of glory and a lesson in patience. What, after all, can the hearts of the faithful
SERMON 218C
ON THE LORD'S PASSION
Date: about 412x
Ours was what Christ died by; his was what we might live by
1. The passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ constitutes a guarantee of glory and a lesson in patience. What, after all, can the hearts of the faithful not promise themselves from God's grace, seeing that it was not enough for the only Son of God, co-etemal with the Father, to be bom for them as a human being from a human being, without his also dying at the hands of the human beings he created? It's a great thing that the Lord promises us for the future; but it's a much greater thing which we recall he has already done for us. When Christ died for the ungodly, where were they, or what were they? Who can doubt that he is going to endow his holy ones with his life, when he has already endowed them, while they were still ungodly,2 with his death? Why should human frailty hesitate to believe that it is going to happen sometime or other that human beings will live with God? Something much more incredible has already happened, that God has died for the sake of human beings.
Who, after all, is Christ, but that Word which was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1)? This Word of God became flesh, and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14). You see, he would not have in himself the wherewithal to die for us, unless he had taken mortal flesh from us. That was how the immortal one was able to die, that was how he wished to bestow life on mortals; aiming later on to give us shares in himself, having first of all himself taken shares in us. I mean, we had nothing of our very own by which we could really live, and he had nothing of his very own by which he could really die. Accordingly, he struck a wonderful bargain with us, a mutual give and take: ours was what he died by; his was what we might live by.
All the same, he too gave even the flesh which he took from us in order to die in it, because he is its creator; while on the other hand he in no way received from us the life by which we are going to live in him and with him. And thus, as regards our nature, by which we are human beings, he died from what is ours, not his, since in his own nature by which he is God, he is quite unable to die.