Homily for the Sunday of St. Thomas the Apostle in the Orthodox Church

 

Acts 5:12-20; John 20:19-31

 

Christ is Risen!  Indeed, He is Risen!

 

            Today we continue to celebrate the most fundamental and joyful proclamation of our faith:  Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!  He is our Pascha, our Passover, from death to life, for Hades and the grave could not contain the God-Man Who shares with us His victory over corruption and decay in all their forms.  In a world enslaved to the fear of the grave, He has illumined even the dark night of the tomb with the brilliant light of heavenly glory.  As Christ said to Martha before He raised Lazarus, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” (John 11:25) Because death did not have the last word on our Lord, it will not, by His grace, have the last word on us or on any who call upon His Name. As St. John Chrysostom proclaimed, “Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.”[1]

When the Savior rose from the dead, He did so as a whole Person Whose glorified body still bore the physical wounds of His crucifixion.  He was born, lived, and died with flesh and blood every bit as much as we do.  He was as dead as anyone else lying in a tomb.  Thomas doubted the news of the resurrection because he was not present when the Risen Lord first appeared to the disciples.  He said that he would not believe unless he saw and touched the marks of His torture and death.  When Christ appeared again eight days later, He told Thomas to do precisely that.  Thomas responded by recognizing Him as “My Lord and my God!”

 

            This encounter demonstrates how essential Christ’s bodily resurrection is for our faith.  Simply put, there would be no Christianity and no Church without it.  The Savior died through a public form of capital punishment on the Cross at the hands of Roman soldiers who knew their grim trade all too well.  It was literally just another day’s work when they broke the legs of the two thieves in order to get them to die more quickly. They did not break the Lord’s legs, however, for those seasoned professional killers knew that He was already dead.  The Roman Cross had apparently made its point yet again about what happened to anyone perceived as a threat to the Empire.  It is hardly surprising that the disciples had fled in fear at the Lord’s arrest with Peter denying Him three times, for they had no expectation of His resurrection.  They had wanted a military Messiah to crush the Romans and establish an earthly kingdom, not a Savior Whose great victory would come through public torture and execution by a Gentile army of occupation. Of course, it would be absurd to think that those who had denied and abandoned their Crucified Lord would have later made up a story about His resurrection and then died as martyrs for Him.  The women disciples, who showed greater love and courage by going to the tomb in order to anoint Christ’s dead body when all seemed lost, obviously had not anticipated His resurrection either. 

      St. Paul taught, “[I]f Christ has not been raised, our preaching is worthless, and so is your faith.” (1 Cor. 15:14) The Savior proclaimed His divinity by forgiving sins and saying that He and the Father are one (John 10:30) and that “before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58) The high priest asked Him at His arrest, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Christ responded, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14: 61-62)   If One Who had claimed to be God was wrong in predicting His resurrection and had simply decayed in the tomb like anyone else, there would be no reason for anyone to remember Jesus Christ today as anything but a failed Messiah with grandiose delusions.    

            Orthodox Christian faith is not grounded in sentimental memories or warm feelings about an inspiring personality who lived a long time ago, but in the joyful proclamation that “Christ is Risen!” in victory over death as a whole Person.  His bodily resurrection is our hope for “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come,” as we confess in the Nicene Creed.  To quote Saint Paul again, “[I]if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Cor. 15: 17-19) If Christ did not rise from the dead as an embodied Person, then St. Paul and all the martyrs wasted their lives for nothing.  Remember that he became a Christian only after the Risen Lord miraculously appeared to Him in blinding light on the road to Damascus   Apart from the reality of the Savior’s resurrection, the conversion of St. Paul from a persecuting Pharisee to the apostle to the Gentiles makes no sense at all. 

            St. Thomas believed only when he touched the wounds of the Risen Savior’s glorified body.  In our reading from Acts, the apostles healed the suffering bodies of many sick people.  The Lord’s resurrection reveals the great dignity of the human body, which is destined for heavenly glory. Salvation is not an escape from the physical dimensions of our lives but requires our purification and fulfillment as whole persons united to Christ. True faith in the Savior demands that we offer every aspect of our existence to Him for healing and transformation, holding nothing back.  Even as He healed the sick and fed the hungry, the most obvious practices of faithfulness involve caring for people in their bodily weaknesses and infirmities.  By showing tangible signs of mercy for our neighbors, we also touch the wounds of Christ, for He is present to us in everyone in need. In light of His resurrection, the bodily sufferings and struggles of others appear not as irrelevant distractions from genuine spiritual concerns, but as invitations to manifest a foretaste of “the life of the world to come.” Regardless of any context or circumstance, to refuse to abandon our neighbors in their bodily sufferings and to provide whatever care we can is to provide a sign of God’s gracious purposes for all who bear His image and likeness.  If we refuse to do so, then we live as though the Savior’s bodily sufferings, death, and resurrection had no great importance.  Because “Christ is Risen!,” we must care for our neighbors in practical, tangible ways that convey the divine mercy that shines from the empty tomb.

