Jesus said, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
- St. John 3:14-16
There are two great facts which Christ, during His earthly ministry, impressed upon His disciples: first, that He was the Messiah; and secondly, that He was the suffering Messiah. All through the early part of His ministry, the first of these facts is prominent, and during that part of His ministry we hear very little about His death.
But after a time there comes a change. The first lesson has been learned, and the apostles came to see in their Master the long-promised Messiah. St. Peter’s confession has been made: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And then what follows? The Scriptures tell us, “From that time forth Jesus began to show to His disciples how that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again on the third day.” From that point onward, Christ speaks of His death as a necessity, as something indispensable.
The shadow of the Cross stretches over His life. He speaks of His blood as being shed for the remission of sins, and His body as being given for His disciples. He says that He has come “to give His life as a ransom for many.”
All of this prepares us for what we find in the teaching of the apostles. We find in their writings a great stress upon the death of Christ, and that the greatest blessings and highest gifts are always connected with His suffering and with the shedding of His blood.
Throughout Scripture we read of forgiveness, of redemption, of healing, of cleansing, of sanctification -- of atonement -- all won for us by the death of Christ -- all coming to us through that great fact of history, that He was “lifted up” upon the Cross, and there He died – and He has left us the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, which gives us immediate and daily access to all His saving work.