原文|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

朋友们，今天我们庆祝光荣十字圣架节。对于古代人来说，这个节日听起来是多么怪异啊！十字架的胜利！放在今天，这个节日就像有人庆祝电椅死刑的胜利或者颂扬绞刑一样的古怪。

 

在希腊罗马时代，十字架令人心惊胆战，那正是该酷刑的目的所在。十字架是国家主办的恐怖主义，是惩罚那些危害罗马帝国当权者的极端恶劣分子所用的一种死刑。

 

那么我们到底为什么要庆祝十字圣架的胜利？合理的解释只有一个，那就是耶稣死而复活。这个节日排除了所有想把耶稣复活大事化小和敷衍了事的企图。如果耶稣只不过是那个可怕的十字架上的一个受害者，那么我们都应该打道回府。

 

首批基督徒一旦对耶稣的复活心领神会，就都欣喜若狂地把注意力转移到那个十字架上，确信它含有某种决定性意义。在天主的奇特眷顾之下，就在祂拯救人类的过程当中，那个十字架居然是不可或缺的。

 

Friends, today we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. How strange this feast would have sounded to someone in the ancient world! The triumph of the cross! It would have been analogous to someone speaking today of the triumph of the electric chair or the exaltation of the noose.

 

The cross terrified people in Greco-Roman times, and that was the point. The cross was state-sponsored terrorism, a form of capital punishment reserved for those who had in the most egregious ways undermined the authority of the Roman state.

 

So why in the heck are we celebrating the cross's triumph? There is only one possible explanation, and that is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. All the attempts to soft-pedal and explain away the resurrection are ruled out by this feast. If Jesus was a victim of that terrible cross tout court, then we should all go home.

 

Once they had taken in the experience of the resurrection, the first Christians turned with rapt attention to the cross, convinced that in it they would find something decisive. Somehow, in the strange providence of God, that cross was ingredient in the very process by which God would save the world.