Today as we celebrate this feast of the triumph of the Holy Cross, one thing is for sure: images of the cross are everywhere you look. Obviously they are all over our church, from the cross above the tabernacle and the processional cross, to the many smaller crosses on everything from windows and doors and even benches. But the cross is also found on chains around peoples’ necks, dangling from ear lobes and in coat lapels. They are so commonplace that it is easy to forget the power and significance of the cross.

And when we talk about people having a cross in life, it’s not a wooden image or a piece of jewelry, but something that has come their way that is burdensome and difficult to carry. Of course that is the original meaning of the cross.

But interestingly enough today’s feast focuses not on the heavy weight of the cross, but on its triumph. And both the first reading and Gospel bear that out.

In the reading from the Book of Numbers, the people in the desert are suffering from the venom of serpents and many of them died. Moses is instructed to mount a serpent on a pole and raise it above the people. Anyone bitten who gazes upon the raised serpent will be saved from death.

This clearly is a prefiguring of Jesus on the cross. Those who gaze upon the crucified Christ and believe are likewise saved from death and will have eternal life. Jesus carried that cross on the one hand to gain salvation for us; but on the other hand to let us know that in His compassion, He took on the burden of that heavy weight so that we know that He understands the crosses we all bear in life.

It is good and important that we have so many images of the cross, not to take it for granted but to be reminded of the depth of love and compassion God has for us; that God so loved the world that HE gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who gazes upon Him and believes might not perish but might have eternal life.