The
passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the hope of glory and
a lesson in patience.
What
may not the hearts of believers promise themselves as the gift of
God’s grace, when for their sake God’s only Son, co-eternal with
the Father, was not content only to be born as man from human stock
but even died at the hands of the men he had created?
It
is a great thing that we are promised by the Lord, but far greater is
what has already been done for us, and which we now commemorate.
Where were the sinners, what were they, when Christ died for them?
When Christ has already given us the gift of his death, who is to
doubt that he will give the saints the gift of his own life? Why does
our human frailty hesitate to believe that mankind will one day live
with God?
Who
is Christ if not the Word of God: in the beginning was the Word, and
the Words was with God, and the Word was God? This Word of God was
made flesh and dwelt among us. He had no power of himself to die for
us: he had to take from us our mortal flesh. This was the way in
which, though immortal, he was able to die; the way in which he chose
to give life to mortal men: he would first share with us, and then
enable us to share with him. Of ourselves we had no power to live,
nor did he of himself have the power to die.
In
other words, he performed the most wonderful exchange with us.
Through us, he died; through him, we shall live.
--
Saint Augustine of Hippo from
a homily
