Yesterday, I was preparing for today’s celebrations, a line from a song spun in my head on repeat. It was a line from a song composed by Kathleen Kirkland Kanewske was which I was blessed to have playing often in our home as a kid. The line goes like this:

My joy, my crown

I lift it high

My only boast

The cross of Christ.

Kathleen Kirkland Kanewske

That was the key, for me, for this feast day. This was the message of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It’s St. Paul saying,

May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through it, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

Galatians 6:14-15

The world presents us with so much we could own and let puff our pride and be our surety. These things are not surety, but shaky. They are not worth boasting in for they bear no merit past this life or in this world.

The cross, though, the cross is the sign of salvation, the path to glory, the way of love. I am dust without the cross. It is the instrument on which my soul was purchased and redeemed.

Boasting in the cross seems like an oxymoron. To boast is to speak with a sense of pride in something. Taking up the cross, though, is humbling oneself. Bearing it is willingness to sacrifice oneself. And boasting in it is wildly abandoning any self-focused love and instead owning the identity of a follower of Jesus. Boasting in the cross is lifting it high and saying, “This! This is who I am! This is what I love!” as one does when flying a flag with some identifying association.

Today we lift the cross high and exalt in the salvation it won for us through Christ. We joyfully take up our crosses and walk the paths laid before us.

And we eat hazelnut cake, thanks to the Medieval English living seasonally…

And enjoy pesto, thanks to St. Helen and her dedicated pursuit of the cross of Christ…

And we live all for the glory of God!