Vigils Reading – 2nd Sunday ORD

ONE DIED FOR ALL

From a commentary by St Cyril of Alexandria

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When he saw Jesus coming toward him, John said: Behold the Lamb of

God, who takes away the sin of the world.” No longer does he say: Prepare. That

would be out of place now that at last he who was prepared for is seen, is before our

very eyes. The nature of the case now calls for a different type of homily. An

explanation is needed of who is present, and why he has come down to us from

heaven. So John says: Behold the Lamb of God, of whom the prophet Isaiah told us

in the words: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before his

shearer he opened not his mouth.

In past ages he was typified by the law of Moses, but because the law was

merely a figure and a foreshadowing, its salvation was only partial; its mercy did

not reach out to embrace the whole world. But now the true lamb, the victim

without blemish obscurely prefigured in the former times, is led to the slaughter for

all to banish sin from the world, to overthrow the world’s destroyer, to abolish

death by dying for the entire human race, and to release us from the curse: Dust

you are and to dust you shall return. He will become the second Adam who is not

of earth but of heaven, and will be for us the source of every blessing. He will deliver

us from the corruptibility foreign to our nature; he will secure eternal life for us,

reconcile us with God, teach us to revere God and to live upright lives, and be our

way to the kingdom of heaven.

Our Lamb died for all to restore the whole flock on earth to God the Father;

one died for all to make all subject to God; one died for all to gain all so that all

might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life

for them.

Because our many sins had made us subject to death and corruption, the

Father gave his son as our redemption, one for all, since we all were in him and he

was greater than all. One died for all so that all of us might live in him. Death

swallowed the Lamb who was sacrificed for all, and then disgorging him, disgorged

all of us in him and with him; for we were all in Christ who died and rose for us.

Once sin had been destroyed how could death, which was caused by sin, fail

to be wholly annihilated? What power will death have over us now that sin has been

blotted out? And so, rejoicing in the sacrifice of the Lamb let us cry out: O death,

where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting? All wickedness shall hold its

tongue, as the Psalmist sings somewhere. Henceforth it will be unable to denounce

sinners for their weakness, for God is the one who acquits us. Christ redeemed us

from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for our sake, so that we might

escape the curse brought down on us by sin.