SUNDAY SERMON – 19 of March 2017 , His Eminence Archbishop Seraphim ,
The Greek Orthodox Archbishopric of Zimbabwe
“On this the third Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the Veneration
of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross” (Triodion).
The connection of the cross with the salvation of humans by Jesus
Christ has become a symbol of sacrifice and a prefiguration of the
Resurrection. Therefore, the cross in Christianity constitutes an emblem
of salvation. One of the best known hymnologists of our Church, Saint
Andrea of Crete (he lived during the end of the 7th and the beginning of
the 8th century) expressing the theological meaning and importance of
the Cross which had already been instituted in the Christian tradition,
stresses that the cross constitutes the hope of the Christians, it is
the salvation of the desperate, the giver of health, the life of the
departed…. ( a hymn from the service of the Elevation of the Precious
Cross).
Through the cross, the abundance of the volume of God’s love and mercy
is shown to the world. This is why the sign of the Cross in the worship
and hymnology of our Church precisely serves the recognition of this
faith on behalf of the faithful. The beginning and ending of every act
of service or ceremony (even the realization of every important work in
our personal lives) is always symbolized by the sign of the Cross.
As we have already mentioned, the Cross is connected directly with the
history of the salvation of the human race. From the time of Adam and
right up to the birth of Jesus Christ, people performed many great
injustices, (sins) becoming worthy of the most disgraceful kind of
death. The most disgraceful kind of death at the beginning of the first
century was death by crucifixion.
However, because God saw that if common people simply died on the
Cross they would forever remain dead, and because of His love for us, He
saw to it that in our place His sinless and innocent Son would be
crucified, so that as His Immortal Son and Word of God, with Christ’s
death, death would be conquered (“Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death…”). This achievement of the human nature
of Jesus Christ is fulfilled because already the existence of the Word
of God received beforehand without converting, without separating,
without dividing, and without confusing human nature.
The realization of the theosis (deification by grace) of human nature
in the entity of the Son and Word of God, due to the union of human
nature, develops the possibility in all people who follow Jesus Christ’s
commandments to become His brothers, to reach that is with God’s Grace,
their personal theosis. Hence, if with the fall of Adam and Eve, again
due to the unity of the human nature (a human nature in which all
humans as individuals partake) all people come to the world with the
original sin, which is expressed as tendency toward sin as a result of
obscurity in the face of God in which man was created. Through the
Sacrament in Holy Baptism a Christian renounces the old person who has
fallen due to sin, and he is attired as a new person, as Jesus Christ,
(all who are baptized in Christ have put on in Christ) The Cross,
through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, from a symbol of degradation
and dishonour, now becomes a symbol of sacrifice, glory and honor; it
becomes the means of victory against death, it becomes the symbol of the
Resurrection.
The life of a good Christian is a course towards the life of Jesus
Christ. And in order for this course to reach the Resurrection, it is
necessary for it to pass the crucifixion on Golgotha (“Before Thy Cross
we bow down in worship, O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection we glorify”)
This is why in the Gospel extract of today’s feast because of love and
interest Jesus Christ clearly exhorts us to do what we have to do in
order to be saved from death and to become His brothers, by grace, God’s
children, that is, Gods like the divine human nature of Jesus Christ.
Hence, He tells us “if any one intends to come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his Cross and follow Me continually. For whoever
wants to save his life will lose it and whoever gives up his life for my
sake and the Gospel will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain
the whole world and forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:34-36) Therefore, “Your
old self must die before you die physically, so that when you do die
(physically) you do not die” (in eternal life).
According to the degree to which man lives and is conscious of the
reality of the sacrifice of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, he also
finds the strength with God’s grace to follow the Gospel commandments
and consequences in his life. Where this occurs, we are able to join our
voices with unshakeable faith in God with the prayer of the Saint
Augustinus:
“Lord Jesus Christ, the sweetest child of the heavenly Father, what evil
perhaps have you performed so that you maintain the fear of the sentence
of the cross? What is your crime, so that you suffer the frightful
passions of death? What is your wrongdoing? Of what are you guilty? What
is the reason for your death? What is the reason for your sentence? I, a
sinful person, I am your wound, which causes your pains upon the Cross.
I am the one responsible for your slaughtering. I am the one who gives
grounds for your death; I am the criminal for whose sake you, the
sinless one, was sentenced. I am the reason on account of which you were
wounded and suffered and tasted the grievous pains of death by
crucifixion…because truly, I a sinful person trod upon the laws of God
and His commandments but you were sentenced instead of me. I performed
evil but you suffered the judgment. I sinned, but you were punished with
the whip. I was proud and you tasted degradations. I was fired up by
conceit and arrogance and you were treated with contempt. I became
disobedient to God’s commandments and you with your obedience even unto
death according to the will of the Heavenly Father, paid, the criminal
offence of my disobedience. I gave myself up as an intemperate to
gluttony and having a good time and you were hungry and did without in
your earthly life. I was lead astray and into error through the
temptation of sin, like formerly the serpent attracted Adam to the
forbidden fruit and he made him a transgressor of God’s commandments,
but your perfect love towards humanity was mounted upon the wood of the
cross… So Lord, my king and God, what can I give you in return for all
your benefactions and your gifts which you gave to me?…. But there
exists O son of God, towards this paradoxical economy of our salvation,
there exists a way so that even our weakness and poverty can definitely
become capable to give back to you (A prayer from our Church fathers,
from: The Book of Prayers.