St. Origen

One of his homily turned the battle of Jericho into a metaphor for the New Testament. His text equates Jericho with the world, the spies of the Joshua as being the apostles and the harlot Rahab became a metaphor for us, the body of believers. In the Old Testament story, the Israelites knew to spare the household of Rahab because she hung a scarlet cord from her window. In Origen’s mind the cord became a metaphor for the blood of Christ which saves us all. I knew very little of Origen before today but it appears there is large body of this work that remains in existence despite dating back to the early third century and his ability to spin metaphors between the history of the Old Testament and the experience of the new testament is certainly something that will draw further inquiry from me in the future. For now, however, I am left to wonder how I should display the scarlet cord that will spare me from destruction when the end comes. There is no physical sign that can represent my belief that spiritual salvation awaits me. All that I can do is hope that when God looks beyond my physical image and deep into my soul he will find that I have prepared my inner self, my essence to radiate the glory of belief in life eternal. The words of the old song we often sang when we were young ring through my ears loudly today: “And they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our love.” The expression of that love for one another will be our scarlet cord for the Lord to find when the time comes for us.