The Cross (For March 2015) Sermon

THE CROSS (FOR MARCH 2015) SERMON

The Cross of Christ was not an accident or just a historical fact, but it was planned from God beforehand and before the foundation of the world.

St. Peter mentioned this teaching more than once. In his first letter , he said "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct ... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you".(1 Pet. 1: 18), (Acts 2: 22-24).

God kept preparing the minds of His people to understand this: "great mystery of godliness," which is the incarnation of God in the form of the Messiah to redeem mankind and pay off the debt of their sins and restore us to Himself. It was necessary for God's love, mercy and honor to save us from: sin, Satan, death and hell, because it is impossible for Him to create man and cannot protect him. Yes, it is an insult to God, letting the devil destroy man.

Therefore, God revealed His plan of salvation all over the generations through the prophets and their prophecies: shadows, types, and symbols of His redemption. In this article, I will present some examples of these prophecies and types of the cross of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament:

In Genesis (3:15) "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Christ is the Seed of the woman who was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit (Isa 7:14; Matt. 1:23). All what the serpent could do, was to bruise His heel which is His human body or His humanity, but couldn't touch His Divinity that bruised its head by the cross. The virgin birth was necessary for our salvation, because if Christ was born as a regular man He would have inherited the original sin, but through His virgin birth He became the second Adam who saved us from the sin, which we inherited from the first Adam.

(Gen.3:21), "Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God, made tunics of skin, and clothed them." Sin caused Adam and Eve nakedness, They tried to cover themselves with sewing fig leaves but failed. So, God covered them with a skin of an animal, i.e., He sacrificed a lamb or a goat and made them tunics of its leather. The blood of the animal sacrifice, was a type of Christ's blood of redemption and its skin, stands for His righteousness that cover our sins.

In Genesis, chapter four, we read about the second symbol of the bloody sacrifice required. Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground, but it was rejected because God had cursed the ground due to Adam's sin (Gen. 3:17), so He could not accept the fruit of the curse and also, because it represents the human effort or the self-righteousness. Yet He accepted Abel's bloody sacrifice, because it depicts Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

For this reason, St. Paul says, "By faith (in Christ) Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain" (Heb.11:4)

Gen 14:18: Melchizedek, king of Salem brought out bread and wine to Abraham, It was the type of the body of Christ and His blood that was shed on the cross .

In Numbers (21: 4-9) When they departed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea; and they went around the land of Edom, and the people became discouraged on the way, So the people spoke, against God and against Moses, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt? to kill us in the desert? For there is no bread nor water, and our soul, is weary of this worthless bread."

So the Lord sent venomous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the children of Israel died. Then the people came to Moses, and were saying: "We sinned, for we spoke against the Lord and against you; therefore, pray to the Lord, and let Him take away the serpent from us". So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses: "Make a serpent for yourself and put it on a signal pole; and it shall be, if a serpent should bite someone, when the one bitten looks at it, he shall live."

So Moses made a copper serpent and put it on a signal pole; and it happened, when a serpent bit anyone, and he looked at the copper serpent, he lived.

Isaiah 53: "O Lord. Who has believed our report? and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? We proclaimed His presence as a Child, as a Root in a thirsty land. He had no form or glory, and we saw Him and He had no form or beauty. But in comparison to all men, His form was lacking in honor. He was a man in suffering and knew how to bear sickness. His face was turned away, and He was dishonored and not esteemed. He bears our sins and suffers for us, yet we considered Him to be in pain, suffering, and ill- treatment. But He was wounded because of our lawlessness, and became sick because of our sins.

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His bruise we are healed. All, we like sheep have gone astray. Man has gone astray in his way, and the Lord delivered Him over for our sins. Although He was ill-treated, He opened not His mouth. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before his shearers, so He opens not His mouth. In His humiliation, His judgment was taken away.

And Who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth, and because of the lawlessness of My people, He was led to death. I will appoint evil men for His burial and rich men for His death, because He committed no lawlessness, nor was deceit found in His mouth. The Lord wishes to cleanse Him of His wound, and if You give an offering for sin, Your soul shall see a long-lived seed.

The Lord wishes to take away the pain of His soul, to show Him light, to form Him with understanding, and to pronounce righteous the Righteous One who serves many well; and He shall bear their sins, Therefore He shall inherit many, and will divide the spoil with the strong, because His soul was delivered over to death. He was considered among the lawless, and He bore the sins of many, and was delivered over because of their sins.

We conclude from the foregoing that all the symbols of the Old Testament pointed to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior and living God in order to take the church into the Kingdom of Heaven.

On this Day, the Third Sunday of the Fast, we keep the Feast of the Veneration of the Honorable and Life-Creating Cross.

Having arrived with God's Grace at the middle of the Fast, our compassionate Mother- the Holy Orthodox Church-thought fit to reveal to us the Holy Cross as the joy of the world and power of the faithful to help us carry on the struggles of the divine Fast.

By its power, O Christ God, preserve us from the crafty designs of the evil one and account us worthy to worship thy divine passion and life-giving resurrection, as we achieve the course of the Forty Days with ease, and have mercy on us, as Thou alone art good and the lover of mankind.