            In order to follow our Risen Lord into the joy of the resurrection, we must also open our deepest personal struggles and wounds to Him for healing.  The problem is not that we have bodies, but that we have allowed the fear of death to fuel our passions in ways that corrupt every dimension of who we are in this world.  Because God creates and saves us as whole persons, we must embrace the Savior’s victory over death by living as those who are in a “one flesh” communion with Him in every dimension of our existence.   We are living members of His Body, the Church, and nourished by His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  We must live accordingly with our bodies every day of our lives, for Christ’s resurrection has glorified the human body and calls us to holiness.  Our relationships, actions, and desires must be healed and reoriented to the Kingdom in order for us to enter into the joy of our Lord’s resurrection as whole persons.  That is not a disembodied or abstract vocation, but a tangible and practical calling that impacts every dimension of our lives as embodied persons.

            Because “Christ is Risen!,” we must not use the fact that we have bodies as an excuse to remain enslaved to corruption in any form.  We fall into pride, hatred, greed, sloth, gluttony, drunkenness, lust, vanity, and other sins not because we are flesh and blood, but because we have not yet entered fully into the joy of the resurrection of Christ.  The season of Pascha calls us all to embrace our Risen Lord as the restoration and fulfillment of every dimension of our personhood.  We cannot become truly human apart from Him, for only He has conquered the fear of death that is at the root of all our corruption.  The more fully we unite ourselves to Christ in joyful obedience, even as we remain flesh and blood in this world, the more truly we will  be able to say with St. Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20) The struggle to do so is ultimately one of joy as we enter more fully into the gloriously good news of this radiant season of Pascha.  It is a struggle that we must all undertake if we are to respond in faith like St. Thomas to the God-Man Whom death could not destroy, for “Christ is Risen!”

 

 

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[1] https://www.oca.org/fs/sermons/the-paschal-sermon

 

Homily for Palm Sunday in the Orthodox Church

 

              Philippians 4:4-9; John 12:1-18

The Desert Father Saint Antony the Great once tested a group of monks by asking them, beginning with the youngest, the meaning of a certain passage of Scripture.  In response to their answers, he said, “You have not understood it.”  Finally, he asked Abba Joseph, who said, “I do not know.”  Then Abba Antony said, “Indeed Abba Joseph has found the way, for he has said: ‘I do not know.’”[1] As we celebrate our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we must not assume that we understand the full meaning of this extraordinary day that begins the week in which the God-Man will enter into the dark and disorienting despair of death and then rise gloriously in triumph.  Before the Passion of the Lord, we must all have the humility to say, “I do not know.”   

We can certainly understand the crowds on Palm Sunday welcoming their anticipated liberator from the oppressive rule of foreigners as they cheered, “Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”  Throughout His earthly ministry, the Savior rejected the temptation to become an earthly ruler taking vengeance on His enemies. When, by the end of the week, it had become clear that He was not going to settle the score with the Romans, the crowds called so boisterously for His death that even Pilate, the Roman governor, went along with their desires.  In tragic irony, it was in the aftermath of the Lord’s raising of Lazarus from the dead after four days, by which He showed that He is “the resurrection and the life,” that the chief priests and Pharisees decided to destroy Him.  “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!” they said cynically to Pilate, for “We have no king but Caesar!” 

Every generation includes some religious and political leaders so overcome with lust for power that the truth becomes irrelevant to them.  As Pilate infamously said to the Savior, “What is truth?”  (Jn. 18:38) It is not surprising when such people have blood on their hands, but it is more difficult to accept how the Savior’s own disciples betrayed, denied, and abandoned Him.  As their rabbi and friend, He withheld nothing from them, explaining the parables and performing many miracles in their presence.  He served them in humility, stooping down to wash their feet and patiently teaching them by word and deed.  But they too abandoned their Lord when they saw that, instead of conquering the Romans, He would be killed by them.     

Were Jesus Christ merely a religious teacher of good character, His public torture and execution after being betrayed, denied, and abandoned by those closest to Him would be terribly tragic, but life is full of such tragedies.  Since He is the Eternal Word of God Who spoke the universe into existence, however, His Passion is simply incomprehensible.  The “I AM” Who spoke to Moses through the burning bush “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant…He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  (Phil. 2:7-8) Who can possibly understand such mystery?  The only begotten Son of the Father offered Himself in free obedience on the Cross, the Tree of Life, to disappear into the pit, the opaque abyss of death, as fully as any other human who has departed this life. His cry from the Cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” shows that He experienced the depths of helplessness and horror.  He felt as alienated and abandoned as any victim of sadistic abuse, as anyone rejected and abandoned by those He loved most, as anyone struggling to breathe His last in unbearable physical and psychological pain. 

