XXIV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
By our Pastor, Fr. Carmelo Jimenez
Last week I wrote as the title of my reflection: love by loving. Today we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. In the Holy Cross we have the most powerful and true sign of love.
St. Paul says to the Corinthians: “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 Cor. 1: 18). We constantly hear phrases like: “Why do you have the cross in your church, if it is a sign of punishment?” Yes, it is the sign of punishment and the worst punishment, because it was given only to the wicked person, the worst evildoers of the past. Christ was forced to carry the wood of the cross unjustly; the Jewish people took him to the gallows and sacrificed him. “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter.” (Acts 8:32). It is Jesus Christ himself who exclaims: “This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.This command I have received from my Father” (Jn 10: 17 -18.). And by offering himself, he becomes the ransom of humanity who was lost in sin.
The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt wanting to get out and end their suffering but while they crossed the desert, which was a time of purification for them, they had to pass many tests. There were also many moments of disappointment, as we hear in today’s first reading from the book of Numbers. There they murmured against God and against Moses because they were thirsty. God sent snakes as a punishment to them. When the snakes bit someone, they died. The people spoke with Moses and Moses with God, who commands him, “Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live”. We can think: the bronze serpent had the power to heal? No! It is the responsorial Psalm that gives us answer, says: “while he slew them they sought him and inquired after God again. Remembering that God was their rock and the Most High God, their redeemer”. Being bitten by a snake and seeing the bronze snake on the top of the pole, they remembered that they had sinned, asked for God’s forgiveness, then they were healed as a sign of forgiveness.
The part of the Gospel for this Sunday is quite explicit, it says: “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”. Only in Jesus Christ do we have hope of eternal salvation. By his death he paid our debt to God. The Gospel continues, saying: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The cross and love combination is salvation for those who have faith in Jesus Christ. Contemplating the Cross for us would have to be to contemplate the great mystery of love. Well, we could say to Jesus: I do not understand Lord, for I am a great sinner, but you gave your life to save mine. Do you love me that much? Yes brother, yes sister, God loves you that much. So, Christ gave himself as ransom for your life.
St. Paul proclaims in his letter to the Ephesians: “God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Eph. 2: 9-11). So brothers and sisters, today we kneel before the one who has all power over us because he rescued us from sin and death, and offers us salvation: Christ our Lord, to Him the glory for ever and ever. Amen!