Vigils Reading – 4th Sunday of Lent

THE CROSS OF OUR LORD

From a commentary by St John Chrysostom1

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Although we praise our common Lord for all kinds of reasons, we praise

and glorify him above all for the cross. It fills us with awe to see him dying like

one accursed. It is this death for people like ourselves that Paul constantly

regards as the sign of Christ’s love for us. He passes over everything else that

Christ did for our advantage and consolation and dwells incessantly on the

cross. The proof of God’s love for us, he says, is that Christ died for us while we

were still sinners. Then in the following sentence he gives us the highest ground

for hope: If, when we were alienated from God, we were reconciled to him by

the death of his Son, how much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be

saved by his life! It is this above all that made Paul so proud, so happy, so full

of joy and exultation, when he wrote to the Galatians: God forbid that I should

glory in anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. What wonder, indeed,

if Paul rejoices and glories in the cross, when the Lord himself spoke of his

passion as his glory. Father, he prayed, the hour has come: glorify your Son.

The disciple who wrote those also told us that the Holy Spirit had not yet

come to them because Jesus was not yet glorified, calling the cross glory. And

when he wanted to show God’s love, did he do so by referring to signs, wonders,

or miracles of any sort? By no means: he pointed to the cross, saying: God so

loved the world that he gave his only Son, that all who believe in him might

not perish but have eternal life. And Paul writes: Since he did not spare his own

Son, but gave him up for us all, how can he fail to lavish every other gift upon

us? And in his exhortation to humility he uses the same example, saying: You

should have the same dispositions as you find in Christ Jesus. Although his

nature was divine, he did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied

himself to assume the condition of a slave. Bearing the human likeness,

sharing the human lot, he humbled himself and was obedient even to the point

of dying – dying on a cross!

Returning to the subject of love, Paul again urges his hearers to love one

another, even as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us as a fragrant

offering and sacrifice to God. And Christ himself showed how the cross was his

chief preoccupation, and how much he longed to suffer. In his ignorance, Peter,

first of the Twelve, foundation of the Church, leader of the Apostles, protested:

God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you! Listen to what Christ called

him: Get behind me, Satan. You are an obstacle in my way, proving by the

strength of his reprimand his great eagerness to suffer on the cross.

1 Journey with the Fathers -Year B – New City Press – NY – 1993 – pg 36.3