Holy week - The cross of salvation

Memorial Moment/Rev. Dr Scott Murray

"The wood upon which He was set adrift under the storming wrath of God He fashions into the ship of our salvation. It is our cross too, but not a cross of punishment for us. Rather, He makes it the cross of salvation."

Come, Blessed cross!

"The One who need not have been bound by chains and cords was bound by men who sought His death. The One who was the power of God, refused to let that power bring Him rescue. The One who had no fear of death became subject to death. The One who had no vices wrapped Himself in ours that He might free us from them. The One who is the triumphant King suffered His own skin to be nailed upon the stake as the trophy of His triumph over death. The One who hunted down death, allowed Himself to be devoured by it. He was pierced through that we might be made whole. The wood upon which He was set adrift under the storming wrath of God He fashions into the ship of our salvation. It is our cross too, but not a cross of punishment for us. Rather, He makes it the cross of salvation.

The One who was bound by the nails is bound that He might bind us to Himself through faith in Him. We, who might be bound to Him by force, are bound rather by His love for us; and that binding is the more powerful because it is His. Bound to Him by His passionate and bloody embrace, we no longer fear the bonds of death in our own lives.

Punishment cannot hold us, for He long ago took our punishment. Suffering cannot overwhelm us, because He suffered for us on the tree. Fear cannot defeat us, for there is nothing to fear that can harm us. The cross is the instrument of His death, and the source of our life. Come, blessed cross!"




Ambrose of Milan

"O the divine mystery of that cross, on which weakness hangs, might is free, vices are nailed, and triumphal trophies raised. So that a certain saint said: 'Pierce my flesh with nails for fear of You' (Ps 119:120 LXX). The Psalmist says not with nails of iron, but of fear and faith. For the bonds of virtue are stronger than those of punishment. Lastly, his faith bound Peter, when he had followed the Lord as far as the hall of the high priest, whom no one had bound, and punishment loosened not him, whom faith bound. Again, when Peter was bound by the Jews, prayer loosed him; punishment did not hold him, because he had not deserted from Christ (Acts 5:18-20)

"Therefore you also crucify sin, that you may die to sin. He who dies to sin lives to God. Live to Him who spared not His own Son, that in His body He might crucify our passions. For Christ died for us, that we might live in His resurrected body. Therefore not our life but our guilt died in Him, 'Who,' it is said, 'bore our sins in His own body on the tree; that being set free from our sins we might live to righteousness, by the wound of whose stripes we are healed' (1 Pt 2:24)

"That wood of the cross is, then, as it were a kind of ship of our salvation, our passage, not a punishment, for there is no other salvation but the passage of eternal salvation. While expecting death I do not feel it. While thinking little of punishment I do not suffer. While careless of fear I know it not.

"Who, then, is He by the wound of whose stripes we are healed but Christ the Lord? This is He of whom Isaiah prophesied His stripes were our healing (Is 53:5), of whom Paul the Apostle wrote in his epistle: 'Who knew no sin, but was made sin for us' (2 Co.5:21) This, indeed, was divine in Him, that His flesh did no sin, nor did the creature of the body take in Him sin."

Amborse of Milan, Three books on the Holy Spirit 

1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (ESV)

 "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written,“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

Memorial moment 26 March 2013

Rev. Dr Scott Murray

"Hallelujah, salvation and glory" (Abendsterne)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU8ymxpqgOg


Foto: KL  (Karleby stadsförsamlings kyrka, påskliljor hemma hos oss)