so much store by the most precious symbol of their most despised foes is not the only wild inconsistency. Nevertheless, Indiana Jones must stop them. And when the ark is opened, terrible things happen. This is not just an historical artefact. It represents the power of God.
We yearn for something physical and tangible with divine power. If we’re rationalists, we dismiss this idea as silly or unscientific. If we’re believers, we may dismiss this desire as unspiritual. Should we not instead set our minds on heavenly things or eternal truths?
No, we shouldn’t. And the True Cross shows us why.
God became a physical and tangible man who really and truly died on the cross. He bodily and literally rose from the grave. Follow Christ and you are offered nothing short of a new body and a home in the new heavens and the new earth. For me that is reason enough to celebrate the Holy Cross on 14th September.
What better way to do that than by watching one of my favourite movies of all time, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Or one of the others. But choose wisely.
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Glorious! And very Orthodox -- though I would say that...