Today’s gospel reading is a short one and it is about The Son of Man. This is one of the titles that our Lord Jesus Christ used to describe himself and this is what we shall be talking about today. Also today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. You can read it in John 3:13-17.
“[Jesus said to Nicodemus] 13 No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 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. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
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This passage was during the conversation with our Lord Jesus Christ and Nicodemus who is considered a wise man and teacher of the Jews. Just imagine, before our Lord Jesus Christ arrived on the scene, no one has really gone up to heaven, So when people died in those days before Christ, the souls of the dead probably ended in some kind of limbo.
However to have a better understanding of this scripture passage, allow me to back track to the verses prior to this gospel passage. It was when our Lord told Nicodemus, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of heaven without being born from above.” Nicodemus reacted by saying, ‘How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again?
Our Lord said to him in verse 6 “What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.” Then in verse 10 to 12, our Lord continued, “You are a teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? 11 Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. 12 If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” After this verse, we continue with today’s scripture reading.
No doubt that Nicodemus and I guess all the Jewish leaders of his time could never comprehend anything heavenly. That’s why his reaction to our Lord Jesus Christ was about someone reentering his mother’s womb. He really had no idea what our Lord was talking about… because the Lord was talking about heavenly things. While we are all born from our mother’s womb and are part of her flesh, however when we got conceived, God put our souls into our embryo’s and this is why human beings are totally different from animals as we are made of body and spirit.
Today is also the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. In his conversation with Nicodemus, our Lord Jesus Christ continued saying, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” In Numbers 21:4-9 the Israelites rebelled against God and their leader Moses and God punished them by sending Seraph Serpents that bit many Israelites to the point that they repented and begged Moses to cure those that got bitten.
God then ordered Moses to make a bronze serpent and mounted it in a pole and he lifted up the pole and those who looked into the serpent recovered from the snakebite. This was a typology of the Son of Man being lifted up on the Cross in Calvary, upon which many of us would gaze upon it would be cured of what ails us, especially our sins.
Nearly a year ago, we went to the Holy Land starting in the Jordan and went to Mt. Nebo. From that vantage point, you could see Jerusalem or the Promised Land from afar. But Moses was only allowed to see it from Mt. Nebo. Also in that mountain was a bronze seraph similar to what Moses lifted up in the desert, which preceded the Holy Cross.
Today Christians all over the world celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which is honored and worshiped a week after the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The historian Eusebius of Caesarea wrote the story that when Emperor Constantine was marching with his army, he looked up into the sky and saw an apparition of a cross of light and the words “In hoc signo vinces” (In this sign, you will conquer.” He then used the Cross as his military standard in his flag and the shield of his army and conquered all his enemies.
Hundreds of years later, the Cross was used by the Crusaders as their military symbol to reclaim Jerusalem. As Simeon prophesied, “It is a sign to be contradicted!” Today Christians suffer persecution in the hands of the evil ones that roam the Middle East, torturing, beheading them all in the name of God. We do not fear them because by the sign of the Cross we shall conquer!