 Our Savior experienced all of that as the God-Man.  In ways that we must not imagine that we can even begin to comprehend, the fully divine Son of God suffered, died, was buried, and descended into Hades, the shadowy place of the dead.   Only One Who is truly human could do that.  Since He is also fully divine, we dare to confess the unfathomable mystery of a Person of the Holy Trinity freely experiencing the weakness, despair, and suffering that are our common lot in this world of corruption.  Our Savior, the God-Man Jesus Christ, is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.  He is the Lord Who reigns from the Cross.  His death does not change the eternal nature of God but manifests divine sacrificial love beyond all human understanding.  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) The Son does not pay a ransom or debt to appease the Father’s anger or sense of justice but freely offers up Himself out of love for the salvation of the world.  His sacrifice is not that of a mere human satisfying a religious or legal obligation, but of the God-Man who walks with us “through the valley of the shadow of death.”  Because of His Cross, we know He is with us when we cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  Because His suffering love extends even into the darkest corners of the loss and despair suffered by even the most wretched of His children, we may say with the Psalmist, “If I should descend into Hades, You would be there.” (Ps. 138:8)   

  Today we commemorate the triumphal entry into Jerusalem of the Savior Who emptied Himself in sacrificial love beyond all human comprehension.  Even as we entrust ourselves to Him, we must have the humility to say, “I do not know,” for the deep mystery of His Passion is infinitely beyond our understanding. He does not conquer the corrupting power of sin and death with brute force, but by selfless love that knows no bounds and extends even to those who betrayed, denied, abandoned, tortured, and crucified Him.  And He does so as One Who is fully human and fully divine.   He reveals Who God is, for He is God.  The divine nature is completely beyond our comprehension, but the God-Man has graciously shared His life of infinite love with us.  We know Him not by even the most pious words, thoughts, or feelings, but by opening the eyes of our souls to behold His glory, the glory of One Who died on the Cross because He refused to abandon us to the corruption and decay of the tomb.  

Holy Week is a time for entering personally into the deep mystery of the love of our Lord, of the great “I AM” Who remains infinitely beyond our full comprehension.  Today He rides into Jerusalem on a humble donkey as the crowds welcome Him as a conquering hero.  But they do not really know what they are doing or what kind of Savior He is.  As we begin this Holy Week, let us have the humility to recognize that we are not that much different from them.  We too have our preconceived notions about what kind of Savior we want and what earthly goals we want Him to accomplish.  We too deny or at least ignore Christ when His Cross does not serve our desires and preferences.    

That is precisely why we need to pray and fast in stunned silence this week as we follow the Lamb of God to His great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world.  Let us never assume that we have His Passion all figured out.  Instead, like Abba Joseph, we must say, “I do not know” before the deep mystery of His unfathomable love.  Let us lay aside our earthly cares and refuse to be distracted this week from anything that would keep us from following the advice of St. Paul: “The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”    

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[1] St. Antony the Great, as cited in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Benedicta Ward, trans., (Cistercian Publications, 1975): pg. 4, para. 17.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent with Commemoration of our Righteous Mother Mary of Egypt in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 10:32-45

 

Whenever we catch a glimpse of our personal brokenness and weakness, we may experience a temptation to think that there is no hope for us to find healing and strength, regardless of what we do.  We may easily accept that we are simply too far gone to ever come to our senses and find our way home like the prodigal son.  We may believe that no amount of repentance could ever enable us to be restored as God’s beloved sons and daughters. On this last Sunday of Great Lent, the Church calls us to refuse to be distracted by such foolish and prideful notions as we celebrate our Righteous Mother Mary of Egypt, who became a glorious saint despite her previously wretched way of life.  In her brutally honest account of her youth, St. Mary describes how she had from the age of twelve endured the miserable existence of a sex addict.  She had refused money for her innumerable encounters with men and said that she “had an insatiable desire and an irrepressible passion for lying in filth. This was life to me. Every kind of abuse of nature I regarded as life.”  Though we do not know why she left her parents’ home at a young age, she may well have been a victim of sexual abuse.  She confessed forcing herself on “youths even against their own will” as she sailed to Jerusalem and said that she was actually “hunting for youths” on the streets on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross when she followed the crowds to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 

When an invisible force prevented Mary from entering the Church in order to venerate the Cross, her eyes were opened to her wretchedness and she pleaded for the help of the Theotokos in finding salvation.  Thus began her almost 50 years of intense ascetical struggle in the desert.  By the time Father Zosima stumbled upon her, Mary had become so radiant with holiness that she walked on water, rose above the ground in prayer, was clairvoyant, and knew the Scriptures, even though she had never read them.  Pride had no place in her soul, as she was aware only of her sinfulness and ongoing need for the Lord’s mercy.  Mary was not focused on achieving any earthly goal, but instead on doing whatever was necessary to find healing and restoration as a beloved daughter of the Lord, a living icon of Christ. 

