I recently had an opportunity to pull open the book of needs and turn to a prayer that I had never before had to read. It was the prayer for the blessing of a cross that will be placed on a cupola that will be at the highest point of the Church. I have been thinking about the contents of this prayer since I read it, because the imagery was incredibly beautiful and relevant to our lives as Orthodox Christians. One image that particularly struck me was the following:
“O Lord Almighty, God of our Fathers, by the Staff of Moses, and the other tree on which Thou didst command him to fasten the Bronze Serpent in the Wilderness, delivering the people from the bites of the serpents, Thou didst prefigure the Image of the precious and Lifegiving Cross of Thy Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the power of the devil was laid low, and the human race, bitten and put to death by the other all-evil serpent of old, was brought to life…”
As we are lifting this cross to the heavens, we are reminded in this prayer of how our Lord, through His servant Moses, had delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians. They crossed the Red Sea and wandered for 40 years amid the desert. Not once did God abandon His people, as he fed them with manna that would fall from the sky.
Despite His tremendous care for them, the Israelites began to grumble and complain against God. They blamed Moses too, saying: “Why did you bring us from Egypt to kill us in the desert? For there is no bread nor water, and our soul is weary of this worthless bread.”
Soon after the grumbling began, something awful happened. Venomous snakes encircled the entire camp of Israel, poisoning and biting any of the men, women, and children who drew near to them. The desert of Edom where they were camped was beginning to turn into a massive graveyard, as many of the Israelites began to suffer horrible deaths.
Humbled and repentant, the Israelites went back to Moses saying: “We sinned for we spoke against the Lord and against you; therefore pray to the Lord, and let Him take away the serpents from us!”
Moses listened to the pleas of the people and offered them up to God, Who instructed Moses to make a serpent out of copper and put it on a high pole. Anytime someone was bitten by a serpent, God told them to turn their gaze on this image of the serpent and be healed.
So it happened, that after Moses did as the Lord commanded, anytime one the Israelites suffered a poisonous snakebite, they only had to turn their gaze towards the elevated copper serpent, and be immediately healed. The serpents no longer terrified the Israelites, who had once again been delivered by God through the elevation of this copper serpent in the midst of their camp.
The desert in this story from the Old Testament is a representation of our earthly life. After coming out of the sea of baptism, we are placed in the middle of the world, and surrounded by poisonous serpents…representing the various sins and passions that mankind can be afflicted with. What is the Church calling for us to do? Turn our gaze upon the Cross.
Whether it is up on the top of a cupola in the sky, on our walls in the comfort of our own home, or even the one that we make on our bodies multiple times during the Divine Services…the Cross is a powerful weapon of hope that this world so desperately needs.
It is not only our mission to understand the power of the Cross, but also to help and guide others who are in search of light in the midst of the world’s darkness. As our Lord commands us, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven.” This past week, we symbolically placed that Light at the top of the Church. Now it is our mission to spread it to the world.
As the prayer of the raising of the cross on a Church says, “May it be a powerful protector, a firm defense, a constant deliver from every evil circumstances, an ornament, an adornment, and a dreadful and terrifying sign to the enemies, both visible and invisible…for the cross is the beauty of the Church, the confirmation of the faithful, the praise of Paul, and the wounding of demons….”