The Veneration of the Holy Cross
In our Epistle reading for this Sunday, Hebrews 4:14-5:6, we heard that Christ is the high priest Who offered Himself on the Cross as the final, eternal sacrifice for our sins. Christ "was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin" (4:15). Chrysostom taught that God thus compassionately identifies with the weak and the poor, whom the world rejects. Therefore, the Lord’s throne is a throne of grace and mercy, not a throne of judgment (ACCS). Only Christ, being the sinless God-Man, could offer the final, perfect sacrifice. Every previous high priest had to first offer a sacrifice for his own sins (5:3), but not Christ.
How can this be? How can any man, even Jesus Christ, be both tempted as we weak humans are, yet without sin offer a perfect sacrifice? The answer is that He combined two natures in one Person. Leo the Great wrote – "Since, therefore, the characteristic properties of both natures and substances are kept intact and come together in one Person, lowliness is taken on by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity, and the nature which cannot be harmed is united to the nature which suffers, in order that the debt which our condition involves may be discharged.
"In this way, as our salvation requires one and the same mediator between God and human beings, the human being who is Jesus Christ can at one and the same time die in virtue of the one nature and in virtue of the other be incapable of death. That is why true God was born in the integral and complete nature of a true human being, entire in what belongs to Him and entire in what belongs to us.
"Each nature retained its characteristic without defect. Each ‘form’ carries on its proper activities in communion with the other. Because of this unity of Person, which must be understood to subsist in a twofold nature, we read that the Son of Man came down from heaven, and conversely we say that the Son of God was crucified and buried" (ACCS).
Wow! That’s powerful stuff! Christ has two natures – fully divine and fully human – united without confusion in one Person.
Now let’s go on to the Gospel reading for this Sunday, Mark 8:34-9:1. The context of this passage is when Peter first confesses Jesus as the Christ, God’s anointed, the Messiah, but when Jesus replies that He must suffer, be rejected and crucified, Peter turns right around and rebukes Christ – "No, that can never be!" How often do we try to force Christ’s commands into our pigeon-holes, our limited and sin-distorted framework of thinking? Christ had to tell Peter – "Get behind Me, Satan!" (v. 33).
Then Christ turns to all the people who were following Him – "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (v. 34). In other words – "Just like I must suffer, be rejected and crucified, you must too, if you really want to follow Me." This goes against our fallen human nature: we want to be recognized, rewarded and applauded for our Christian life, our good deeds – "What kind of academic degree and what title will I receive? What kind of fancy robes do I get to wear? How much does a career priest earn? What are the retirement benefits?"
No! Forget that nonsense! If that’s all you want out of life, you’ll lose big-time! "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it" (v. 35). This apparent logical contradiction is resolved when we realize that our entire existence depends on God (NOAB note), not on material things and social status. You might save your physical life by denying Christ, but lose your spiritual life; or you might lose your physical life or material wealth and status, but gain eternal life (NIVSB note). These very verses coursed through my mind on the evening of July 14, 1957, when I was debating with myself and finally decided to surrender my life totally to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Little did I know what these verses would cost me in the future.
Let's continue in this passage – "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (vv. 36-37). Here Jesus uses very mundane terms, to profit (opheleo) and to lose (zemio): business terms, like a profit-and-loss statement. Gaining the whole material world (kosmos) makes no sense if in the deal you lose your soul (psyche) or life (KJV+). In the game of chess, you sometimes have to sacrifice your rook or even your queen in order to save your king. Likewise, in the game of life you sometimes have to sacrifice your goals, even your career, in order to save your wife and family, or your soul – your ethical standards.
After serving in the Army where I learned Russian, I finished university in three years, aiming to go into the diplomatic corps. I passed the day-long written Foreign Service Officer exam that just 25% of college seniors who take it pass, only to lose in the oral interview when I took a stand on pacifism: that was the whole content of the interview, not a single question about my studies in political science, Russian and Central European history and languages, international law, etc.
Then my wife and I had a stint in mission work to Christians behind the Iron Curtain, only to be forced to return to the U.S. for my wife’s health. After getting into careers as consultants, I was managing a billion-dollar project at an insurance company where I was consulting and found out that they were routinely mis-coding abortions to get the U.S. government to pay for them: a violation of U.S. law at the time... and a violation of my conscience. When I blew the whistle on them, it effectively ended my career as a consultant.
But this was the same time when the Berlin Wall was coming down, Central European countries were casting off communism, many now being led by the same dissidents we had brought Bibles to! We returned to mission work, this time spending 17 years in Russia where we were drawn to the Orthodox Christian faith – the original Church. We lost our careers and high incomes, however, we gained the pearl of great price, our eternal souls! "But God forbid that I should boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14). That’s the real "art of the deal" – will you take up the challenge, your cross?
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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Sources:
ACCS = Ancient Christian Commentary on the Scriptures, on this passage (e-Sword add-in)
KJV+ = King James Version with Strong's Dictionaries and Concordance (e-Sword)
NIVSB = New International Version Study Bible
NOAB = New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha
OSB = Orthodox Study Bible (used throughout except where otherwise noted)
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