Sunday's Readings: Numbers 21:4-9 Psalm 78:1-2, 34-38 Philippians 2:6-11 John 3:13-17 This Sunday's readings show how God's ways are certainly not our ways. The Lord has taken an instrument designed to humiliate and torture and turned it into a symbol of triumph. The cross on which our Lord died has become the throne from which He reigns because it is the means by which He poured out His love for us. The first reading tells how the Israelites sinned against God by their bitter complaining of their lot in the wilderness. In punishment, the people were visited by poisonous serpents who killed a number of the people. When the people repented of their sin, they cried out to Moses. God told Moses to have a bronze serpent raised on a pole. Whoever had been bitten and looked on the bronze serpent did not die. In the Gospel reading, Jesus makes reference to this account when He says to Nicodemus, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." The cross was Jesus' lifting up in the two senses of being lifted up on a cross to die and being exalted. Although designed to humiliate and torture, the cross became the triumph of our Lord. His death on the cross defeated sin, and He made the way possible for all of us suffering for our sins to be saved.

Here are a few commentaries on these readings:

• St. Charles Borromeo Lectionary Site (PDF)


• Victory of the Cross from The Crossroads Initiative