Take Up Your Cross
Sermon preached by Kyra Limberakis at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA on Sunday, March 15, 2026
Note: This sermon was originally written and presented for the Fordham University Orthodox Christian Studies Center Orthodox Scholars Preach series and can be found at this link as well: youtube.com/watch?v=T6eFgqPQqLY
Between Memory and Hope. This has been the theme of our series this month as we look at the special commemorations during Lent that remind us of events and persons who have shaped our understanding of the faith. This morning marks the halfway point of Lent when our Church has us pause to contemplate and meditate on the life-giving and venerable cross. At its most basic level, the cross is the place upon which Christ was publicly executed. It was the world’s sign of humiliation and death. But for us, it is the place of sacrificial love, of the trampling down of death, and ultimately a sign of life. And so today we lift up the cross, we reflect on its meaning in our life, and in particular, how it can reinvigorate our efforts in the second half of Lent.
What strikes me most about this feast is that the gospel reading for today makes clear that we are not to just contemplate the cross. The cross is not just a mere symbol, something we wear decoratively around our necks or do the sign of before meals. The Lord says in the Gospel of Mark, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” These words call us to action. To be a follower of Christ, to say that we are Orthodox Christians, is to empty ourselves of our pride, our ego, our desires; to bear that which can sometimes seem unbearable; and walk in the way of the Lord.
To walk in the way of the Lord means to take up our crosses but not be consumed by them or focused only on our own suffering. It also doesn’t mean to judge other people’s crosses, to pity them, or think others’ crosses are not ours to be concerned with. The cross is not meant to turn us inward, focused only on ourselves. Rather, Christ crucified on the cross is the ultimate example of what it means to be a person of love for others. To be a person who can bear the crosses of others, not with the intention of feeling better about ourselves or trying to fix another person, but to give without any expectation of anything in return. And to be a person who pays special attention to our neighbors who are most vulnerable.
Christ draws near to us in our suffering through the cross, and because of that we are called to draw near to others in theirs. In the epistle reading for today we hear in Hebrews: “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Christ does not remain distant from human suffering. He enters it fully. And because of that, the epistle continues, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
We live in a world that makes it easy to keep our distance from other people’s suffering, even when we see it everywhere. We can talk about issues, post about them to raise awareness, even donate money, all of which can be good, but still stay emotionally and physically far away from the people we claim to care about. But Christ didn’t serve us from a distance. He came close. He took on flesh. He touched lepers. He washed feet. He ate with the outcasts. His flesh experienced pain. He entered into our suffering. That’s proximity. And that’s what we are called to.
Through my work with Orthodox Volunteer Corps, I get to see young adults not only picking up their own crosses but coming in close proximity to the crosses of those who are most vulnerable, seeking to lift them even just for a moment. One example is a Corps Member from our second year, a man named Jacob.
After graduating college, Jacob committed to a year of service with OVC where he was placed to serve at one of the largest homeless shelters in Pittsburgh, specifically working at the men’s shelter. At first, he was timid in this environment, unsure what to say or how to connect with the men there. But he started small, by having conversations, sharing a book, and listening.
Over time, something changed. Jacob was assigned to join the shelter’s outreach team, visiting tent encampments throughout the city in the dead of winter, bringing blankets, coffee, and information about the shelter.
He and his team became regulars. They learned people’s names. They knew who lived where. When people from the encampments disappeared, Jacob noticed. One woman ended up in the hospital after an accident, he went to visit her. Another man was arrested, Jacob went through the lengthy process to get permission to visit him in jail. Both of these individuals couldn’t believe that Jacob would make the effort to find them and visit with them. That’s proximity. That’s the kind of love that refuses to stay at arm’s length. And that proximity changed Jacob. He told us that he experienced community among those living on the margins deeper than any community he’d known before. As Fr. Greg Boyle says, “We don’t go to the margins to make a difference. We go to the margins so that the people there make us different.”
This experience Jacob had in seeking to unburden the weight of the crosses of others to me reveals what we mean when we hear the call to follow Christ. It is to love our neighbor with such compassion that we are willing to push ourselves outside our comfort zone to meet them in that place of suffering. Love of neighbor is not an extracurricular activity or a one-time act of charity—it’s a way of being in the world.
We live in a time where suffering around us can feel overwhelming. It is tempting to look away, numb ourselves, or say it is too much. But the Gospel challenges this directly. In today’s Gospel Christ says, “For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed…” What are the words of Christ we are sometimes ashamed to live by? Love your enemies. Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For I was hungry and you fed me. These words demand real sacrifice and courage. And this is exactly what we see in the lives of the saints.
St. Maria of Paris, gives us a powerful example of this. Mother Maria was a 20th century Russian immigrant in Paris who became a nun and made it her life's mission to radically care for the poor, refugees, and the forgotten. She believed that it was not enough to pick up our own crosses. She believed that like the Theotokos, our hearts must be “ pierced by the crosses of others.” She was committed to the idea that being a follower of Christ meant to love and care for her neighbors who were suffering, and without condition…for in them, would she encounter Christ. In one of her writings she says, “We can say that this is the only proper relation of one person to another: only when one soul takes up another person’s cross, their doubts, their griefs, their temptations, their faults, only then is it possible to speak of a proper relation to one another.”
Ultimately, this is what taking up the cross looks like in practice—learning to love completely and sacrificially. As Fr. Thomas Hopko once wrote: "To deny ourselves and to take up our cross is to love, no matter what. To love God with all our mind, soul, heart, and strength, no matter what is happening to us. Even if we feel totally abandoned and forsaken by God, we still love him. And it also means to love our neighbor, including our enemy; no matter what, no matter what they’re doing to us, no matter how evilly, badly, wickedly they’re treating us, we still love them; we still forgive them. That’s what it means to take up the cross. It means total love of God, total love for neighbor, in total obedience to God, in total imitation of Christ, and we see all of this in the figure of the cross, in the sign of the cross." This kind of love is not abstract or sentimental. It requires proximity. It requires drawing close to the suffering of others, allowing their burdens to become our burdens, and for our eyes to be opened to their crosses…not to judge them but to help carry them.
As we venerate the Cross today, let us remember that the cross is not just for contemplation but for transformation. The Gospel calls us to “deny ourselves, lift up our cross and follow him” revealing that the way of the cross is the way of love…and always directed outwards. And so as we continue our journey through Lent, may the Cross of Christ not only strengthen us to take up our own crosses, but also compel us into the lives of neighbors—so that together, in love, we may help carry the crosses of this world.