Day: March 22, 2026

“He is the Mediator of the new covenant … by means of death”

Venantius Fortunatus’ hymns, Vexilla Regis and Pange Lingua, were originally written for the commemoration of the relics of the true Cross brought to Poitiers in southern France in the 6th century. They have become an integral part of Passion Sunday which marks the beginning of deep Lent or Passiontide. His hymns are a commentary on the Cross and Passion of Christ particularly as expressed in the readings for this Sunday. They contribute to the Paradox of the Passion that is before us.

In Percy Dearmer’s version of Vexilla Regis, “The Royal Banners forward go,/ the Cross shines forth in mystic glow,/ where he, the Life, did death endure,/ and by that death did life procure … Fulfilled is all his words foretold … He reigns and triumphs from the Tree” (Hymn # 128). The Tree, symbolic of the Cross and Christ’s crucifixion, is not shame or ignominy but “proclaims the Prince of Glory now”. Its branches bear “the priceless treasure, freely spent,/ To pay for man’s enfranchisement.” The Cross is the emblem of salvation, personified in Pange Lingua as the “Faithful Cross … the noblest Tree”, the express “Symbol of the world’s redemption” (Hymn # 129).

The hymns illustrate the meaning of the Passion of Christ. They comment in part on the readings from Hebrews and the Gospel from Matthew today. Hebrews is a theological treatise on the mystery of human redemption concentrated in this passage. Christ is both priest and victim, “the High Priest of good things to come” who “by his own blood entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” By his blood outpoured and his death on the Cross, he is “the Mediator of the new covenant” that “they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” He is Mediator not because he stands between but because he unites in himself God and Man. Here is theology in its most proper sense as a form of our thinking upon and engaging with the images that belong to the language of Scripture.

The images in Scripture and hymn highlight the paradox of salvation. The focus is on the Cross, yet in the liturgical traditions, the Altar Cross is veiled, present but not fully seen, there but not fully understood. “We see but in a glass darkly” and yet we see something. “The Cross shines forth in mystic glow,” literally, fulget crucis mysterium. Such is “the mystery of the cross,” but what is at issue is the understanding. We sing in Pange Lingua “that engagement of the struggle glorious” that results in the “triumph on the trophy of the cross” which proclaims “how the world’s redeemer was, sacrificed, victorious.” His kingdom is not a worldly kingdom of human making but the redeeming of our humanity through his embrace of human sin and death. His death is ‘the death of death.’ It makes visible the triumph of life over all and every culture of death such as our own. This is the paradox of death becoming the means to eternal life. How? we might ask.

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