By: Alex J. Nagem © 2025

I knelt in one of the pews facing the side of the main altar in our Cathedral. I was a reader at the noon Mass on Ash Wednesday. This is not my usual pew, left side, third row, next to the pillar. The view is different, of course. My focus is on the large Crucifix on the wall before me, instead of my head bowed in prayer, as my typical posture before and during most of the Mass. Staring at the Crucifix, the question that surfaces is, “Why?” Why did this happen?

I believe in one God as the Creator of the universe and having a personal relationship with all He created. This labels me as a theist, as one who believes in one God who created all things. I believe that the Son of God, who is the Word of God, allowed himself to be ridiculed, beaten, suffered, and nailed to a cross as a sacrifice for our sins. All this, so we may be redeemed for a chance of everlasting life with God in Heaven. This has been told over the centuries by prophets, apostles, clergy, religious, and parents. Discussions and lectures have been given, and books written on this topic. Wars have been fought over this belief. This belief has not been disproven. But why did this happen? Had our ancestors been that bad, that sinful, that the One who created us must act and show us the way to a righteous life by having His son come to us as a teacher, Savior, and sacrifice? If we believe in God, why do we act in a sinful manner against Him and others? The piercing of Christ’s side, as told in Scripture and depicted in icons and paintings, allowed water and blood to pour from the wound. There are medical reasons to explain the water and blood mixture. But there is more to this piercing. Does the water and blood that poured from Christ’s side have a meaning of baptism and sacrifice? Are we baptized again with water and the Spirit through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a cross? Baptism is a gift from God through the Church to its children. What am I missing? I have received a gift of life through Baptism, through the water and blood that flowed from the side of Christ, and through the Eucharist. I should rejoice, yet I kneel facing an icon with the feeling of guilt. Could it be that I haven’t lived out my life as God would have wanted, and I have come to know this? I bow my head asking for forgiveness for the sins of the past.  I see that as you receive the Eucharist and walk toward this icon, you look up with reverence, with hope, and with prayer. You, too, believe in what it represents.  C. K. Barrett said that the Gospel according to John “intends us to see in this event that the real death of Jesus was the real life of men.” What was to be our fate without the crucifixion of Christ? Have you thought of this question yourself? I don’t want to know the answer, though imagination is playful with the answer. The same imagination that chills the body as you walk down the basement stares with only a flashlight, low on battery life, during a rainstorm when the electric line to your home is down, to investigate a noise that is heard.

We have entered into a New Covenant with God. This New Covenant is the promise that God makes with all of us that He will forgive sin and restore the relationship with those whose hearts are turned toward Him. God has made five major covenants in the past before the New Covenant. Covenants were made with Adam & Eve, Noah & his family, Abraham & his descendants, Moses & the Israelites, and David & the Kingdom of Israel.  In these covenants, God takes man and brings him back to the fold as divine offspring. We give our word to obey God. We swear an oath to God. God is our witness to this oath. I think I defined a covenant correctly. In our New Covenant with God, we believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. We are baptized in the Faith. We receive the Eucharist as the body of Christ. We are to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ, the living Word of God. Christ is the mediator in this New Covenant. My apologies if I have gotten a little theological here. But when the realization sets in of the oath we have taken with God, theological is the only way I can explain the feeling I have and what I have seen in you as we face the Crucifix on the Cathedral wall. We are baptized in the water and blood that poured from His wound. Our sins have been washed away. Jesus gave his spirit to God (Luke 23:46). Through the Spirit, we are brought back into the fold as children of God (John 3:3, 5). We are made children of God in the sacrifice and the death of Jesus Christ. As we stare at the Crucifix in the Cathedral, we should be thankful for the love shown to us all in this New Covenant. We should accept the conditions of the oath we have taken with God and not look upon them carelessly. The consequence may not allow us a flashlight, low on batteries, as we enter into the darkness of our sins.

“In Jesus Christ on the Cross, there is refuge, safety, and shelter. All the power of sin upon our track cannot reach us when we have taken shelter under the Cross that atones for our sins.” A. C. Dixon  

My continued thoughts and prayers are recited with you in mind, as I hope my family and I are remembered in yours.

“Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus, Deus Aderit”

Alex J. Nagem