Dear in Christ Brothers and Sisters,

A heartfelt congratulations to all of you on the feasts of the Resurrection of the Lord and of the Cross, as well as with the completion of the first half of Great Lent!

The church hymns give different names or titles to the Cross of Christ. Various metaphors and images are used to pass on the essence or meaning of the Cross for each of us. Today, let’s bring to mind one of these images. At times, the Cross is compared to an accurate scale or balance. A cross even looks somewhat like an old-fashioned scale. Such an instrument has a vertical base or column on which a horizontal beam is a fixed using which you can weigh practically anything.

We hear about this image often during the time of Lent, because each weekday that we have a church service in the morning, we read during the ninth hour a kontakion, in which it is said that the cross is a scale. Here is the kontakion:

Between two thieves your Cross became the scales of justice: the one was dragged down to hell by the weight of his blasphemy, but the other lightened of his faults was raised to the knowledge of the things of God. Christ God, glory to you.

The good thief by his confession freed himself from his sins, became light, and ascended into heaven. On the contrary, the blasphemous thief was tied down by the great weight of his sins and descended, or perhaps it would be better to say fell like lightning from the sky, to hell, exactly like a scale falls when something very heavy is placed on it.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, it is usually considered that today’s feastday has been established at the mid-point of Lent so as to encourage us and give us new strength to continue to struggles until Holy Week and Pascha. Of course, this is all true, but maybe we could also remember the image of the cross as the most accurate scale. Perhaps at this point in Lent it would be prudent to weigh our spiritual goods. Have we spent the first half of Great Lent correctly, the way we had planned to do at the beginning of our journey, or have we not? Before us is the image of our innocent and meekly suffering Christ. How do we compare to Him? Have we drawn closer to Him, as did at one time the good thief, or are we more like the blaspheming one? If we are more alike to the first, glory to God; let’s continue in like fashion. But if we have acted more like the second one, let’s not fret, let’s not fall in spirit, for there is still time in this Lenten season to repent, give alms, pray, and fast, so as to throw off the heavy burden of our sins and slowly begin to rise to heaven.

priest Alexis