So much religion in our world today is merely a smattering of pious platitudes and sentiments intended to help people feel better about indulging their passions, whatever they may be.  This is hardly a new problem, for our Lord’s disciples betrayed, denied, and abandoned Him when they finally realized that He was not going to become a conventional political ruler who would satisfy their desires for earthly glory with victory over the Roman Empire.  As today’s gospel reading shows, even as the Savior predicted His Passion, the disciples James and John were jockeying for position by asking for places of prominence when He came into what they thought would be earthly power.  They had no idea what they were asking, of course, for the path to our Lord’s Kingdom requires taking up our crosses in union with His great Self-Offering. Doing so has nothing to do with ruling over anyone in this world but requires persistent, humble obedience whereby we open ourselves to receive the healing divine mercy of the Lord.  Through the struggle of reorienting ourselves to the blessedness of a Kingdom not of this world, we learn not to entrust our hearts to the false gods of our passions and instead gain the strength to manifest Christ’s merciful, selfless love for our neighbors, regardless of who they are.  As He said, “For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

The struggles of Lent teach us that prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and other spiritual disciplines are not tools to help us achieve any earthly goal.  Instead, they help us to see more clearly where we stand in relation to God so that we will be able to offer ourselves more fully to receive His healing.  Our great difficulty in doing so shows how far we are from becoming like God in holiness.  To recognize that truth and still persist in repentance requires suffering because of the inevitable tension between the corruption and weakness of our souls and the blessedness and strength to which the Lord calls us.  It is not a punishment but simply the consequence of enduring the struggle necessary to become a beautiful living icon of the Savior. 

St. Mary of Egypt did not allow the hurt pride called shame to keep her from facing the truth about her spiritual state or from taking up her cross in the difficult way that was necessary for her healing.  She did not accept the lie that she should embrace and act on her inclinations, habits, and compulsions to be true to herself.  She did not distract herself from confronting her sins by condemning others or trying to use religion as a tool to gain anything in this world.    Instead, she had the humble courage to entrust herself fully to the ministry of the “High Priest of the good things to come…[Who] through His own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having found eternal redemption.”  Her example shows that absolutely nothing we have done, said, or thought makes it impossible for us to find the healing of our souls through Him.  St. Mary of Egypt is a shining example of hope for us all.

Like her, we must confront truthfully how we have corrupted ourselves in order to open our hearts to Christ for His healing.  His own disciples betrayed, denied, and abandoned Him because they wanted a Messiah Who would serve their desires for earthly power and glory.  As Christ said, “the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles.  And they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit upon Him, and kill Him; and after three days He will rise.”  Acquiring the spiritual strength to serve such a Lord does not come easily to people like us who are so weakened by slavery to our passions.  That is why we need the holy mystery of Confession in Lent to gain the strength necessary to follow our Lord to His Cross and empty tomb.  It is only through humble repentance that we may acquire the persistent obedience shown by St. Mary of Egypt.  Like her, we must refuse to let anything, including our own hurt pride, keep us from confronting our personal brokenness with brutal honesty as we take up our own crosses in faithfulness to the Savior Who offered up Himself for the salvation of the world. Not one of us is too far gone to embrace the healing mercy of the One Who rose victorious over death itself on the third day.    

 

             

 

 

Homily for the Third Sunday of Great Lent: Veneration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross in the Orthodox Church

 Hebrews 4:14-5:6; Mark 8:34-9:1

 

            Today we venerate the precious and lifegiving Cross upon which Christ offered Himself for the salvation of the world purely out of love for those enslaved to the fear of death, which He conquered through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  The Cross is not the sign of a civil religion that grants spiritual sanction to any power structure of this world. Neither is it a magical good luck charm that makes all our problems go away.  It is certainly not a way of demonstrating our superiority over any person or group.   The Cross of Christ is the opposite of such distortions, for it stands in radical judgment of those who would attempt to use religion to help them seek first the things of this world, such as power, pleasure, and possessions.  That was the mindsight of the corrupt religious leaders who called for the Lord’s crucifixion because they perceived Him as a threat to their attempt to use God to gain earthly power.  It was also the perspective of the Romans who believed that worshiping their many gods protected their rule.  By having “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin on the Cross, Pontius Pilate did not miss the opportunity to let everyone know what happened to those suspected of challenging Roman authority.  (Jn. 19:20) Those who place loyalty to empires, nations, or other earthly projects before faithfulness to Christ inevitably end up rejecting Him as surely as those who nailed Him to the Cross. As He said, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

 

On this Sunday of the Adoration of the Holy Cross, right in the middle of Lent, we do the opposite of making any type of success in this world our highest goal.  Today we venerate the Cross on which Jesus Christ offered Himself for the salvation of the world.  Through His crucifixion, the New Adam entered fully into the misery and wretchedness of the first Adam to the point of death to liberate us from slavery to its corrupting power and make us participants in eternal life.  The Cross is the Tree of Life through which we return to the blessedness of Paradise.  It is “a weapon of peace and a trophy invincible” that even the high and mighty of this world cannot defeat.

