Pierced His Side

The Roman soldier standing guard at the Crucifixion of Jesus had a deeper revelation of Who He was than even those shaped by centuries of wisdom and prophecy!

Everybody knows that whoever possesses the Spear of Destiny has ultimate power!

Their armies can never be defeated, and power will remain theirs as long as they have the Spear! You know the Spear I’m talking about, don’t you? This is the Spear that pierced the Lord’s side at His crucifixion! Great Hollywood script material!

It did make it into a Hollywood movie called Constantine, and it is mentioned in the film Hellboy.

Of course, the mythology surrounding the Spear of St. Longinus (its official name) depends on a view of the world that is more magic and superstition than faith and love. 

It is more materialistic and impersonal than relationships and communion.

This is the usual spiritual poverty of a human race that has forgotten or has never actually known that God is first the Only Lover of Mankind and not merely a Superman more based on Zeus than the God revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures.

This is because today, we remember the wonderful Roman centurion named Longinus at the foot of the Cross, who pierced the Lord’s side and declared, “Truly this was the Son of God!” 

He is considered a saint in the Orthodox Church because he converted to Christianity and died a martyr’s death for his Christian faith! Today, we recall his ability to recognize the true identity of our Lord Jesus, which starkly contrasts with the Lord’s people who missed His mission and purpose.

The Gospel Lesson today is a long one. It’s found in Matthew 27:33-54. I won’t quote the whole passage, but I hope you take the time to read the entire reading. It is the familiar but always fresh account of our Lord’s final moments and His fantastic display of love on the Cross as our Champion against ignorance, death, and injustice. It also tells how creation itself rebelled at humanity’s audacious pride in crucifying the Son of God.

The final sign of this significant moment in human history is the massive curtain in the Temple being torn “from top to bottom.”

Look at this section of the reading:

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

Amazing! 

This Gentile, this Roman soldier, a leader in the occupying army there in Israel, hated by the population, probably miserable being so far from his home and family, stationed in a place where he is always an “outsider” and despised; this man is graced with the insight into Who Jesus is.

The Nation that had been shaped for centuries by the Holy Scriptures, led by the Holy Prophets, given the liturgical wisdom of the Temple and the Synagogue, warned for centuries about the coming of the Messiah, given the mission by God to be the example to the whole world; these People, the Lord’s own “tribe” missed Him completely!

What a warning! What a powerful lesson to anyone awake, aware, humble, loving, and spiritually hungry enough to hear! The Gentile, the “outsider,” the “stranger,” without all the benefits of Scripture, Liturgy, and Mission, sees our Lord Jesus for Who He is, and the people with all the advantages, all the “headstart,” miss the Messiah!

By the way, our hero, St. Longinus, left the Roman army after the Crucifixion and went back to his hometown of Cappadocia, where he faithfully preached the Gospel of Jesus, telling everyone he could about what he saw and how Christ had changed his life forever. Pontius Pilate convinced Tiberius Ceasar to have St. Longinus arrested and executed by beheading.

Today, our focus on St. Longinus invites us to a two-fold blessing: To rejoice that God so loves ALL humanity that even those without all the advantages, even those folks created in God’s image, meant to be in His Likeness, can have their eyes opened in the face of such eternal and selfless Love, and, To be warned that even all the spiritual advantages of centuries of tradition and a heritage of faith doesn’t guarantee awareness of the treasure of the Faith if that Treasure is neglected or taken for granted! You can be blind, even standing at the Cross and seeing such sacrificial Love, if you stubbornly insist on your blindness! If you stubbornly insist on not living a Normal Orthodox life.

P.S. With great joy the Church of Christ today rejoices on the festive memory of blessed Longinus, the all-famed and godly prizewinner. And she cries out: O Christ, my foundation and might are You.

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Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV