In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

We have before us the image of the cross of the Lord, and it’s so familiar to us as Christians that we can lose sight of what a shocking thing it is that an instrument for the death penalty, an instrument of torture, would be the very symbol of our faith and the symbol of victory. But apart from the cross of Christ, we all had a death sentence hanging over our heads. St. Paul tells us in the epistle to the Romans, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And in Ezekiel, the prophet says, “The soul that sins shall die.” So because of our sins, we have a death sentence hanging over us.

But in St. Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, he tells us what Christ did to that death sentence. In chapter two beginning with verse six, he says:

As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you with philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men and the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.

What he’s talking [about] there is about Gnostic heresies that were coming into the Church already at this early stage, and these are the traditions of men because they’re false teachings. They’re not what we received from the Lord; they’re something that’s foreign to us, and so we should reject them. But then it says:

For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

And “Godhead” is a word that we don’t hear every day, and so you might wonder what does that even mean. When you talk about “manhood,” we know what that means, “womanhood.” “Manhood” means that which makes somebody a man. Well, “Godhead” is just a different variation of that suffix in English, and if it didn’t change for linguistic reasons over time, it would be “Godhood.” So what it’s saying is that in Christ the fullness of the deity dwelt, that he was fully God.

And you are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power, in whom also you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. In putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

And what is that circumcision? He goes on to say:

Buried with him in baptism…

That’s the circumcision not made by hands. That’s why we don’t circumcise our children, at least not as a ritual. We’re not required to do so, because the circumcision of the New Testament is baptism.

Wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of decrees which was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

So what it’s saying is we had handwriting against us. The Law says the soul that sins shall die, and it lays out what it means to live a holy life, and we’ve fallen short of that. We all have a record of our sins. But what we’re told is that if we accept the sacrifice of Christ in our behalf, that he blots out that record and he nails it to the cross and he tears it up. He tears up the bill. And then it says:

And through this he spoiled principalities and powers, making a show of them openly.

If you understand ancient warfare—I just finished reading the Iliad not too long ago for the first time; I never read it all the way through, but I just finished it. There are many cases in that poem where a soldier kills another soldier, and what is the first thing he does? He strips off his armor and he leaves him naked. He takes everything of value away from him. That’s what the image here is. Christ has stripped the demons naked of all their armor and of all their power. This is what it means to be a Christian; this is what it means to be saved.

We hear references to this passage of Scripture in many of the hymns of the Church, and this is why it’s important for us to know the Scriptures and also to pay attention to the hymns of the Church, because if you don’t do both these things will go whizzing past your head and you won’t understand what’s even being said. But in the prayer of the sixth hour, which we hear every day with the exception of Bright Week, we hear:

O God and Lord of hosts and Maker of all creation, who by the tender compassion of thy mercy which transcendeth comprehension didst send down thine only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of our race, and by his precious Cross did tear asunder the handwriting of our sins and thereby didst triumph over the principalities and powers of darkness…

And during Great Lent, at the lenten sixth hour, there’s a hymn that the choir repeats:

O thou who on the sixth day and in the sixth hour didst nail to the Cross Adam’s daring sin in paradise, tear asunder the handwriting of our sins, O Christ God, and save us.

And one other hymn that I was able to find that references this, and this is the Akathist Hymn, the most important akathist that we have in the history of the Church, and the only one that is actually appointed by the Typikon to be done liturgically. We hear this hymn:

When the Absolver of all mankind desired to blot out ancient debts of his own will, he came to dwell among those who had fallen from his grace, and having torn up the handwriting of their sins he heareth this from all: Alleluia!

When we consider what God has done for us—because he didn’t just issue a pardon: he took the penalty that was due to us and he took it on himself; he died in our place. When we consider what God has done for us, how can we not love him? In the first epistle of St. John, we hear:

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

And St. Paul says something very similar; he says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He loved us when we were totally alien to him; when we were his enemies, he loved us, and died in our place. And if we love God, how can we continue in the sins that Christ died to free us from? As it says also in St. John’s first epistle:

By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous.

Amen.