Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Second Sunday in Lent

On that very day some Pharisees came, saying to Him, “Get out and depart from here, for Herod wants to kill You.” And He said to them, “Go, tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.’ Nevertheless I must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 13:31–35)

But what did He tell them to say? “Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.” You see that He declares His intention of performing what He knew would grieve the troop of Pharisees. So they drive Him from Jerusalem, fearing that by the display of miracles He will win many to faith in Himself. But inasmuch as their purpose there did not escape Him since He was God, He declares His intention of performing what they hated and says that He shall also rebuke unclean spirits and deliver the sick from their sufferings and be perfected. This means that of His own will He will endure the passion on the cross for the salvation of the world. He knew, therefore, as it appears, both how and when He would endure death in the flesh.… Let not therefore those murders of the Lord pride themselves, or superciliously vaunt themselves against Him. You did not win a victory over One Who fled from suffering. You did not seize One unwilling. You did not prevail over One Who refused to be caught in the meshes of your craftiness. Of His own Will He consented to suffer, as being well assured that by the death of His flesh He would abolish death, and return again to life. For He arose from the dead, having raised up with Him the whole nature of man, and having fashioned it anew unto the life incorruptible.

Cyril of  Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke 100