On the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, which in 2019 coincides with the Sunday before the Rising of the

Holy Cross, during the Holy Mass officiated in the Orthodox Church it is ordained to read from the Holy
Gospel of John a passage from chapter III, verses 13-17 , in which the Savior Jesus Christ foretells His
ascension on the Cross so that, through His atoning sacrifice, all who believe may receive eternal life.
This is the supreme proof of God's love for mankind, namely, that he gave His Son for the salvation of
the world.

"Thus saith the LORD, No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even
the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but to save the world through Him ”(Heb. 3: 13-17).

In a sermon delivered years before the Sunday before the Rising of the Holy Cross, the worthy
Metropolitan Bartholomew Ananias (he was the head of the Transylvanian Orthodox Church, he printed
The Holy Bible with an immense amount of interconnectimentions within the text, he served in
communist prisons in the 50s), the redemption of the chosen people from Egyptian bondage, made by
God through Moses, and the redemption of the world from the bondage of sin and death, done by God
through His Son, Jesus Christ.

"Beloved believers, as an introduction, I would like to remind you that in the Old Testament we are told
how the people of Israel, at the beginning of their existence as a people well defined and chosen by God,
because of a drought and famine, moved to the land of Egypt and lived there as a monotheistic people
in the midst of a pagan, polytheistic people, for a very long time, generation after generation. When
God decided to set them free, he called the prophet Moses, who had been born in Egypt and had been
raised right in the court of Pharaoh, a man endowed with grace, but also with a great deal of knowledge
and wisdom. He was the one who gave the signal for deliverance, accompanied by his brother Aaron,
who was the high priest of the living God. They crossed the Red Sea with a wonderful sign: by the
command of God, Moses raised his staff in the air above the waters and they split in two, the Israelis
being able to pass through the seabed as on land. When they reached the other side, the same Moses
turned his face toward the sea and, with the same staff, motioned for the waters to return. We know
for sure that all the real facts of the Old Testament have a symbolic meaning, which people would
understand very late, only in the time of the New Testament, namely, these two signs made by Moses -
one, at first, vertically , ordering the waters to split in two, and the second horizontally, ordering the
waters to return to their place - foreshadowed, for the first time, the sign of the cross.

The journey should have been short, because the journey from Egypt to Palestine, from where the
Israelis had left, to Canaan, was not very long - it would have arrived in a few days. But at some point,
from the first days, the Israelis entered the desert and began to run out of food. They started to get
hungry. And very quickly they began to murmur against Moses, saying, Why have ye taken us up out of
the land of Egypt? We were slaves, we were slaves, and we worked in vain, but at least they gave us
food; we had bread and in our cauldrons boiled the meat we could eat, and you took us from there and
brought us to give us freedom, but a hungry freedom. We are going to perish here. " And then both
Moses and God were angry, that instead of understanding this great gift of liberty and instead of
admitting the sacrifice of a few days of want, they preferred to murmur against God and His prophet.
And then Moses said to them in his mind, “Well, if you murmur and are so quick to return to the
Egyptian idols and your life as slaves, then you will not deserve freedom and you will not deserve to go
to the Promised Land. , in the land of Canaan, the land where milk and honey flow. ” And so, instead of
taking the short road, Moses wandered through the wilderness of Sinai, that is, in today's Arabian
Peninsula, for forty years, on very winding paths, with long stops, until the whole generation that had
left perished. from Egypt and the new generation arose, represented by another chosen one of the
Lord, who was Joshua Navi and who took the people of this new generation to the Promised Land.

Moses did not enter the Promised Land either, but only to see it. And he had erred before God — he,
the mighty prophet, whose faith had never wavered; but when the Israelis were thirsty at one time,
God commanded Moses, "Strike with a staff this rock," which was a dry rock, and Moses struck, but not
once, but twice. The water flowed abundantly, so that all the people quenched their thirst, but God
rebuked Moses: “I told you to strike once. Why did you hit twice? It means you didn't fully trust what I
told you. For this, you will have only one punishment: you will see the Land of Canaan, at the end of the
journey, from above, from a mountain. There, however, you will die and you will not enter it. ” That's
what happened. Moses died on the mountain, the tomb was never known to him, and this through a
divine economy, lest the Israelis, who were very inclined to idolatry, then and later, make him a god or
an idol.

My dear ones, imagine that this journey, which is told to us in the five books that Moses wrote, and
which are the first five books of the Old Testament, so of the Bible, was very long and dramatic. God
punished his people, but because he loved them and wanted them to remain a monotheistic people, to
go through history in this way, so that they could prepare the way for the coming of our Savior Jesus
Christ. The journey was full of dangers, the Israelis suffered from hunger, but God, at one point, gave
them manna from heaven, from which they were tired, gave them water when they needed it, gave
them even birds - quails - because they missed the meat. That is, he made all the concessions, and
they, in turn, were ungrateful, because at one point, taking advantage of the absence of Moses, who
was up on Mount Sinai, to receive the Tablets of the Law, they then found to cast a golden calf, after
the pattern of the Egyptian idols, which worshiped the ox, the bull, the calf, and began to worship him.
There, therefore, in the midst of the wilderness, they had become idolaters for a time, which made God
angry, but also caused Moses to pray to God: “If, O Lord, you have delivered this people to me my, let
him live. And if it's about punishing someone, punish me. Delete me from the Book of Life and let them
live in this Book. ” God also listened to Moses, but His plan was fulfilled.

