For God So Loved The World

   

John 3: 13-17

His Death Brought Salvation

¹³ No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man ^[a]who is in heaven. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

We celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross with great joy and enthusiasm centuries after the cross was the hated symbol and instrument of a cruel, long, drawn out death by crucifixion.  It wold be the equivalent of celebrating the Feast of the Electric Chair!  Yet God seems to love paradoxes: " The last shall be first, and the first, last."  He delights in tickling us with them. This feast, for good reason is a source of Joy, for "by his cross and resurrection, he has set us free."  The bonds of death were broken once and or all on the cross, and now it is the stepping stone into Paradise.May we humbly give thanks and rejoice this day for this life-giving reality..

Bro. Rene