 

            As our epistle reading states, our crucified and risen Lord is the “great High Priest” Who ministers in the heavenly temple, where He intercedes for us eternally.   To enter into His salvation, we must take up our own crosses as we refuse to make any earthly goal the deepest desire of our hearts. Denying ourselves means putting faithfulness to Him before anything else, including indulging weaknesses and desires that hold us back from fulfilling our high calling.    Even as common bread and wine are fulfilled as our Lord’s Body and Blood when offered in the Divine Liturgy, we too are transformed when we unite ourselves to the High Priestly offering of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.   If we refuse to embrace the struggle to do so, we will shut ourselves out of the blessedness of His Kingdom, both as a present reality and as a future hope.

 

            We must not adore the Cross only in religious services, but daily as we take up our crosses to love God with every ounce of our being and our neighbors as ourselves.  The disciplines of Lent present opportunities to gain the strength to so as we take small steps to die to that which keeps us enslaved to the self-centered ways of the first Adam.  In prayer, we open our hearts to the Savior and learn experientially that our life is in Him.  In fasting from the richest and most sustaining foods, we open ourselves in humility to receive His strength for resisting deeply ingrained habits of self-indulgence. In sharing our time, attention, and resources with others, we follow Christ in offering ourselves for the good of our neighbors.  In forgiving our enemies and welcoming the stranger, we participate in the merciful lovingkindness of our Lord.  These are the most basic disciplines of the Christian life, and they are necessary to help us gain the spiritual strength to take up our crosses, especially in response to the deep challenges of our lives and the appealing temptations to apostasy and paganism that are all around us.   We must remain constantly on guard against popular  distortions of Christianity that place their trust in the fallen powers of this world and have no place for a Lord Who loved and forgave His enemies and reigns from a Cross and an empty tomb.

 

If we refuse to deny ourselves even in small ways this Lent, we will demonstrate where our true loyalties lie and become even more accustomed to serving ourselves instead of God and neighbor.  Doing so will reveal that we are ashamed of our Lord and His Cross and prefer to offer our lives to other gods, especially to ourselves.  Even if we continue down that path to the point that we somehow gain the whole world, we will risk losing our souls by committing idolatry every bit as much as those who condemned Christ because He stood in the way of fulfilling their passionate desires for earthly power and glory. We will then be even more guilty than they were because we know that His Cross is nothing less than the salvation of the world.

 

There is perhaps nothing worse than distorting our calling as Christians to the point that the Cross becomes merely an empty symbol that we use to satisfy our lust for any earthly or self-centered goal, no matter how popular or appealing.  If we do not do the hard work of actually taking up our crosses and denying ourselves out of love for God and neighbor, then our lives will bear witness that our true lord is someone or something other than Jesus Christ.  St. Paul taught that “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24) When we realize how far we are from fulfilling that goal, we must humbly call for the Lord’s mercy from the depths of our souls as we struggle to take even small steps in denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Him.  There is simply no other way to enter into the joy of His Kingdom.

 

Whether in the first century or today, salvation has not come to the world through the pursuit of power, possessions, and pleasure.  It does not come through the achievements of the powerful and popular people who seek first the kingdoms of this world.  The same kind of spiritual depravity that drove religious and political leaders to crucify Christ is still very much with us.  When we show that we are ashamed of the way of the Cross by refusing to embrace the daily struggle to take up our own, we demonstrate that we are not that much different from them.  As we continue our Lenten journey, let us confess how we have fallen short of fulfilling the high calling that is ours and learn to offer every dimension of our lives to the Savior for healing as we take up our own crosses.  Whether in Lent or any other time, that is the only way to enter into Paradise through our great High Priest, Who offered Himself fully upon the Cross for the salvation of the world purely out of love.  That is what His Cross is all about.   

 

   

 

           

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Second Sunday of Great Lent with Commemoration of Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 1:10-2:3; Mark 2:1-12

           

            We will misunderstand these blessed weeks of Lent if we assume that they are intended to help us have clearer ideas or deeper feelings about our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection.  We will be even more confused if we think that our intensified prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and repentance somehow earn God’s forgiveness or make us better than other people.  Quite the contrary, Lenten disciplines are simply opportunities to open ourselves in humility as embodied persons to the gracious healing of the Lord so that we may share more fully in His life.  That is another way of saying that the point of Lent is to grow in our personal knowledge of God through true spiritual experience, encounter, and transformation.    

