Making peace through the Cross of Christ

Today we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Our first reading, Num 21: 4b-9, is the story of the bronze serpent which Moses erected in the desert. The Israelites had been complaining bitterly against God and Moses. In anger, God sent seraph serpents. Anyone bitten by these serpents died. The Israelites realized their sinfulness and acknowledged it before Moses. Moses then interceded for them, molded a bronze statue of a seraph serpent. Anyone who gazed upon this serpent--a reminder of the sin of deceit and sensuality--and repented of their sin was saved.

We, too, are saved. God sent His only begotten Son into the world, not to condemn it, but to save it. Jesus was raised upon the cross, becoming sin for us, uniting our sinfulness with His sinlessness, reconciling us to God, making peace through the Cross. All who look upon Jesus on the Cross, acknowledge and repent of their sinfulness are saved and are given the inheritance of eternal life with God in heaven.

Am I willing to face the evil in my life? Am I willing to acknowledge my sinful behaviors and attitudes? Am I repentant? Do I look upon Christ and believe in God's desire to save me, that is, to make me into the very holiness of God (cf 2 Cor 5: 21)?

God's incredible mercy and justice

Today’s first reading, Jeremiah  2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13, is proclaimed to all of us in today’s world, as we, too, have “defiled [the Promised Land], “made [God’s] heritage loathsome,” “rebelled against [God], “went after useless idols.” 

The psalmist speak of God’s awesome, all prevailing mercy, which “reaches to the heavens.” God’s “faithfulness,” the psalmist reminds us, “to the clouds.”   God’s “justice is like the mountains of God; [God’s] judgments, like the mighty deep”  (Psalm 36).  If you and I, or any sinner, comes before God,  God takes out his gavel and proclaims: “Not guilty!”  “What?” we ask in amazement. God replies:  “Your debt has been forgiven through my Son, Jesus.  Your sin is no more. It is erased, blotted out, forgiven.   His promise of salvation is real. What God says to us, through Isaiah, is trustworthy: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1: 18).

Volumes of testimony against the human race could be compiled to prove our guilt.  Those volumes would reach into the farthest depths of the earth and reach up into the farthest heights of the heavens.  God’s mercy, on the other hand, would be deeper and higher than any of our transgressions.   “…The  One sitting on the throne…[says to us], ‘Look, I am making the whole of creation new. Then He …[says] said to me, ‘It has already happened. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the well of life free to anybody who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his/[her] God and he[she] will be my son/[daughter].  But the legacy for cowards, for those who break their word, or worship obscenities, for murderers and the sexually immoral, and for sorcerers, worshippers of false gods or any other sort of liars, is the second death in the burning lake of sulphur.” (Revelation 21:  5-8).

Obviously, the choice is ours.  God is not the one who proclaims “Guilty” nor the one who condemns us. We do that to ourselves by the choices we make.  As far as God is concerned, He says to us: I “sent…[my] Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved” (Jn  3:17).

What choices are you and I going to make today?

God never abandons us

As we read today’s first reading, Is 10: 5-7, 13b-16, we might want to imagine how Jesus would say this to us. I came up with the following imaginative conversation parallel to Isaiah’s message to those who brought harm to Israel:

                Dorothy Ann, nations rose up against my people Israel. They boasted of their of

                crimes against my people: raping women, killing those left as orphans following

                a hostile, bloody takeover. They destroyed sacred vessels and confiscated treasures.

They boasted of their military prowess, their domination and destruction of all

that survived the massacre. These same abominations persist throughout the

world of today and have been a reality of one nation putting down another, one

ruler putting down his people, one violent individual putting down another.

My inheritance you inflict:

Widow and stranger you have slain in your wars,

the fatherless you have murdered with violent weapons

 or with violent words of gossip;

women you have raped; young girls and boys you have sold into the sex slave;

young men and women you have killed for drug money

or by the fleeting pleasure of gossip;

unborn infants you have slaughtered in the womb.

And you have the audacity to say, as Assyria said:

“By my own power I have done it,

And by my wisdom, for I am shrewd…

(L)ike a giant I have put down the enthroned….”  (cf. Is 10: 5-7, 13b-16)

God’s response to us is contained in today’s psalm (Ps. 94: 7-8, 9-10, 14-15)

                “Understand, you senseless ones

                of my people;

                and, you fools, when will you be wise?

                “Shall he who shaped the ear not hear?

                Or he who formed the eye not see?

                Shall he who instructs nations

                not chastise,

                he who teaches [human beings] knowledge?

                “For the Lord will not cast off his people

                nor abandon his inheritance;

                but judgment shall again be with justice,

                and all the upright of heart shall

                follow it.”

My response: O God, have mercy.

God's acquittal

Romans 8: 31b-39--"If God is for us, who can be against us.  He did not spar his own Son but handed him over for us all...."  From time to time we go through  experiences worried about being reprimanded, rejected, judged, and/or accused of coming up short or, in fact,  doing something judged "horrible" or unacceptable.  And many  times we are our own worst critic.  In this "courtroom of life" sits God, who handed His Son over to the accusers to saved us from all in life of which others, or we ourselves, reject us, question us and, yes, at times  condemn us.  With God on our side, with God as our judge, no human verdict separates us from God's love, God's compassion, God's mercy and God's acquittal.  What makes us feel alienated from God and others, many times, is our own condemnation.