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Author Topic:   The Passion
Heart--Shaped Cross
Knowflake

Posts: 103
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Registered: Nov 2010

posted April 14, 2013 03:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Heart--Shaped Cross     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Question:

"I realize I am betraying my ignorance by asking this question, but I should like to ask: in what way did our Lord bear our sicknesses and afflictions? I ask this, for I don't remember our Lord ever being sick in the Gospels. Certainly He bore the punishment for our sins in His Passion, is this what His Excellency is referring to? Please forgive my ignorance in this matter."

Answer:

I cannot speak for another, but can share my own interpretation. Christ referred to himself as a physician, and to sin as sickness: "I came not to bring the righteous but the sinners to repentance; for the well need not a physician, but them that are sick,". So, in bearing our sin, he has born our sickness; for sins are nothing if not ailments of the soul. However, in bearing our sickness, he did not himself become sinful, or sick in soul. Not everyone who inhales a germ is contaminated by it. For there are some possessed of constitutions sufficiently bold in resisting infection; who can laugh, as it were, in the face of disease, and, while preserving themselves in perfect health, may spend hours upon a sickbed, giving comfort to the afflicted. Such was our Lord's power, who remained unpolluted in his soul, while taking upon himself all manner of wickedness and misery.

Of course, it must be stressed that the above instruction is solely to be understood according to the spirit, and not the letter; that is, by analogy, and not by mere appearance. We are speaking strictly of the soul of Christ, which is immune to the vicissitudes of our phenomenal world, with all of its attendant corruptions. Yet, for our sakes, the pure and incorruptible soul of God's true Son did clothe itself in a body of tender flesh; and it was this flesh which bore the wounds and stripes of the willful crowd, unmindful and unanswerable to the Holy Spirit of the Father, who, from unimaginable compassion, permitted their free misdeeds. Yes, the body split, and bled, and festered, as any mortal body would. And Jesus, who dared not spare himself the gravest sufferings of humankind, writhed and wrung with agonizing purpose, even crying out as one whose faith is lost, who believes himself abandoned; for among his last words we hear, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me." Still, it was the body, not the soul, that cried out thus. For Christ, as spirit and Son of God, spoke always to the Lord as "Father". It is the special intimacy of this relation which distinguishes the Christian soul in relation to God the Father. Therefore, Christ could not address the Lord as spirit unless he spoke in the attitude of a Son to his Father. Only the briefest, reflexive spasm of the body could induce the breath to speak in unfamiliar terms of that One whom the soul has known -- and, having known, must always know -- so intimately, as Father. As if to leave no doubt concerning the orthodoxy of this interpretation, we hear Lord Jesus deliver his final words but a fraction of a moment later: "Father," he calls Him, effectively acknowledging that mysterious bond (which identifies and unites, far more than it distinguishes and divides), -- that bond which exists between the soul of Christ and the spirit of the Father Most High, "into Thy hands I commend my spirit." And, as if these words were not proof enough for even the most heedless listeners, he declared the last three words which, like a golden seal, would certify his victory over the world: "It is accomplished."

So, why did Christ incarnate; why was he born, to live and teach and die and resurrect before a dim and disbelieving crowd?

He came for us, because of our great need of his love and witness. He suffered for our sins just as we all suffer for the sins of others, because one cannot live in this world without suffering from the sins which fill the world. But, being entirely free from sin himself, his suffering was entirely voluntary, and he alone suffered the full price for sin; since his perfect goodness provoked so much friction between itself and the imperfect world. Had there been less sin in the world, he would have suffered less, but he suffered in direct proportion to the accumulated sins of the world; no more, no less. A dry cloth, if it is capable, absorbs the amount of liquid it is placed in; likewise, a virtuous man, who is capable (as only Jesus is), will draw upon himself the amount of sin that is present in the world. Merely by choosing to enter the world, he is choosing to gather up the sins of the world. Likewise, it is as if a great and powerful magnet were to be let down into a pit of nails. However many the nails may be, the magnet is able to collect them and carry them away. This is one way to understand the sacrifice of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now, it may be objected that, while Christ took upon himself the guilt and the debt for sin, he did not literally remove all sin from the world; for we have only to look around to see the world so full of sin. The answer is that Christ, who dwells in eternity beyond the world, has acted once and for all, erradicating sin at its source, but the world, which dwells in time, has yet to perceive the significance and finality of his intercession. Each individual soul, "in fear and trembling" must come to terms with the reality of Christ's life and death. It is our freewill which determines the time of our encounter with eternal grace. When a dam is erected at the spring of a river, high on the mountain's peak, the water naturally ceases to flow from that point. Nonetheless, there is a remnant emanation of water which has yet to wind its way downward to the sea, and, to those situated at vaious heights upon the mountainside, the river will appear unbroken; lest, with the eyes of faith, we behold the source, and not the appearance. Christ has shown the way to sanctity, once and for all time. His accomplishment cannot be repeated, only emulated. What is added to it, or what appears to be added to it, are only those saintly performances which his revelation has inspired, and will continue to ignite until the world is "judged" by love, and full of light.

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