5th Sunday of Lent

HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE
From a commentary by St Cyril of Alexandria 1
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As the first fruits of our renewed humanity, Christ escaped the curse of
the law precisely by becoming accursed for our sake. He overcame the forces of
corruption, by himself becoming once more, free among the dead. He trampled
death under foot and came to life again, and then he ascended to the Father as
an offering, the first fruits…of the human race. He ascended, as Scripture says,
not to a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the real one, but into
heaven itself, to appear in God’s presence on our behalf. He is the life-giving
bread that came down from heaven, and by offering himself to God the Father
as a fragrant sacrifice for our sake, he also delivers us from our sins and frees us
from the faults that we commit through ignorance.

We can understand this best if we think of him as symbolized by the calf
that used to be slain as a holocaust and by the goat that was sacrificed for our
sins committed through ignorance. For our sake, to blot out the sins of the
world, he laid down his life. Recognized then in bread as life and the giver of
life, in the calf as a holocaust offered by himself to God the Father as an
appeasing fragrance, in the goat as one who became sin for our sake and was
slain for our transgressions, Christ is also symbolized in another way by a sheaf
of grain…

The human race may be compared to spikes of wheat in a field, rising, as
it were, from the earth, awaiting their full growth and development, and then in
time being cut down by the reaper, which is death. The comparison is apt, since
Christ himself spoke of our race in this way when he said to his holy disciples:
Do you not say, “Four months and it will be harvest time?” Look at the fields I
tell you, they are already white and ready for harvesting. The reaper is
already receiving his wages and bringing in a crop for eternal life.

Now Christ became like one of us; he sprang from the holy Virgin like a
spike of wheat from the ground. Indeed, he spoke of himself as a grain of wheat
when he said: I tell you truly, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and
dies, it remains as it was, a single grain; but if it dies its yield is very great.
And so, like a sheaf of grain, the first fruits, as it were, of the earth, he offered
himself to the Father for our sake.

For we do not think of a spike of wheat, any more than we do of ourselves,
in isolation. We think of it rather as part of a sheaf, which is a single bundle
made up of many spikes. The spikes have to be gathered into a bundle before
they can be used, and this is the key to the mystery they represent, the mystery
of Christ who, though one, appears in the image of a sheaf to be made up of
many, as in fact he is. Spiritually, he contains in himself all believers. As we
have been raised up with him, writes Saint Paul, so we have also been
enthroned with him in heaven. He is a human being like ourselves, and this has
made us one body with him, the body being the bond that unites us. We can say,
therefore, that in him, we are all one, and indeed as he himself says to God, his
heavenly Father: It is my desire that as I and you are one, so they also may be
one in us.

1
Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – NY – 1993 – pg 38.