Hebrews 4.14 – 5.6

Mark 8.34 – 9.1

The world of Christians and their way of living is one thing and that of men of this world is another, and the difference is great, says St Macarius the Egyptian (4^th Cent. Hom 5.1). We have come to the Third Sunday of Great Lent, the Sunday of the Cross. By the calendar, we have come to the middle, the heart of Great Lent. But, in the world of the Church, we have descended, mystically, into Hades, into the unseen, into the midst of the earth where the LORD’s Cross was plunged, into the midst of our inner man where the LORD, our King of old, is working His salvation (Ps 74.12). We see into our heart as into the darkness of a tomb; or perhaps I should rather say, those who have lifted the eyes of their heart to behold the LORD high and lifted up on the Cross see into their heart as into the darkness of a tomb. It is they who see that the heart of man is desperately corrupt, deceitful above all things. (Jer 17.9)

Because, to lift up our eyes to behold the LORD high and lifted up, we must stoop down and come into the LORD’s Tomb. We must lower the eyes of our mind and come down from the wisdom and knowledge of our own conceit (Isa 5.21). For in the conceit of our own wisdom, our eyes are high and haughty, and they look down on the LORD Jesus Christ as though we are God, as though we are judges of God, as though we are the arbiters of truth who decide what is and what is not.

To lift up our eyes to behold the LORD as the Son of God high and lifted up in the extreme humility of His Cross, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and lose our life out of love for Christ by putting to death our love for our earthly passions: lust, anger, greed, entitlement, self-esteem, conceit, and all the rest. We must die to the wisdom and understanding of our own mind, and stoop down in the repentance of a broken and contrite heart if we hope to stoop down with the angels (1 Pt 1.12), with St John and St Peter (Jn 20.8) and come into the world of the LORD’s Tomb to behold the mystery of God hidden from the ages. Following, St James (1.25), to stoop down and come into the LORD’s Tomb is to come into the perfect (teleion) Law of freedom; for the LORD Jesus Christ, who is in the Tomb with His crucified Body, is the perfection and the completion of the Law. (Rm 10.4)

We stoop down and come into the Tomb as we strive to put to death our love for the corruption that is in this world of men, and that is passing away, and that is in us, through lust (2 Pt 1.4). This is the idol, the ba’al, that is killing us, making us into spiritual corpses who, like the idols we love and whose world we live in, have eyes that see not the world of the Holy Spirit, ears that hear not the WORD of God. We stoop down and come into the LORD’s Tomb through Holy Baptism when we unite ourselves to Christ in the likeness of His death (Rm 6.3-5). For coming into the LORD’s Tomb, we come into the world of Him who is the Fountain of Life (Jer 2.19).

Having come on this Sunday to the foot of the Cross and into the heart of Great Lent as into the midst of the earth where the LORD is working His salvation (Ps 74.12), we need to listen to everything the Church is teaching us. Through Her Scriptures, Her hymns and prayers, Her iconography, the very structure inherent to the rhythm of Her liturgical worship, She is opening the curtains onto the invisible world of the Christians opened to us by the LORD’s death on the Cross. We read, for example, from the Psalms: ‘The fountains of the waters were seen and the foundation of the world was uncovered’ (Ps 17.18 LXX) when the LORD ascended the Cross.

But we learn from Jeremiah that the LORD is the Fountain of Life (Jer 2.19), and from the LORD Himself that the waters are the Holy Spirit (Jn 7.38-39) on whom the LORD founded the creation. (Ps 23.2 LXX). Christ crucified on the Cross makes manifest, visibly, the invisible foundation of the world: it is ‘the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.’ (Rev 13.8)

The Son of God slain on the Cross in the flesh ‘finishes’ His creation of the world. It is the final and supreme epiphany that makes manifest visibly to our eyes in space and time the inner, hidden essence of creation. It is the extreme humility of God and His ineffable compassion.

Can we not see from this that the inner essence of the Lenten Fast is to die to our love for the corruption that is in the world because of our lusts? (2 Pt 1.4) Through prayer, we strive to descend to the foundation of our own being. There, we behold the extreme humility and compassion of the LORD crucified on the Cross for us as the very foundation of the world.

His Tomb, so we understand from the assigned Scriptures this week, is the Ark of Noah. And the LORD’s Tomb, the Ark of Noah, is found in the tomb of our heart where we have become as dead men because we are immersed in the floodwaters of our sins and trespasses and have become ‘desperately corrupt and deceitful above all things.’

We read from Isaiah last week: ‘The LORD and His warriors are coming to destroy all the world. The Day of the LORD is coming, and it cannot be escaped, to destroy sinners out of it’ (as in the days of Noah when the flood destroyed the world because of man’s wickedness). ‘The stars of heaven, and all the hosts of heaven shall not give their light, and it shall be dark at sunrise; the earth shall be shaken from her foundation from the fierce anger of the LORD of hosts! (Isa 13.5-16) We easily behold in Isaiah’s prophecy a vision of the LORD high and lifted up on the Cross.

The LORD is merciful and compassionate; but He is holy. He does not tolerate sin. Those who make a ‘contract with the devil’ (Wisd 1.16) and who call evil good, and good evil, who make darkness light and light darkness, who make bitter sweet and sweet bitter, who are wise and understanding in their own conceit (Isa 5.20-21), the LORD will destroy together with their lord, the devil, and all his hosts and all his pride.

But for now, as long as it is Today, the LORD and His Bride cry out: ‘Come, and let him who desires to drink the water of life freely given, let him come! (Rev 22.17). Take up your cross, lose your life for Christ’s sake that you may find it in the Ark of the LORD’s Might (Psa 132.8), in the Tomb of His Sabbath Rest, the Fountain of our Resurrection.

For, if we take up our cross and follow the LORD into His Tomb as into the Ark of Noah, the LORD destroys our death; He cleanses our heart from every impurity, and we pass over the floodwaters of destruction, and we come out into the foundation of the world, into the extreme humility and ineffable compassion of the God who loved us and gave Himself for us.

For God made us for immortality (Wisd 2.23). He made our body to be a living Temple of His Holy Spirit. He made our soul to be the bride of His Son, Our LORD Jesus Christ. But when our heart became corrupt so that we were incapable of immortality and union with God, the LORD God Himself became flesh in order to establish our heart in love of the Father. By His Cross, the LORD has opened Eden. He has restored our nature to her former beauty. He has clothed those who unite themselves to Him through Holy Baptism in the Glory that He had with the Father before the world was. The instrument of death, the Cross, He has made by the power of His Might to be our weapon of victory, the instrument of our theosis, and His death the Ark of our refuge, the death of our death. This is why we bow down before the Cross as before the footstool of the LORD’s judgment seat, and we worship Christ our Savior in the love and joy of His Holy Resurrection. Amen!