Christian Art | Jesus Is Crucified
Office Of Readings | Week 19, Tuesday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Treatise Of Theodoret Of Cyr On The Incarnation Of The Lord Jesus | By His Wounds We Are Healed
‘By his wounds we are healed.’
Theodoret takes his starting point from Isaiah 53, the ‘Suffering Servant’ passage, which early Christians read as a direct prophecy of Christ’s passion. The language of wounds, bruises and chastisement is interpreted not as a description of punishment deserved by Jesus himself, but as the cost he bore to heal humanity. For Theodoret, the cross is not only an act of endurance but also a medicine—a deliberate remedy for the sickness of sin.
He illustrates the work of salvation with a pastoral image. Just as a shepherd might keep one sheep close to guide the others home, so the eternal Word took on human nature to draw humanity back from danger. By uniting himself to our nature, Christ became the visible, tangible means by which God led his people from ‘bad pastures’ into the safety of divine life.
Theodoret links the passion to the resurrection. The sufferings and death of Christ were not the end but the breaking of ‘age-old tyranny’—a phrase that points to the power of death and corruption over humankind. When Christ’s body, described as the ‘temple’ in John 2:19–21, was raised, it served as a pledge of what God intended for all believers: freedom from decay, suffering, and mortality.
He presents the risen Christ as speaking directly to the faithful, promising that just as his own human nature was made incorruptible by union with divinity, so they too will share in immortality. The logic is that what is true of Christ’s humanity will also be true for those joined to him, since they are united to the same life-giving source.
The final section of the passage connects these promises to baptism. Theodoret emphasises that baptism is not merely a ritual but a participation in Christ’s death, echoing Romans 6:5. It is through this sacramental union that believers share both in the dying and the rising of Jesus, receiving the assurance of resurrection life.
The reading is tightly woven around three movements: the passion as healing, the resurrection as promise, and baptism as the means of sharing in that promise. For Theodoret, each is inseparable from the others; together they form the pattern of salvation.
A Reading From The Treatise Of Theodoret Of Cyr On The Incarnation Of The Lord Jesus | By His Wounds We Are Healed
Our Saviour’s passion is a healing remedy for us, as the prophet teaches when he cries out: He bears our sins and suffers pain for us, and we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But for our sins he was wounded, for our iniquities he was bruised; upon him fell the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his wounds we are healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, and therefore he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and was dumb like a sheep before its shearer.
When a shepherd sees that his sheep have scattered, he keeps one of them under his control and leads it to the pastures he chooses, and thus he draws the other sheep back to him by means of this one. And so it was when God the Word saw that the human race had gone astray: he took the form of a slave and united it to himself, and by means of it won over the whole race of men to him, enticing the sheep that were grazing in bad pastures and exposed to wolves, and leading them to the pastures of God.
This was the purpose for which our Saviour assumed our nature, this was why Christ the Lord accepted the sufferings that brought us salvation, was sent to his death and was committed to the tomb. He broke the grip of the age-old tyranny and promised incorruptibility to those who were prisoners of corruption. For when he rebuilt that temple which had been destroyed and raised it up again, he thereby gave trustworthy and firm promises to those who had died and were awaiting his resurrection.
Jesus tells us: ‘Just as my human nature, which I took from you, has won its resurrection in virtue of the Godhead that dwelt in it and with which it was united, just as this nature has shed decay and suffering and passed over to incorruptibility and immortality; so, in the same way, you too will be set free from the grievous slavery of death; you too will cast aside your corruptible nature and your sufferings and you will be clothed with impassibility.’
To this end he imparted the gift of baptism to all mankind through his apostles. Go, he said, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is a kind of symbol and type of the Lord’s death, which is why Paul says: If we have shared with God’s Son in a death like his, we shall certainly share in his resurrection.
A Brief Biography Of Theodoret Of Cyr
Theodoret of Cyr (c. AD 393–c. 466) was a bishop, theologian, and biblical commentator in the Roman province of Syria, serving as bishop of Cyr (modern-day al-Nabk, Syria) from around 423. Educated in Antioch and influenced by the Antiochene school of exegesis, he became known for his careful, historical interpretation of Scripture and his defence of orthodox Christology during the theological controversies of the fifth century. Theodoret played a prominent role in the debates surrounding Nestorianism and the Council of Chalcedon (451), advocating for a clear distinction between Christ’s divine and human natures while maintaining their unity in one person. His extensive writings include biblical commentaries, apologetic works, and theological treatises, many of which sought to clarify the Incarnation and counter heretical teachings. Despite periods of political and ecclesiastical opposition, he remained a respected figure in the Eastern Church and is remembered for his learning, pastoral leadership, and contributions to the development of Christian doctrine.
Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ
Lord Jesus Christ,
You bore our wounds and carried our sorrows,
leading us from the barren fields of sin into the pastures of your life.
By your death you broke the power of corruption,
and by your resurrection you opened the way to immortality.
Through the waters of baptism you have joined us to your cross and your rising.
Grant that we may walk in the freedom you have won,
clothed in the hope of the life to come,
until we share the glory you have promised.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Passion – The suffering and death of Jesus Christ, particularly his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial.
Suffering Servant – A figure described in Isaiah 52–53, interpreted by Christians as a prophecy of Christ’s sacrificial death.
Corruption – In theological terms, the state of decay and mortality resulting from sin.
