Third Sunday of Lent 2024

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ.

Glory to Him. Jesus does not sugarcoat things.

It's not an opium of the people. There's no drugging

going on here. It's very realistic, and you heard

His words about the cross. Very, very much. Since

Lent is very structured for the... training of

the catechumens. This is another reminder to

the catechumens to count the cost. But did you

hear what Jesus said at the end? There are some

standing here who will not experience taste death

until they have seen the kingdom of God come

in glory. That's going to be your baptism. The

kingdom of God will be implanted in your hearts

and you will experience that humble but bright

and peaceful and joyful glory that Jesus promises.

By the grace of God, we've been counted worthy

to arrive at this third Sunday of Lent, the Sunday

which we call the veneration of the precious

and life -giving cross which lies before us,

the throne of glory which... St. Paul says, let

us boldly come before the throne of glory that

we may receive grace and help in time of need

and mercy. I ask your forgiveness. Since I'm

not going to share my own sermon, but I'm going

to read a sermon by the priest Maximus of the

Seminary of Holy Cross, a former Athonite monk

of Simonopetra Monastery on the Holy Mount. This

is what he said. Through the cross, we are strengthened

so that we can figure out the truth amidst all

the challenges and the struggles that lie before

us and so we can make progress on our spiritual

journey. And through the cross, we receive joy

just as we say at every Sunday matins and as

we already did last night at the vigil. Behold,

through the cross. Joy has come into all the

world. And through this joy, we can know and

experience the presence of God in every moment

of our life, no matter how difficult those moments

might be. Christ has his cross. We have our cross.

But we join our cross to his. We place our cross

on his cross, of his cross. And this is why St.

John Chrysostom says this, the whole world has

become a kind of Golgotha, a place where each

and every one of us is nailed to the cross with

Christ, crucified in our midst. And all of us

are crucified on either side of him. Now some

of us, like the one thief, are in terrible pain.

And so we revile and curse. Not only those who

are crucified around us, but even Christ himself,

being angry at him for our fate, blaming him

for our broken bones, for the wounds that we

bear, calling him to account for our every misfortune,

difficulty, and affliction. But it also happens

that in the midst of our pain, we see our faults.

And then, like the other thief, we realize, We

indeed are suffering justly for we are receiving

what we deserve for our crimes. But this man

has done nothing wrong. And that's when we turn

to Christ and say, remember me when you come

in your kingdom. And the man who had no business

in heaven becomes on that very day, in that very

moment, the first to enter paradise. St. Maximus,

the confessor, offers us a profound meditation

on these two men, who in a sense are one man,

or who are all men and all women. This is who

we are at different times in our lives as we

struggle, stumbling under the weight of our cross.

Which of the two we will be depends on how we

respond to our cross. If, on the one hand, we

fail to recognize the presence of the Word of

God, when His love for mankind is blamelessly

suffering with us, well then, like the thief,

we will revile Him, curse Him, repudiate His

judgments, blame Him for our suffering, and for

the cross on which we have been nailed. And because

we did not recognize the Word of God, and did

not ask forgiveness of our faults, we will be

sent away, estranged from the kingdom, receiving

no promise from the word of God that one day

we might attain the kingdom. As for the other

thief, the Greek fathers of the church never

called him the good thief. He wasn't that good.

He was arrested. But instead, the grateful thief.

Because he is grateful to suffer ill treatment

with the word of God. Who blamelessly suffers

ill treatment for his sake. And so he endures

his suffering with gratitude. He sees the word

of God present with him. And he acknowledges

his responsibility for all that he has done.

And he asks that when the light of the kingdom

shines forth. All the pain, all the suffering

imposed on him. By circumstances. might, on account

of his gratitude, be reckoned as virtues he had

freely chosen. Of course, there are many crosses

in life, many crucifixions, and we need to know

that we are not to blame for them. Your cross

can be an illness, a disability, an injustice

that you've suffered, a false accusation. The

pain of being betrayed. Your cross can be the

parent who didn't love you. The loss of a spouse.

Or the sickness of a child. A cross is a place

where you end up when things fall apart. When

your dreams die. When your career collapses.

Or when your marriage ends. A cross is where

you are when you don't know where you are. The

cross is what you're doing when you don't know

what you're doing. It can be the loss of all

that you have and all that you are. Above all,

your cross is also the little sins committed

every day without thinking and the chronic habitual

sins being committed the whole of our life. And

these things happen to us either because the

circumstances of our birth, or because of the

things around us, things we're exposed to, stresses

and pressures that we suffered as children, or

out of insecurity, ignorance, fear, the absence

of love, and so many other things. But whatever

the causes, whatever the causes, the cross that

you carry was given to you. Through God's plan

of salvation. And it is through that cross that

God will save you. Who or what would we be without

our struggles? This is why they say that the

devil tries to destroy us through our virtues.

While God tries to save us through our passions

and our failures. God allows this so we can see

our weakness and our inability and run for refuge

to his grace and strength. There's a profound

mystery here. A mystery in which God enters into

the darkness of our souls, into the pain and

suffering of our crosses and makes it his own.

And we are healed. We often think that God is

going to come into our life by means of some

pleasant experience. That will require little

or no change on our part. But God is much more

likely to enter our lives through a crisis. Like

a serious illness. The experience of loss and

failure. Or the affliction of some kind. Because

these are signs not of God's absence. But of

his active presence. God comes to us in the dark

cloud. In the eye of the storm. In silence. In

midst of suffering and pain. He comes to us,

in other words, through the cross. And this is

because affliction alone can tear us away from

our isolated individualistic existence. And our

house of cards will fall apart. And we will be

transformed into something whole and open and

healed. But the mystery is even deeper than this,

even more wondrous and even more divine. The

crisis that engulfs me, said Elder Emilianos

of Simenopetra, the pain that I feel is a kind

of birth pain, for it's the initial movement

of my soul longing to be united to God. And my

longing for God is meant... with God's longing

for me. For it's God who is seeking me in and

through my sufferings, in and through my pain,

so that in the end, the cross is not so much

the agony of man struggling to find God, but

the agony of God struggling to find each person.

If we can see Christ in whatever cross that we

have, then the cross changes from an instrument

of death to one's life and to healing, to a path

of victory of God's grace in me. This is why

we call it the life -giving cross, the victory

of the cross, the tree of life, not the tree

of death. And what was the source of pain and

death before now becomes the source of joy. and

life, and healing, because the one on the cross

is the source of life himself, our Lord and God

and Savior Jesus Christ, and the cross is his

throne. Let us not be like the thief who rejected

the cross, who blamed God for his problems and

spoke abusively to Jesus, but let us imitate

the grateful thief and acknowledge with gratitude

the justice and the wisdom of God. And because

we are never closer to Christ than when we are

on a cross in our moments of difficulty, let

us speak to him and ask him to remember us so

that we too may hear him say, today you will

be with me in paradise. Amen.