Exaltation of the Holy Cross

In the early seventh century, the century of Gregory the Great and Maximus the Confessor, the Persian empire, was a mighty power. Persia fought against Byzantium, the continuation of Rome. Byzantium was western in character, Persia was Oriental. Byzantium was Christian, signed with the sign of the Cross. Persia held on to its dualistic Zoroastrian creed.

In 614 the Persian Emperor Chosroes II invaded Jerusalem, his wife was Christian. He understood Christian symbols, so knew what he was doing when he stole the Cross of Jesus. Chosroes could have found no clearer sign of his supremacy. He pillaged all the way to Jerusalem, destroyed many churches, and brought away our Lord's Cross and much other loot. Taking pride in his victory, he thought of himself as god. On a high mountain he had a glass dome built, with images of astral bodies; there he had a seat of gold. He had water installed there by means of hidden plumbing. He occasionally allowed water to flow into the pipes implying he provided rain from heaven, like God, and so let himself be worshiped as god.

This recount makes Chosroes resemble the Old Testament King Belshazzar who, consciously blaspheming, profaned vessels pilfered from the temple in Jerusalem. He wished to prove himself superior to any institution, earthly or heavenly. Once Belshazzar had committed abomination, 'the fingers of a human hand appeared, and began to write on the plaster of the palace wall'. The message – mene, tekel, upharsin -

• Mene = "God has numbered your kingdom and brought it to an end."
• Tekel = "you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting."
• Upharsin "your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians".

It did not voice an angry judgement, simply affirmed that there are limits which for human beings are final. To transgress is to hurl oneself and others headlong into destruction.

When a man thinks he is god, and makes others believe it, he falls captive to his own conceit, absolutizing what is in essence pathetically finite. A painfully humiliating fall is predictable. The human model is unoriginal. Once again in our day that Cross is again being taken hostage in political discourse. This sacred sign, the image of our salvation, is used, rarely unknowingly, often with cynical deliberateness, to manipulate and spur anger, bitterness and strife. This is an iniquity like that of Chosroes when from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre he stole the instrument of God's Son's timeless sacrifice, brought for reconciliation and the forgiveness of sin, that we, as Adam's children, might at last live in peace and not count as loot what is an expression of pure, unmerited grace.

Belshazzar and Chosroes are still recognisable political typologies even today. There is no shortage of rulers, real or aspiring, who vaunt their victories and think themselves god. They sit upon seats of pure gold and pretend to govern the heavenly bodies, spraying a pretence of self-made rain upon the common crowd now and again.

The story of the Cross that was looted, held hostage, instrumentalised politically; then freed and raised up in the Church, regained as a focus and criterion of faith, challenges us to think critically about how symbols of faith are used in public life. It has had that function for centuries. As Christians, we shall only bow before Christ's Cross alone, not before any powers claiming it as theirs. We who would truly honour the Cross shall put on the mind of Christ Jesus, not that of any demagogue.

In the name of Christ! Amen.