Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
I have an old cookbook in my pantry that discusses ways of observing special feast days. For today's feast, the suggestion is to bake a cake - any cake will do - and then decorate the cake with crosses made from various forms of candy. Of course, for young kids, this will seem especially awesome: an excuse to have more sugar!
My worry as a parent responsible for handing down the faith to my kids is whether this is a sufficient way to observe this important feast day. In other words: will the focus be on the sugar, or on the cross? Just as with Easter and Christmas, will this feast day be co-opted by candy? I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is for my kids.... ;-) That said, I think it is possible to combine the cake idea with some good reflection: perhaps make fourteen crosses and reflect on the stations of the cross, and end with a fifteenth station on the glory of the resurrection? Perhaps read today's second reading (Philippians 2:6-11) while making the cross and reflect on how amazing and crazy it is that God - who is not remotely anything like us - yet cares enough for us to become one of us!
But I think today's readings offer other (though sugarless, alas!) ways to observe this feast. Today's first reading (Numbers 21:4b-9) show Moses and the Israelites wandering in the desert, complaining about the food. I always have a bit of a chuckle at these readings depicting the Israelites because they are SO much like me. I could be camping, and could be in view of an awesome sunset but still complaining - nitpicking even - about all the comparatively minor things, like bad food, wind, rain, and so on, while all the while missing the point.
In this case, the bad food was one of the many reasons why the Israelites wanted to return to slavery (!!!) in Egypt rather than strike off on this grand desert-wandering adventure with Moses. Unlike some other times when God gave the Israelites bread from heaven to eat (Exodus 16), God instead sends snakes, perhaps as reminders that things could be oh-so-much-worse.
The great thing is that it works. The Israelites realize they have sinned against God, and so God, in his mercy, has a solution for the snakes. Note, though, that God's solution requires some response and action on the part of the Israelites. He does not simply remove the snakes and make everything better, but has Moses make a copper image of the snake. People who have been bitten and who look at this copper pole are healed. It is important to remember that for the Israelites, no one (not even Moses) could see the face of God and live... so here Moses seems to be offering another way to "see" God in a sense, and remember that God saves, even when the people are complaining.
God saves, but first they had to look. Jesus mentions this story from Numbers in today's gospel (John 3:13-17). Jesus makes a parallel between looking at the snake and living, and believing that Jesus is the Son of God who dies on a cross, but who is raised up. Just as God saves the Israelites, even in the midst of their mundane complaining, so God saves us and meets us in the midst of our everyday lives.
Looking, and really seeing the cross is the point.
So today, maybe instead of (or alongside) the cake, why not take a little scavenger hunt of your own and see where crosses are hiding in the midst of our every day lives? The back of a chair, the design on a plate, the "t" in a stop sign, are all versions of crosses, and might remind us to look - really look - for God's presence in the midst of our complaining, our joys, sorrows, and just everyday life.
-Jana Bennett