Well, my dear ones, I made this foray, this introduction, for those of you who have not yet read the Old
Testament, or may not remember this episode, to tell you, or to remind you, that at some point, the
Israelipeople came to a deserted place, but in which there was an invasion of snakes, namely, poisonous
fish, very poisonous, whose bite was deadly. Snakes were spread all over the Israelicamp, among their
tents, in the desert sand, and whoever was bitten by this snake died immediately. There was great
terror among the people. And Moses lifted up his eyes to God, and God commanded him, this brass
serpent, and they will be healed only by looking at him. ” And Moses did as the LORD commanded him.
He cast a great serpent of brass, that it might be seen by all, and lifted it up on a pole, and said, "Those
who are bitten by a serpent, or will be bitten by serpents, look upon him and be healed." And the
miracle happened.

My dear ones, this is a historical, real fact, but it, as I told you, has also acquired symbolic value. The
snake was raised on a very high pillar, which had a horizontal beam at the top, close to the top, so that it
could be coiled, and the snake could turn its head to those who wanted to see it. This symbol is quoted
by the Savior Jesus Christ in a conversation with the disciples and which St. Ev. John. And the Lord says,
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so shall the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

My beloved, if we read or recite the New Testament carefully, we will see that the Savior Christ uses the
word "ascend" and "ascension" several times to refer to Him, but not to the event of the Ascension, as
we have it. we recorded in the calendar - "The Ascension of the Lord" - but it is His ascension on the
cross. And here the symbol is very obvious: just as Moses lifted up the serpent on the cross, so that
people would not perish but have life, so the Son of Man will be exalted on the cross, so that everyone
who believes in Him - every man who believes in Him - not to perish, but to have eternal life. If, by
looking at the brass serpent, man secures his life on this earth, the gaze on Jesus Christ goes on, heals
man of sins and assures him eternal life. [...]

What is the sin committed by man than an effect of the serpent of long ago, the devil, under whose face
Satan tempted our ancestors Adam and Eve, in the garden of Heaven ?! That is what the Apocalypse
clearly tells us, in which we speak of the devil, "the serpent of old," who is called Satan. So the serpent,
by its cunning, by the fact that it insinuates itself, by the fact that it can be deceptive and sometimes
fascinating, it is a symbol and an expression of sin, which often takes on beautiful, attractive, insinuating
forms. , deceptive, until he takes possession of man by cultivating him. [...]

Well, my beloved, if you have been bitten by the serpent of sin, turn your eyes to the cross on which
our Lord Jesus Christ has willingly ascended. And if you will faithfully raise your eyes to this cross, your
sin - the venomous bite of the serpent - will be healed. Because, we are still told in the Gospel, "God so
loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son into the world, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life."

My beloved, we know the event of the Lord's Crucifixion, and we know it very well. We know His
sacrifice on the cross, but it is good to remember that this ascension on the cross was not a goal, but a
means. The immediate purpose was the Resurrection, because on the cross the Lord died, from the
cross he was descended and was buried in the tomb, but from the same tomb he rose, then to truly
ascend to Heaven. So it was not the crucifixion, not the crucifixion, but the Resurrection that was the
goal. And not the Resurrection for the sake of the resurrection, but for our sake, of the people. For us,
as we say in the Creed, and for our salvation, the Lord Jesus came down from Heaven as the Son of God,
He became man, for our sake he suffered hunger, thirst, and all human weaknesses, except sin. , for our
sake he preached the gospel, for our sake he accepted to be arrested, spat upon, mocked, crowned with
thorns, crucified on the cross, and killed by men. For our sake. And only for our sake. [...]

And finally, I will remind you of the last verse of today's Gospel: "That God sent His Son into the world
not to judge or to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." It is good to
remember this for the comfort of our souls, my beloved. [...]

My beloved, before God's justice is His mercy and His love for the righteous, but also for the sinners, to
whom He gives a chance of justification. At any time, to the point of death, every man has the chance to
correct himself, even at the last moment, with the example of the thief on the cross, of one of the two
thieves, who acknowledged the divinity of Jesus and acknowledged his grievous sins. and to whom
Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Heaven." With this repentant thief, Jesus
opened the Kingdom of Heaven. [...]

So, my beloved, whenever you happen to be bitten by the venomous serpent of sin, more venomous or
less venomous, remember that God has also provided us with the antidote: the cross on which our
Savior Jesus Christ is crucified. , Who sacrificed for us and for our sake. […] I ask God Almighty to give
you Christian optimism, critical optimism, not reckless, optimism that entitles you to see your sins or
mistakes as a man, to acknowledge them with the same manhood, to confess them with courage to
God, and God will say to you: Dare, I have overcome the world! ”, urged the worthy metropolitan
Bartholomew Ananias in the sermon delivered on the Sunday before the Rising of the Holy Cross.