Cycles of Newness

This past week I wrote out a bit of my life’s path and the bumps along the way. Writing it out showed me some recurring themes of moments of weakness and failure (some completely my fault, some completely out of my hands) that lead to disappointment and sadness. When I was done, my journal had quite a few lines of “If only I hadn’t done ‘X’ and done ‘Y’ instead” and “when I overcome ‘X’  I would finally be able to do ‘Y’.” None of these events can be changed or taken back, so what can be done with them?

The 14th of this month marked the celebration of The Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross for Orthodox Christians. The Life Giving Cross has a special place in our lives, it is draped around our necks when we are brought into the Church, it is placed on a pole and leads the Communion gifts during the Great Entrance, and it stands behind the altar during every liturgy.

The Cross is often compared in contrast to the Tree of The Knowledge Of Good and Evil, though not in opposition. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was planted in the Garden of Eden along with the Tree of Life. Adam was also made in the Garden, the head of creation with much to learn. God commanded Adam not to eat of the fruit. (Side note: The modern interpretation of the tree is a matter of justification, as long as Adam does not eat the fruit he is in right standing with God and allowed to remain in paradise. Adam is reduced to a static state of his will, implying that Adam had already fulfilled his vocation. Perhaps instead, both Adam and the Tree of Knowledge needed time to “grow” into themselves.) When he ate of the fruit, sin entered into the world, complicating though not obliterating God’s plan for humanity. Instead, He made a third tree, a tree of death and life, a tree which upon hung the shame of humanity but also the hope of redemption. A tree where God met man in his broken state and bore man’s suffering as His own. Here was humanity’s healing and reunification with its Creator, here was a tree healed by a tree.

The Cross heals us from “the sin that so easily entangles.” The Cross is the way to life, “the door of Salvation,” through which we are healed and death is destroyed. The Cross heals the wounds left by sin, the unripe fruits which we have eaten. Christ upon the cross, fulfilled that which Adam had left undone. The “if I had only done ‘X’” regrets of life are healed and the source of those regrets, our broken communion with God, is restored.

Every week we finish the Great Doxology with “On This Day of Salvation”. It bids us to look past the failure with the first tree to the life of the second:

 “Salvation on this day has come unto all the world. Let us sing and praise Him who rose from the tomb, and who is also the author of life having vanquished death by death by His own death. This victory He bestowed on us, and His boundless mercy.”