On this second Sunday of the Great Fast, we commemorate St. Gregory Palamas, who defended the experience of monks who, in the stillness of prayer from their hearts, saw the Uncreated Light of God.  The eyes of their souls were cleansed and illumined such that they beheld the divine glory as the Apostles did at the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.  St. Gregory taught that to know God is to participate in His gracious divine energies as we are transformed in holiness in every aspect of our existence.  He proclaimed that our calling is to know and experience God through true spiritual union with Him that sanctifies every dimension of the human person.  To do so is to encounter the great “I AM” of the Burning Bush from the depths of our souls in a way that illumines us entirely. (Ex. 3:14) It is to shine brilliantly in holiness like an iron left in the fire of the divine glory.   

In today’s gospel reading, Christ healed a paralyzed man, enabling him to stand up, carry his bed, and walk home as a sign of the Savior’s divine authority to forgive sins. In doing so, He restored not only a body to health but a whole person who faced all the practical challenges of daily life in the world as we know it.  Though Palamas focused primarily on the hesychasm of monks, he also taught that “those who live in the world…must force themselves to use the things of this world in conformity with the commandments of God.”[1]  When we mindfully embrace the struggle to purify our hearts so that we may live according to love of God and neighbor, which are the greatest of the commandments, and not according to our self-centered desires, we know and experience Christ from the depths of our souls.  We pray, fast, give, forgive, and confess and repent of our sins during Lent so that we may open our hearts, and every aspect of our lives, to the purifying healing of our Lord’s gracious divine energies. That is how we may truly participate in the joy of His resurrection even as we live in a world still enslaved to the fear of death.       

The Savior’s healing is open to all in every time, place, and circumstance of the world as we know it.  Christ sent the formerly paralyzed man home to resume a conventional life in a land occupied by a foreign military power and ruled by tyrants in which the weak were routinely crushed by the mighty. That is the setting in which the God-Man lived, died, and rose from the dead in order to make us participants in His divine glory.  In order to share in His life in a world that remains full of hatred, bloodshed, and corruption, we must intentionally offer ourselves for healing as we mindfully refuse to worship at the perennial pagan altars of pride, power, and pleasure in all their malign forms.  Doing so requires constant vigilance and struggle against falling back into the spiritual blindness and weakness that our passions so easily bring upon us.  A few minutes of daily prayer, modest restraints on the desires of our stomachs, and small gestures of generosity, when done in humility on a regular basis, open us to receive the grace to participate more fully in His restoration and fulfillment of the human person in the divine image and likeness.         

Since even such small steps will quickly reveal our abiding weaknesses, they teach us to call mindfully for the Lord’s healing mercy each day in order to grow in our liberation from slavery to the paralysis of sin.  Prayer is not about pondering ideas, cultivating emotions, or merely mouthing words, but requires being fully present to God from the depths of our souls.  We must intentionally devote time and energy to doing so, if we want to gain His healing and strength to rise up from our beds of spiritual paralysis and move forward on the journey to the heavenly kingdom.      

This is not a calling only for those who are great examples of holiness.  Remember that Christ came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.  He was a physician to the sick and blessed the poor and needy.  He cast demons out of the possessed, raised the dead, and showed mercy to those considered notorious sinners and hated enemies and foreigners. It was not those who were perfectly at ease according to the standards of the fallen world who received Him with joy, but those with broken hearts who knew their own weakness and misery.  No difficult circumstance or challenge of our lives excuses us from answering the calling to unite ourselves to Christ from the depths of our hearts each moment.  Indeed, it is precisely such struggles which should inspire us all the more to call out in humility for His mercy. 

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers records that God revealed to Saint Antony the Great of Egypt that “there was one who was his equal in the city. He was a doctor by profession and whatever he had beyond his needs he gave to the poor, and every day he sang the Sanctus with the angels.”  This example of someone living and working in the world reminds us that the only limits to our participation in the life of Christ are those that we impose on ourselves.  As we continue our Lenten journey, let us make the circumstances of our lives, whatever they may be, points of entrance into the blessed life of our Lord.  Let us know Him as God from the depths of our hearts as we come to shine brightly with the divine glory by grace.  We will do so not through rational speculation, historical remembrance, or cultivation of emotions about the Savior’s Cross and empty tomb, but by embracing the daily struggle to lift up our hearts in prayer and to live faithfully so that we may enter into the joy of the One Who has destroyed the power of sin and death by His glorious resurrection on the third day.  It is only by truly participating in His life that we may gain the strength to take up our beds and walk to our true home.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] The Triads, II.ii.5.