Incorruptibility – The state of being free from decay, mortality, and the effects of sin.
Impassibility – The condition of being unable to suffer or be affected by pain; attributed to the risen life of Christ and the redeemed.
Baptism – The Christian sacrament of initiation, involving water, which unites the believer with the death and resurrection of Christ.
Temple – Here used by Christ as a metaphor for his body, which would be destroyed (in death) and rebuilt (in resurrection).
Age-old tyranny – A phrase describing the reign of sin and death over humanity before Christ’s victory.
On Palm Sunday, the Church invites us to enter once again into the drama and mystery of Christ’s final journey to Jerusalem—a journey not just toward a city, but toward suffering, death, and glory. In his beautiful and contemplative homily, On the Palm Branches, Saint Andrew of Crete opens this moment to us not as passive observers of history, but as participants in Christ’s Passion, called to walk with him and to imitate his self-offering [ … ]
We process. Glass exhibition cases, old reliquaries. A forearm here; here a nun’s fingertip. In chapel, at a glance, there are the usual faces. But they all stand to attention. Jonathan breaks from the procession to – fire the organ with oomph and dignity: Ride on! ride on in majesty! The angel-squadrons of the sky look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice. When we’ve done the readings, the Arch holds that tree in his hands to deliver the homily. He rocks quietly on his feet, some few seconds, as if balance defeated it. A way you might affect as the Spirit moves… Copying. Then he says: ‘Our palm fronds may seem to us today rather dry. I mean this not in a literal sense, but by the standards of those who originally lined the roadways in order to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, as they proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, who would be clambering up and ripping their palm branches fresh from off the trees. I think perhaps also our faith is somewhat distant from that of the people there on that highroad into Jerusalem, and something of our sense of the meaning has shifted in vividness from what it was then. And of course the expectation of all those many people is markedly different, but in many important respects the same. There are the same essential qualities to all our faith in God, which springs complete from our humanity, and that is one and the same in value for all of us, and time is consistent on this point. So then, let us renew the fullness of Catholic faith, and let us ask the Lord’s blessing as we embark upon our Holy Week. ‘Our Lord enters into Jerusalem in order to refresh us. He is to die in order that we may have life. There is a living reality here, both spiritual and as entangled in the joy of our daily living. We have Ladies’ Day where I grew up. They still have it, and they close the roads off, and little children parade, dressed-up like spring brides. When I was a boy, there was a May Day festival, and there was a May pole on the field, with the people dancing, like Morris dancers might be one way of visualizing this if you’ve never seen it, with their ribbons tied onto the top of the May pole, and they would weave around each other, dressing the pole, which is what we called it. It was like a dance with red and white and blue ribbons all hung off of the top of the May pole, which stood there all year, only like a telegraph pole, but it was concreted in, and then there was a slide, and swings – one baby-swing and two you could have a go at – terrible health and safety but that’s what it was in those days. ‘There was a round-a-bout – we used to run it round and round to try to get it off its central axis. It were rusty as anything and creaked like mad – on concrete. And climb up where it was all greased up at the top. Ruth, who was big as the next four of us, used to sit there sucking on the lollipops we nicked for her from Raddies, and she’d direct matters. We were trying to destroy it, and get it to dislodge from its central axis, and fly away – roll off into that farmer’s field, which he only ever kept for silage, but we never succeeded. There was a car someone had left there so we spent forever smashing that up, until someone who lived in one of the houses there took exception to our doing that, so he put thick grease under the door handles and gave us a right talking to. ‘It would only be a few stands, hot-dogs and things like that. The man selling the hot dogs would have his records on full blast. There’d be a couple of set-up stalls. Air-rifles – that sort of thing. But we all had them, and we all went shooting, of course, if not with twelve bores then with smaller gauge. Or pay a pound – I have no idea how much it was in actual fact then – it might have only been a few pennies – and we’d get all that time smashing up the crockery the man would put up for us to smash on the dressers. That was my particular favourite thing to do at these festivals, by the way, in case you were wondering. You got a little bucket of so many cricket balls. ‘I dread to think what went into those hot dogs. Probably EE rules would forbid it now. But it was a fair mix in those days. A lot of young people then were C of E. We’ve done a lot to hang onto our young people, which is a tremendous encouragement when you consider how things are, while in recent decades the Church of England hasn’t been so successful. People still want it on feast days and what are essentially now civic celebrations. It’s strange to see, though, how all the little stands there people have are run by the police and people like that along those lines. There’s no May pole. That was a sort of faith that ran and ran beneath all the theoreticals of it in the 1960s and the 1970s and into the 1980s. The May pole isn’t there now in the particular place I’m thinking of. Considering May poles were officially suppressed hundreds of years ago – as a part of the protestant reformation. One or two of you are probably thinking I’m remembering things from that time! ‘I should have liked to say that those processionals were so hardwired into us, that even after the last thirty years, when I became a bishop, they are still with us. They were […]
The text from Saint Irenaeus, read on Thursday of the third week of Eastertide in the Office of Readings, is a profound theological meditation on the relationship between the Eucharist and the resurrection of the body. It stands not merely as an apologetic against heresy, but as a luminous witness to the Church’s sacramental and eschatological faith—rooted in the Incarnation, expressed through liturgy, and fulfilled in the resurrection [ … ]
