There is No Easy Way to Salvation
3rd Sunday of Great Lent—Veneration of the Holy Cross
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:1-6; Mark 8:34-38;9,1
When Jesus Christ told His disciples “that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again”, Peter took Him to the side and began to rebuke Him. But He turned and looked at His disciples, and rebuked Peter and said:
“Get behind me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
(Mark 8:31-33).
What did Peter say to Jesus that caused him to be so sharply dishonoured by calling him Satan? The Gospel of Mark does not record Peter's words, but the evangelist Matthew testifies that Peter said:
“Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” (Matthew 16:22)
Peter obviously thought at the time that salvation could be gained without suffering, patience, or the shedding of blood. It is as our proverb says:
“So that both the hay may be whole and the goats may be fed.”
But the Lord, with that sharp condemnation of the assumptions of His disciple Peter, wanted to immediately warn His disciples and followers that there can be no easy way to salvation. Peter, with good intentions, out of a desire for good for Jesus, was persuading Him not to go to suffering; but, strangely enough, it was Satan who also wanted Jesus to refuse suffering from death on the cross.
For Satan (or the devil) offered Jesus avoidance of suffering and becoming an earthly ruler (see The Gospel of Matthew 4:1-11)-- this was during the 40-day fast in the desert. Had Jesus been tempted to do so, then the human-carnal desire would have won in Him, the flesh would have won over the spirit, and Satan would have won over God's plan for the salvation of humankind.
Then Jesus said,
“Away with you, Satan!'” (Matt. 4:10).
The Son of God and Man would not have wanted to accept bodily suffering, for He, having a normal human body, would not want to endure pain. And so, in anticipation of those sufferings, while in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed to the Heavenly Father:
O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
(Matt. 26:39)
Yet, so that God's justice would be fulfilled (“the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23)), and so that the salvation of humankind would be accomplished, it was necessary for a sinless person to suffer, for only a sinless person could bear the burden of others' sins. The Apostle John testifies about Christ:
“And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.” (1 John 3:5)
And the Apostle Paul conveyed to us the truth from God:
“And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22)
Thus, the followers of Christ must know that salvation is attained through suffering and patience—there is no other way of salvation.
If Jesus Christ had only taught about that path of salvation, taught about the manifestation of the greatest love, but in the face of suffering had abandoned His teaching, conformed to the servants of the devil, and had not taken up His cross, He would never have been our Saviour. The crucifixion and death on the cross are the seal affirming the truth over all of Christ’s teaching.
Similarly, all the disciples of Christ—the apostles—if they had not endured under the threat of torment and torture, no one would have believed the gospel teaching passed on by them. They could not have fulfilled their mission of salvation.
Likewise, the confessors of Christ’s faith in the early centuries: if they had been convinced of the truth of Christ’s teaching, but during torture and under the threat of death, they had renounced Christ’s faith to preserve their bodily life, there would have been no further followers, no Christians. But only because those martyrs took, according to Christ's pronouncement, “their crosses”, the faith of Christ, the Church of Christ was established, strengthened spiritually and in the end defeated the world of paganism.
Likewise, in affirming the truth of our people:
Taras Shevchenko wrote:
“O my brothers, please embrace
Our smallest brother,”
If he had summoned, had called out:
“Love your Ukraine,
Love her in a cruel time,
In the last difficult time
Pray to the Lord for her,”
but, if in the face of suffering he had renounced all that, and instead of enduring imprisonment and the servitude of a conscripted soldier’s captivity, had written laudatory odes in honour of the enslavers of Ukraine, then perhaps someone might have read his poetry, but he would never have become our national prophet, and Ukrainians through the ages would not have glorified him as a fighter for the freedom of our people and a defender of the truth of our people; he would not have served as an example for all honest people of our nation.
Throughout the centuries we know examples of people who did not want to take up their crosses; there were those who bent in the face of suffering, and there were those who turned away from confessing their faith or from God’s truth, or in general from truth and justice in life “for the sake of cunning pleasure”, for personal gain in earthly life.
We do not condemn those who could not endure and gave in — God be their judge, but those who have betrayed the truth, righteousness, the God-preserving faith in Christ, and the Church of Christ for worldly gains, for the sake of currying favor with God-opposers — such people have gone into the service of Satan and his servants. Such people imitate and play the role of Judas.
When any of us are tempted by the servants of Satan, God-opposers, Christ-deniers, supporters of a superficial faith and Church, let us find in ourselves the strength and courage to respond to them with Christ's words:
“Away with you, Satan!” (Matt. 4:10)
In our church and public life, there are people who abandon their Church because they do not want to bear their own difficult cross. There are people who leave their wives and children to seek greater pleasures for themselves and to escape family responsibilities. They may find temporary pleasure, but the pleasure will pass; what will remain is lifelong bitterness and the sense of having turned away, having renounced the promise given before God and men.
All potential apostates from the faith must remember the clearly expressed will of God:
“For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38)
Nor are we all free to forget another affirmation of Christ:
“But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 10:33).
It is good to keep all of this in mind when we venerate the cross of the Lord and glorify the Resurrection of Christ, for we are all obliged, according to Christ's direction, to carry our crosses in confessing the truth of God.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
