Isaiah 58:1-9
Matthew 9:14-15
Theodore the Studite in the eighth century wrote,
“How right Paul is to exclaim 'Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world!'
“For that supreme wisdom, which flowered on the cross, proved that the proud boasting of worldly wisdom was folly. The beauty of all the good gifts which grew on the cross cut out the shoots of evil.
“Throughout history the most wonderful events have been only the symbols and foreshadowings of this cross. Consider them, if you are anxious to learn.
“Did not God decree that Noah should escape from drowning in the flood with his sons and their wives and every animal in a tiny wooden boat?
“And what of Moses' staff? Was it not a symbol of the cross?
“Now it changed water into blood; now it devoured the false snakes of the magicians; now by the power of its touch it divided the sea; now it made the waves of the sea flow back together, drowning the enemy and saving God's true children.
“Aaron's rod was another symbol of the cross. On a single day it blossomed and showed him to be the true priest.
“Abraham too foreshadowed it, when he bound his son Isaac and placed him on a pile of wood. By the cross death was killed and Adam restored to life. In the cross every apostle has gloried; by it every martyr has been crowned and every saint made holy.
“We have put on the cross of Christ, and laid aside the old. Through the cross we have joined Christ's flock, and are granted a place in the sheepfold of heaven.”
Rosemary Haughton writes that,
“Pictures of the temptation of Jesus often show him in a bleak and barren place, the only living being among bare, gloomy rocks. Mark's reference to animals reminds us that the reality was probably quite different.
“We may imagine Jesus sitting among rabbits and wildflowers perhaps visited at night by a lion and in the morning by birds who came to investigate this new, and so quiet, dweller in their wilderness.
“Not only human beings, but through them all created things, are called into the communion made possible when the power of the spirit in Jesus broke through barriers of possessiveness and lust for power.
“Satan's plausible suggestion is that if we want good things we must make sure we keep them to ourselves. Someone else might take some. But Noah's ark is the sign that we can only be saved together.
“Those who refuse untidy and unpredictable intimacy, clinging to their right to control and manipulate, drown in the water which they cannot control. This water is the water of life, and life is the spirit that grows and flows and bears up the ark on its buoyant surface.”
Posted by John
at 12:01 AM CST
