Welcome to answers from an apostolic faith.
Name the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
So, this week is a very special week where we commemorate and we relive every passion of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ. And we come to the day of Good Friday where we commemorate the pinnacle of the passion, which is the cross of our Lord. Now, we wanna take something spiritual out of this. What can I take from the cross and apply personally in my life?
So, I have to understand: in the time of Adam and Eve, they were created under God’s authority, but when they sinned, they have given this authority to the devil. So, since then, there's been death, corruption, sinners, you name it! But God did not will it to leave it this way. So, the Holy Trinity decided that the Son will come down. He will be incarnate, crucified, and resurrected.
Now today, I wanna take this entire story of salvation and look at it from a beautiful story in Exodus 7, where Moses and Aaron come to meet Pharaoh and the magicians. And they have this rod with them. So, as you know the story, this rod was transformed to become a serpent. And the Fathers of the Church have taught us that this transformation was a symbol of the incarnation of our Lord. It's a symbol, right? But why did Christ choose to be incarnate in the form of a serpent?
So, we have to understand that God took exactly what was ours. So, as humans, when we sinned, we became corrupt. Corruption reigned in us. So, God took everything that belonged to humanity, with the exception of sin. So, He was incarnate in the shape of that serpent. Now, the magicians, they come, and likewise, they do the same. So now, you have this confrontation between the powers of good, if you will, and the powers of evil.
And you have this incarnate Logos... He comes in the form of a serpent and He eats the other serpent. And that meant that God had swallowed death, had eaten corruption. But He remained incorruptible. He lifted up our sins on the cross, and so on, yet He remained alive. And the beauty of this story is that when they came and... to take the rod again or to the serpent again, it was transformed back into a rod. And the Fathers have said that this was a symbol for the resurrection and the ascension of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
So, through the cross, I have been given this authority over the powers of darkness, over evil and death and corruption. In the cross, I am given the authority to live a true Christian life, a pure life. But I need to believe in this, in the cross, in the resurrection, in that authority I have been given.
In Matthew 27, God has demonstrated in one way or another that nature itself believed. So, He says that from the 6 th to the 9 th hour, there was darkness over all the land. The veil of the temple was torn in two. The rocks were split. There was an earthquake. So, nature believed, so to speak. But when it came to humanity, some believed and some didn’t. And the perfect example that... is the thieves on the cross. The right-hand thief believed, he repented, he was saved, he stole paradise. The one on the left, he didn’t.
But the good news in all of this is that both of them, in the beginning, reviled Christ; both of them have sinned against Him, but one repented. I ought to be like this right-hand thief. No matter what I did, I need to come back to the cross, at the feet of Christ, and go to the sacraments and be given this life of authority. So, St. Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 1:18:
''For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.'' (1 Corinthians 1:18)
I am being saved. Now the cross is the power of God to me. The cross is redemption. The cross is life. This cross is the authority for me to take that authority and to live by it every single day of my life.
Remember: Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And glory be to God forever. Amen.