Being with Christ on the Cross - Sermon for Forgiveness Sunday (2025)

Thus cried Adam after he was cast out of Paradise. Last week, we reached the End of Time with the Last Judgment. Today we go to the beginning. The Fall of our first parents is presented to us to remind us of the Paradise we lost. From breaking seemingly “the least of these commandments” Adam and Eve wrought unspeakable destruction upon themselves and all their posterity. In their own life they witnessed envy, fratricide and apostasy. The cancer of sin has only metastasized since then into every form of evil unimaginable and unspeakable.

The horror and tragedy of our fallen world is not far from most of us. Whether that meant growing up in want and desperation or witnessing the violence, cruelty and cunning of those around us. The vicious cycle of addictions can haunt from generation to generation. These and more leave wounds and scars on our souls. In examining their failures, regrets, and the traumas inflicted on them, people find themselves asking “why?” after all these years. “Why did God allow terrible people and circumstances in my life?” “Why didn’t He protect me?” Even if we ourselves reached adulthood relatively unscathed, it’s all too easy to get lost staring in the abyss of evil and watching the waves of tragedy pour over mankind. We, too, can ask “Why does God do nothing in the face of evil?” For many, the anguished torment of “Why?” can haunt their whole life.

The Church brings us to the Garden to witness the expulsion of our forebearers year after year to remind of us of “Why.” This is why the world is the way it is. The world is the way it is because Adam and Eve did not trust that God is good. They believed the lie of the devil, that God didn’t really want what’s best for them. They believed the lie that if they did things their way (or rather, Satan’s way), things would turn out better than if they follow God’s commandment. And so in this first sin, the whole cosmos fell away from God and its connection with divine blessedness. But it became worse because we all repeat the first sin in our own life—not just a one-time act, but over and over again. The world is the way it is because of our own sins. In reflecting upon Adam’s sin, the Church shows us as in a mirror our own participation in it.

So what is the solution to the problem of evil? God is not indignant at man and He is not indifferent to our plight. No! Abba Macarius tells us that when Adam fell, God wept over him! Lent recounts for us the saving acts of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. Christ became man to heal our corrupt and fallen nature from the inside, to the eradicate the evil inside of us. He knows in His own person the pain and suffering humans endure. But as the only Sinless One, He understands and feels the inner anguish of the evils of the world more intensely, in a way incomprehensible to us. Because in the state of our numbed insensitivity to our sins, we don’t realize the full impact of the evil we do.

Despite the horror and wickedness of humanity and the abyss of evil we have plunged ourselves into, Christ finds every one of us to be worth dying for. He assumes the consequences of the choices we made in turning away from Him. Hear the words of St. Mark the Ascetic:

St. Paul says Christ “Blot[ed] out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us… and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross,“ (Col. 2:14). The Divine response to evil in the world is to confront it, to endure it, and ultimately to defeat it. And in our own repentance, the Church invites us to experience this answer for ourselves. Our repentance is the only real response to the problem of evil. To clarify—I don’t mean that we are responsible for the evils others inflicted on us. Rather, that in the face of the evils of the world—both our own and those of others, the only way to respond is by turning to Christ. That’s what repentance is, turning to Christ. Because by turning to Christ that He can heal us of our wounds.

In our repentance, we offer to God what we are able—in fasting, showing mercy, and prayer. These things can be painful-physically, mentally and emotionally. But it’s only when we make a serious effort in the spiritual life that we truly begin to see the evil that is comfortably nesting in our hearts. It’s only during these times we truly understand that the evil is in us.

In our struggles, we will have slips and falls. But if we stand back up again and fight, we will have a clearer picture of how weak our wills are and how much we prefer comfort and ease. We will feel more intensely the stony hardness of our hearts—both toward God and our brothers. But this knowledge is not a bad thing. Because the point of Lent is not to satisfy some checklist—making sure we pray more than we did last year, or fast more strictly, or to finally stop committing a particular sin. The point, rather, of all our struggles, the entire purpose of Lent—is to learn how to be with Christ on the cross.

We need to learn how sing with the Church this hymn from last week: “Think to thyself… that thou thyself art crucified with Him who was crucified for thee; and cry out to Him: Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.” This is the point of Lent. We need to learn to join our sufferings to Christ’s by accepting them and looking to Christ in them. Because life will always be handing down crosses for us—crosses from the sins of our brothers and neighbors, crosses from our own sins, crosses from living in a fallen world. As Fr. Thomas Hopko of blessed memory says, “If we don’t find God on the cross, we won’t find Him anywhere else.” Lent teaches us how to embrace the crosses God allows for us and how to find Christ there. Lent is the season of joyful sorrow and St. Maximus the Confessor writes that “those who in this age are truly dead to the flesh can be distinguished in this way: even though they suffer much affliction, torment, distress and persecution, and experience innumerable forms of trial and temptation, nevertheless they bear everything with joy,” (First Cent. Of Theo. Texts 59).

If we do not understand what this means, or perhaps have forgotten, Lent is filled with saints that lived this out. The 40 Martyrs of Sebaste, who were stripped and placed on a frozen lake and tortured for their refusal to deny Christ. Next to crucifixion, being frozen to death is one of the most painful ways to die. Yet at Vespers, we hear them say, “Winter is cruel, but paradise is sweet; the ice is painful, but the acquisition of the Kingdom is delightful. Then, let us not give way, O warriors! Let us endure but a little while, that we may be crowned with crowns of victory by Christ God.” Christ did not stop the evil being done to them, but strengthened them to endure so He could crown them glorious victors over the devil, so they could be co-rulers with Him in the unending Kingdom. Sometimes the pain we must endure is from our own sinfulness, like with St. Mary of Egypt. She suffered the torments of lust for the first 17 years she spent in the desert because of her previous life of debauchery. But by accepting her painful cross and looking to her Savior and His Mother, she was not only delivered from her sins, but was granted divine peace in her soul and the grace of prayer far exceeding what St. Zosima had achieved for all his life in a monastery. The saints echo what St. Paul says, “I now rejoice in my sufferings…and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ,” (Col. 1:24). What is lacking in the afflictions of Christ is not their efficacy, but our participation in them. And Lent offers us the same opportunity.

The contest of Lent begins this evening. As we prepare ourselves by asking forgiveness of one another, let us remember why we do this, year after year. It’s not to pride ourselves for our accomplishments, nor it’s not to be cynically reminded of how pathetic and terrible we are when we fall. It’s to embrace Christ on the cross. Only then will our wounds heal from the embrace of sin that holds us, and the world, so tightly. Only then will the doors of Paradise be opened again. Amen.