Homily for the First Sunday of Great Lent (Sunday of Orthodoxy) in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 11:24-26, 32-40; John 1:43-51

 

On this first Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the restoration of icons centuries ago in the Byzantine Empire.  They were banned due to a misguided fear of idolatry but restored as a proclamation of how the entire creation, including every dimension of our personhood, may shine brightly with the gracious divine energies of our Lord.  The icons convey the incarnation of the God-Man, Who is fully human with a real body, which was necessary for him to be born, live in this world, die, rise from the grave, and ascend into heaven.  Were any aspect of His embodied  humanity an illusion, we could not become “partakers of the divine nature” through Him.  Icons of the Theotokos and the Saints display our calling to become radiant with holiness by uniting ourselves to Christ as whole persons, which requires healing the passions that lead us to abuse food, drink, money, sex, natural resources, and our neighbors. https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/616

Today’s commemoration shows that our Lenten journey is not about escaping from life in our bodies or in our world.  Quite the opposite, the icons call us to find healing for every dimension of our personal and collective brokenness in the brilliant light of the Lord. The God-Man shares His salvation of the human person with us so that even our deepest struggles may become points of entrance into the blessedness of His Kingdom.  During this season of Lent, we must pray, fast, give, forgive, and confess and repent of the ways in which we have refused to embrace our calling to become ever more beautiful living icons of Christ, which is necessary for us to gain the spiritual clarity to see that every human person bears the divine image as much as we do.  If we are approaching this season with integrity, the ways in which we have fallen short of our high calling will quickly become apparent.  The more we struggle against our slavery to self-centered desires, the more apparent their hold upon us will become.  If you have been surprised during the first week of the Great Fast how your passions have reared their ugly heads, you are certainly not alone.  If you have picked yourself up whenever you have fallen, gotten back on the path when you have strayed from it, and grown in your awareness of your need for the mercy of the Lord, then your Lenten journey is off to a good start.    

Above all, we must not despair in the face of our weakness because the goal is not merely to change our diets and become more religious.  It is, instead, as the Savior said to Nathanael, nothing less than to “see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”  As those who bear the divine image and likeness, our calling is to share fully in the eternal life of the God-Man by grace. As we read in our epistle lesson, the Old Testament saints “did not receive the promise, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”  In Jesus Christ we have received the fulfillment of the ancient promise to Abraham as “partakers of the divine nature” who are called to be “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48) That is truly an eternal goal, but we participate already in a foretaste of such blessedness when we open our hearts to His healing through repentance.  As Christ taught, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”  (Lk. 17:21)

Even as the icons proclaim the truth of our Lord’s incarnation using materials like paint and wood, they call us to manifest His holiness in our own bodies.  They remind us to make our daily physical actions tangible signs of Christ’s salvation.  In fasting, we limit our self-indulgence in food in order to gain strength to purify and redirect our desires toward God and away from gratifying bodily pleasures.  In almsgiving, we limit our trust in possessions in order to grow in love for our neighbors, in whom we encounter the Lord.  In prayer, we limit our focus on our usual distractions to become more fully present to God as we open our hearts to Him.  As experience teaches, even the smallest efforts to practice disciplines that open our hearts to receive Christ’s healing mercy reveal that there is so much within us that would rather remain in the darkness of corruption.

Nonetheless, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and empowered to become radiant with the glory of our Lord’s resurrection.  Literally no aspect of our humanity is excluded from the vocation to shine with God’s gracious divine energies.   No matter how difficult the struggle with our passions may be, we must not become practical iconoclasts by refusing to become more beautiful living icons of Christ in any aspect of our existence.  Instead, we must open even the darkest and most distorted dimensions of our lives to the healing light of Christ as we call out for His mercy from the depths of our hearts.

The Savior entered fully into death through His Cross in order to overcome the corruption of the first Adam.  He rose and ascended in glory in order to make us radiant with His holiness.  As we celebrate the historical restoration of icons today, let us continue the Lenten journey in ways that will enable us to be more fully restored as the beautiful living icons of God, for that is what it means to become truly human in the divine image and likeness.  The disciplines of this season are not ends in themselves but simply present opportunities for us to become by His grace those who will “see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_triumph_of_orthodoxy/

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Sunday of Forgiveness in the Orthodox Church

 Romans 13:11-14:4; Matthew 6:14-21

 

            On this last day of preparation before we begin our Lenten journey, we must focus on doing what we presently have the strength to do in following Christ to His Cross and glorious resurrection. Whether today or during the coming weeks, we must not be distracted or discouraged about what our weaknesses or life circumstances may keep us from doing.  Instead, we must keep our eyes on the prize of taking the steps that we can take on our journey home from self-imposed exile to Paradise, which the Savior has opened to us through His Passion.

