The Reading is from the Holy Gospel According to St. Mark (8:34-38; 9:1, Gal.

2:16-20) + In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +

Just before and after the incarnation of our Lord there existed a sort of philosophical school or religion known as Gnosticism. Now Gnosticism had various forms, but one of the defining characteristics of the Gnostic religions was that there was a special kind of knowledge that only certain people were given and this special knowledge was what saved or enlightened a person. Gnosticism continues to exist in some form or another, but there is a pervasive form that you come across all the time and dont even realize it. The special knowledge that this new form of Gnosticism teaches is that it doesnt actually matter what you believe. The special knowledge is that belief doesnt matter. Early Christians did not accept this heresy, and neither should we. Doctrine matters. Now, today we come to the Sunday after the Elevation of Cross. We venerate and celebrate the Cross as the throne of God, the instrument of our salvation by which death was put to death through the One crucified on it. We hear from the crucified One, we hear from Christ in todays Gospel that we need to pick up our cross, deny our passions, and deny the pleasures and falsehoods of this world. We need to be spiritually dead to this world. This is what the spiritual life is all about. It is not about having warm and fuzzy religious feelings. It can be quite simple, seemingly mundane and without excitement. The spiritual life and dying to this world is a challenge and a struggle, but it is also a joy and peace. The joy and peace wrought by the Cross. So, if before the Cross we bow down and worship, and if we are to become dead to this world and alive to Christ by taking up our cross we ought to know what it is we believe. What we believe about the Cross matters for our salvation. Because if our doctrine is wrong then the Church and the

Christian faith become nothing more than an institution of programs, a social gospel, or a self help guide, and not the Body of Christ wherein we are members being deified for salvation. On the Cross, Christ is not teaching us that we need to be good people. The Cross is not about punishment. On the Cross, Christ is not taking on punishment so as to appease an angry God the Father. The Cross is not about satisfying the honor of the Father. The Cross is not about some payment made to the devil who held us in bondage, for why should the robber receive the ransom, not only from God, but a ransom consisting of God Himself. Nor is the ransom of the cross paid to the Father. The Father did not hold us bondage.i The sacrifice, the ransom of the Cross is accepted by the Father, not because He demanded it or has any need of it, but He accepts it as His way to perfect, complete, and accomplish the work of creation. And this is what Christ meant when on the cross He said, It is finished. In the crucified Person of Jesus Christ creation is perfected, completed, and accomplished. Humanity was not meant for sin and death, but the whole of creation became subject to corruption with the fall of the first Adam. Just as through our kinship and union with Adam we inherit death, so by our kinship and union with Christ (the new Adam) we conquer death.ii And this is why Christ became incarnate, so that there might be a real, complete, and perfect union between His flesh and ours. And that He might take that flesh to the Cross, and put sin to death. So that united to us the death of all might be accomplished the Lords Body.iii His death made us anew; it has made us fit to receive the Holy Spirit, partake of the Divine Life, and not just be declared righteous, but to actually become the righteousness of God. And so for us who are baptized into Him, His death is really our death; we can say with St. Paul that we have been crucified with Christ. If then we have been ransomed from the reality of sin itself by the cross of Christ, then let us indeed take up our cross and follow Him; dying to ourselves daily so that Christ may live in us. This is the message of salvation that we must take and preach to the world. But if doesnt matter

what the cross of Christ did, or did not do, then we having nothing to preach and we of all men are most pitiable. + In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +

Paraphrasing St. Gregory the Theologian, although I do know recall where he says it. JND Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, p. 380, quoting St. Athanasius Contra Arianos, 6:3. iii JND Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, p. 380, quoting St. Athanasius On the Incarnation, 20.
ii