THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
Then he presents the chief consolation, which he offers both before and after, Christ Himself: "looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith."
So Christ Himself constantly said to the disciples, "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they call those of his household" (Mt 10:25)? And again, "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master" (Mt 10:24).
"Looking," he says, so that we may learn the contests by looking to Christ. In all arts and exercises we look to teachers. In this way we imprint the art upon our soul, drawing certain rules for ourselves through sight.
So it is here. If we wish to struggle and learn to struggle well, let us look to Christ, Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.
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What does this mean? It means that He implanted faith in us. He made the beginning. As Christ said to His disciples, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you" (Jn 15:16).
Paul also says, "Then I shall know, even as I have been known" (1 Cor 13:12). If He Himself made the beginning in us, then He Himself will also complete the end.
"Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame." That is, He could have avoided suffering, had He wished. For "He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth" (Isa 53:9).
As He Himself says in the Gospel, "The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me" (Jn 14:30). Therefore, had He wished, He could have avoided going to the cross.
"I lay down My life," He says, "that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and authority to take it again" (Jn 10:17-18).
If He, having no need to be crucified, was crucified for us, should we not all the more rightly endure everything courageously?
"Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame." What does "despising the shame" mean? It means that He chose a disgraceful death.
Let it be that He died. But why by a disgraceful death? For no other reason than to teach us to count human glory as nothing. Therefore He chose such a death, though He had no share in sin.
He did this to teach us to meet it courageously and count it as nothing. Why did he not speak of sorrow, but of shame? Because Christ endured this without sorrow.
What follows at last? Hear what he says next: "and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Do you see the prize of victory?
Paul says the same in another epistle: "Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth" (Phil 2:9-10).
He says this of Christ according to the flesh. Yet even if there were no reward, this example would be enough to persuade us to endure everything. Now rewards are also set before us, not ordinary ones, but great and ineffable.
Therefore, whenever we endure anything of this kind, let us look first to Christ, even before the apostles. Why? Because His whole life was filled with sorrows.
He often heard Himself called possessed, deceiver, and sorcerer. Sometimes the Jews said, "This Man is not from God" (Jn 9:16). At other times they said, "He deceives the people" (Jn 7:12).
Again they said, "That deceiver said, while He was still alive, 'After three days I will rise'" (Mt 27:63). They also accused Him of sorcery, saying, "He casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons" (Mt 12:24).
They accused Him of being possessed and having a demon. They said, "Were we not right to say that He has a demon and is mad" (Jn 10:20)?
He heard such judgments from them while He was doing good, working miracles, and showing forth the works of God.
If He had heard these things while doing nothing of the kind, it would not be so marvelous. But He taught the truth and was called a deceiver. He cast out demons and was slandered as having a demon.
He destroyed everything hostile and was proclaimed a sorcerer. Is this not utterly amazing? Truly, such charges were continually brought against Him.
If you wish to know the mockeries and reproaches directed against Him, which especially disturb our souls, listen first to how they mocked His origin.
"Is this not Jesus," they said, "the carpenter's son? Is not His Mother called Mary, and His brothers James and Joses and Simon and Jude" (Mt 13:55; Jn 6:42)?
They also mocked His homeland, saying that He was from Nazareth, and speaking thus: "Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee" (Jn 7:52). Yet He endured all these mockeries.
They also said, "Does not Scripture say that the Christ comes from the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was" (Jn 7:42)?
Do you wish to see the insults inflicted on Him at the very cross? They bowed before Him in mockery, struck Him, slapped Him, and said, "Prophesy to us, Christ. Who struck You" (Mt 26:68)?
They offered vinegar and said, "If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross" (Mt 27:40). Even the servant of the high priest struck Him.
The Lord said, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness to the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me" (Jn 18:23)? In mockery they clothed Him with a cloak, spat in His face, and constantly reviled Him while tempting Him.
Do you wish to see accusations against Him, both secret and open, even from His disciples? "Do you also wish to go away" (Jn 6:67)? He said to them. And those who had believed already said, "Do You not have a demon" (Jn 7:20)?
Tell me, did He not constantly withdraw now into Galilee, now into Judea? Was He not subjected to many temptations from His swaddling clothes? Was He not an infant when His Mother took Him and fled to Egypt?
Therefore Paul says, "looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Let us look to Him, and likewise to the sufferings of His disciples, reading and heeding what Paul says: "in great endurance, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in beatings, in prisons, in tumults, in labors, in vigils, in fastings, in purity, in understanding" (2 Cor 6:4-6).
And again: "To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat" (1 Cor 4:11-13).
Can any of us say that he has endured even the smallest part of such sufferings? We are, he says, as deceivers, as dishonored, as having nothing (2 Cor 6:8-10).
And again: "Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day I was in the deep. Often on journeys," in sorrows, distress, and hunger (2 Cor 11:24-26).
That all this was pleasing to God, hear how he himself says it: "Three times I besought the Lord that it might depart from me. But the Lord said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness'" (2 Cor 12:8-9).
"Therefore," he says, "I take pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses," in wounds and prisons, "that the power of Christ may dwell in me" (2 Cor 12:10, 9).
Hear also what Christ Himself says: "In the world you will have tribulation" (Jn 16:33).
But why do I say this in vain to people who do not even wish to renounce attachment to money? They regard money as though it were immortal.
If they give only a little out of much, they think they have fulfilled everything. No, this is not almsgiving. Almsgiving is the gift of that widow who gave what she had, all her livelihood (Mk 12:44).
If you do not wish to give as much as that widow, then at least give everything superfluous. Let you have everything sufficient, but without excess. Yet no one gives even what is superfluous.
[...] There is neither need nor benefit in that without which we can live. It is excess and something added from outside.