           

A few weeks ago, we read that Zacchaeus was restored as a son of Abraham when he did what he could do by giving more than justice required from his ill-gotten gains to the poor and those whom he had defrauded.  The publican returned to his spiritual home by praying from his heart as best he could, calling only for the Lord’s mercy.  The prodigal son had done his best to destroy his relationship with his father, but he was still able to take the long and difficult journey home after coming to his senses. Last Sunday we heard that the ultimate standard of judgment for returning to our true home is whether we have become living icons of the Savior’s merciful lovingkindness, which is shown by whether we do what we can to care for “the least of these” in whom we counter Him each day.  Today’s gospel reading reminds us to do what we have the strength to do in forgiving, fasting, and showing mercy in ways that direct us back to the Paradise from which Adam and Eve were cast out when they stripped themselves naked of the divine glory and entered an existence so tragically enslaved to the fear of death that their son Cain murdered his brother Abel.  We have all followed in their path of corruption, especially in our refusal to forgive those who have wronged us.     

 

As the Lord offered up Himself on the Cross, He said to the penitent thief, “Truly I tell you, you will be with me today in Paradise.” (Lk. 23:43) Hades and the grave could not contain the Savior Who entered fully into death, for He is not merely human but also God.  Our first parents refused to fulfill their calling to become like God in holiness and instead distorted themselves and the entire creation.  The Savior’s restoration of the human person in the divine image and likeness reveals that our calling is nothing less than to become perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Even the strictest Lent observance will not enable us to achieve that goal, for God’s holiness is infinite.  So much of the corruption of the old Adam remains within us, for we typically prefer to live according to our passions in ways that keep us in the misery of exile.

 

            That is why we must all approach Lent with a deep awareness of how we far we are from sharing fully in the New Adam’s fulfillment of our vocation to become like God in holiness.  The only way to escape our self-imposed exile is to do what we can as we take intentional steps to share more fully in the life of the One Who calls us to Paradise.  As St. Paul taught, we must “put on the armor of light” and “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”  That means mindfully investing our energy, time, and attention in ways that will strengthen us spiritually.  It means refusing to invest our energy, time, and attention in whatever keeps us from sharing more fully in the life of Christ.  Lent calls us to give ourselves so fully to prayer, fasting, generosity, forgiveness, and other spiritual disciplines that we will have nothing left to fuel “the works of darkness” that bring only weakness and despair.

 

            A holy Lent is not about going through the motions to gain the praise of others or even of ourselves; such vain hypocrisy will never help us acquire the spiritual strength necessary to love and forgive our enemies. The same Lord Who said from the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” tells us that we must forgive others their offenses against us if we want the Father to forgive our sins.  (Lk. 23:34) Refusing even to begin the journey of forgiveness is a sign that we have become far too comfortable living in exile.  If the Savior’s merciful love is not becoming characteristic of us, then we are not on the path toward Paradise.  Forgiveness is often a difficult struggle that shows us how strong our inclinations are to remain separated from God and neighbor.  If we refuse even to take the first small step of wanting to gain the strength to forgive those who have wronged us, we will choose slavery to our passions over the hope of eternal joy.   

 

            Because it is so hard to forgive as we hope to be forgiven, we need spiritual disciplines like fasting, prayer, and almsgiving to strengthen us in pursuing the path that leads to Paradise.  Our first parents’ self-centered refusal to restrain their desire for food enslaved them to death and corruption.  Struggling to abstain from satisfying ourselves with rich food during Lent will help us see more clearly how addicted we are to gratifying our self-centered desires.  Doing so helps us grow in patience and humility, which fuel forgiveness.  Slavery to pride, however, makes forgiveness impossible because it blinds us to the truth about our souls. In Forgiveness Vespers, we ask for and extend forgiveness to one another personally. Since we are members together of the Body of Christ, we weaken each other whenever we refuse to do what we can to embrace the Lord’s healing. 

 

            Even as we stand on the threshold of the Lenten journey, we must be prepared for our passions to fight back mightily when we deny them.  Pursuing spiritual disciplines brings our weaknesses to the surface, often leading to anger as a way of distracting us from reckoning with our own sins.  As St. John Chrysostom asked, “What good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers and sisters?”  We must mindfully struggle to keep our mouths shut when we are tempted to criticize or condemn each other this Lent.  Whenever we fall prey to our passions, we must ask forgiveness of those we have offended and then get back on the path to Paradise with renewed commitment.  No matter how many times we wander from the narrow way, we must return to it. We all have the strength to do that, no matter how many times we fall.

 

            Lent calls us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”  When we set out to pray, fast, give, and forgive with integrity, we will learn quickly how much we still share in the corruption of the old Adam.  That should help us see how ridiculous it is not to extend to others the same mercy that we ask for ourselves.  In preparation for the struggles of the coming weeks, let us humble ourselves and forgive one another so that we may acquire the spiritual strength to “cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”  Let us begin our Lenten journey with the joyful recognition that “now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.  The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”  It is time to wake up and focus on doing what we have the strength to do even as we refuse to judge what others are doing. The coming weeks are not about trying to impress God, our neighbors, or ourselves.  They are about taking the steps we can take at this point in our lives in the journey of repentance that alone can lead us out of exile and into our true home, the Paradise that our Lord has opened to us through His glorious resurrection on the third day.