They led away the author of life to die—to die for our sake. In a
way beyond our understanding, the power of God brought from
Christ’s passion an end far different from that intended by
his enemies. His sufferings served as a snare for death and rendered
it powerless. The Lord’s death proved to be our restoration to
immortality and newness of life.
Condemned to death though innocent, he went forward bearing on his
shoulders the cross upon which he was to suffer. He did this for our
sake, taking on himself the punishment which the Law justly imposed
upon sinners. “He was accursed for our sake according to the
saying of Scripture: ‘A curse is on everyone who is hanged on a
tree.””
We who have all committed many sins were under that ancient curse
for our refusal to obey the law of God. To set us free he who was
without sin took that curse upon himself. Since he is God who is
above all, his sufferings sufficed for all, his death in the flesh
was the redemption of all.
And so Christ carried the cross, a cross that was rightfully not his
but ours, who were under the condemnation of the Law.
As he was numbered among the dead not on his own account but on
ours, to destroy the power of death and to become for us the source
of eternal life, so he accepted the cross we deserved. He passed the
Law’s sentence on himself “to seal the lips of
lawlessness for ever,” as the psalm says, by being condemned
sinless as he was for the sin of all.
Christ’s example of courage in God’s service will be of
great profit to us, for only by putting the love of God before our
earthly life and being prepared when occasion demands to fight
zealously for the truth can we attain the supreme blessing of
perfect union with God. Indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ has warned us
that anyone who does not take up his cross and follow him is not
worthy of him.
And I think taking up the cross means simply renouncing the world
for God’s sake and, if this is required of us, putting the
hope of future blessings before the life we now live in the body.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was not ashamed to carry the cross we
deserved, and he did so because he loved us.
Those united to Christ are also crucified with him by dying to their
former way of life and entering upon a new life based on the
teaching of the Gospel, Paul spoke for all when he said: “I
have been crucified with Christ and the life I live now is not my
life, but the life that Christ lives in me.”
(Commentary on Saint John’s Gospel 12, 19: PG 74,
650-654)
Cyril of Alexandria (d.
444) succeeded his uncle Theophilus as patriarch in 412. Until 428
the pen of this brilliant theologian was employed in exegesis and
polemics against the Arians; after that date it was devoted almost
entirely to refuting the Nestorian heresy. The teaching of
Nestorius was condemned in 431 by the Council of Ephesus at which
Cyril presided, and Mary’s title, Mother of God, was
solemnly recognized.
The incarnation is central to Cyril’s theology. Only if
Christ is consubstantial with the Father and with us can he save
us, for the meeting ground between God and ourselves is the flesh
of Christ. Through our kinship with Christ, the Word made flesh,
we become children of God, and share in the filial relation of the
Son with the Father.
All Rights Reserved.
Journey with the Fathers
Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels
- Year A, pp. 52-53.
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