A Message Signed With Blood From the Nation of the Cross

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Keraza Magazine issue 11-12 March 13, 2015

Our very beloved brother, the slayer of our brethren in Libya…

We received your Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross and behold, we respond to you with a message from the nation of the cross, likewise signed with blood, yet this one signed with the blood of the Lamb, Who purchased us by the blood of His cross. We wish to thank you, our beloved brother, because unawares you spoke some truths and witnessed to it. We thank you because you mentioned the word cross in your message five times in five different sentences. Please allow us to speak with you concerning these five sentences.

A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross: Yes indeed we are the nation of the cross, and our true pride is to belong to the cross, each one of us screams out with St. Paul the Apostle: "But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14).
The people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian Church: Yes, we are the citizens of the cross, and we pray for you to also become one of its citizens. The cross is the secret to our life, it is the secret to our salvation and deliverance. Not one of us, we the little flock, can graze outside the pastures of the cross. When we bear the cross each day with joy and thanks, we grow in its school, and our new person is nourished on it–the tree of life. As for us being a fighting church, you are right, yet, "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12).
Cutting down the heads that have been carrying the Cross delusion for a long time: Yes sir, our minds, since we were buried and raised with our Christ in Baptism, are saturated with the cross and sealed with its sign. We love the Crucified with all the heart, mind, soul, and might. The being of every Christian, from the youngest child to the oldest senior carries the identity of the cross in his inner person. Yet, permit me sir, to tell you that the cross is not a delusion, but is the truth. If you consider us deluded, living in delusion, I say to you, "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18), and we "did not follow cunningly devised fables" (2 Peter 1:16).
O crusaders, safety for you is only wishes: Which safety are you talking about, sir? Which of you felt safer, you who were hiding behind masks, or the martyrs who faced slaughter with all courage and calmness? Do you know where they received their safety from, during moments in which the strongest warriors would have broken down? This is the mystery of the cross, of which you are ignorant.
Jesse, peace be upon him, will descend breaking the cross: Pardon me, but the Lord Christ personally described His second coming: "Then the sign [the cross] of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matthew 24:30).

Sir, we love you very much, and we pray for you, for the Lord not to count this sin against you. We beseech Him to take you into His side, wounded for you, for His cross to wound you with the spear of divine love.

Signed
Citizens of the cross in the nation of the cross

Bishop Youssef
Bishop, Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States