The expression means bowing down before the crucified. This produces a relationship between Jesus and the believer, and this relationship starts by following the Lord. How can this be? Who wants to be this person? He who wants to follow the master must deny himself, get rid of his ego, and from his self-worshiping and then he should carry his cross and passions, endure the difficulties of his life and follow him wherever he wants. After that, the Lord explains these words in a clearer way: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it”: There is no salvation without fatigue and effort.
“But whoever loses their life (i.e. through fighting and fatigue) for me and for the gospel will save it”.
Then, we reach the peak: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” The salvation of your soul through the love of Jesus and the acquisition of biblical virtues is worth the whole world (Money, power, and pleasures). You should throw away everything that harms you and have power over all your desires.
Jesus summarizes these words by saying: “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels”. This is a sign of the judgment. Jesus won’t acknowledge you if you didn’t acknowledge him: Judgment is not a joke.
When you meet Jesus here and after your death, your words and behavior in this world shouldn’t have had any blemish. If you have agreed Jesus in everything, he shall give you his glory.
At the end of this reading, Jesus says to those who love him: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power”. The probable meaning intended by the Lord is that some of those who were hearing him will not die until they see the Savior’s resurrection. Glory will be poured on them.
This Gospel that is read on the third Sunday of the Lent, which is the Sunday that opens the mid-lent, invites us to the austerity that we taste in this season that raises the level of asceticism and strictness in the love of Christ and makes us sense the beginnings of joy.
Today’s epistle also speaks about the crucified as it names the Son of God a High Priest. Jesus has achieved this (i.e. being the high priest) in his death on a piece of wood where he was tempted in every way except sin.
After that, the writer says that he “did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest”, but God has glorified him when he said: “You are my Son; today I have become your Father”.
This means that Christ, who is the Son of God in his eternal essence, was also declared a son in his humanity when he was elevated on the cross as a confirmation to what the Father told him: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek”.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “السجود للصليب” – 27.03.2011
