Hebrews 11:24-26, 32-40; John
1:43-51
Some people think that the point
of religion is to strengthen families and societies by giving people a motive
to be moral. They want to put the fear of God in us so that
we will do the right thing and make the world a better place. As laudable as those goals are, they are not
why our Lord died on the Cross and rose on the third day. He did so in order to restore and fulfill us
in His image and likeness, in order to make us perfect icons of His
salvation. The Savior became one of us
in order to bring us into the eternal life of the Holy Trinity. As He said to Nathanael in today’s
gospel reading, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and
the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”
On this first
Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the restoration of icons in the Byzantine
Empire many centuries ago. We do so not
for merely artistic reasons, but because the icons proclaim the good news of
salvation in Jesus Christ and call us to share in our Lord’s holiness in every
dimension of our lives. It is possible
to portray the Lord in an icon because He is fully human, as well as fully
divine. He has a fully human body, which
was essential for Him to be born, live in this world, die, rise from the grave,
and ascend into heaven. Icons of the
Theotokos and the Saints manifest our calling to become radiant with the divine
glory by uniting ourselves to Christ such that His holiness becomes
characteristic of us. Simply put, the purpose
of our Lenten journey is to become more beautiful living icons of our
Lord.
Today’s epistle
reading from Hebrews recounts the great sufferings of the Old Testament saints
who looked forward in faith to the coming of the Messiah. Nonetheless, they “did not receive what was
promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us
they should not be made perfect.” Here
is a reminder of the sublime vocation that is ours in Christ: to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is
perfect. We pursue that eternal goal when
we share more fully in His healing and restoration of the human person in God’s
image and likeness.
Even as the
icons proclaim the truth of our Lord’s incarnation, they call us to manifest
His holiness in our own bodies. We will
never “see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the
Son of man” if we refuse to make our physical actions visible signs of our
union with Christ in holiness. In fasting,
we limit our self-indulgence in food as a way of gaining strength to resist our
passions so that we can redirect our desires to their proper fulfillment in
God. In almsgiving, we limit our
obsession with our own physical comfort in order to help the needy have food,
clothing, shelter, and other necessities. In prayer, we use our bodies to stand, kneel,
and otherwise comport ourselves in ways that help us become more fully present
to God. We must offer our whole, embodied
selves in order to become better living icons of our incarnate Savior.
Given the
profound confusion of our culture on the importance of our bodies as males and
females, we must look to Christ for guidance on the intimate union of man and
woman. As He said to the Pharisees, “Have
you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them
male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? (Matt.
19: 4-5) He blessed marriage at the wedding in Cana of Galilee where He turned
water into wine, which shows that He enables the union of husband and wife to
become an icon of the restoration of our humanity in the Heavenly Kingdom. Saint Paul similarly refers to the “one flesh”
union as a sign of the relationship between Christ and the Church. (Eph.
5:31-32)
If
we are to answer our calling to become ever more beautiful icons of Christ’s
healing of the human person in God’s image and likeness, we must offer
ourselves as men and women to the Lord for growth in holiness. That requires not only reserving sexual
intimacy for marriage, but also shutting our eyes to pornography and anything
else that distorts the “one flesh” union into nothing more than an exercise in pleasure,
domination, or self-expression. Marital
union is an icon of our salvation and a path of entrance to the Kingdom of
Heaven. It is where most of us will
learn to die to self out of love for our spouse and children. It is how we may participate personally in
the healing of the broken relationship between man and woman that has plagued
humanity ever since our first parents were cast out of Paradise into this world
of corruption. Sex and marriage are for
our salvation; if we want to share in the life of Christ, we must use them for
our growth in holiness as the men and women He created us to be.
God
does not call everyone to marry, of course.
Recall how we celebrate the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos, revere
St. John the Forerunner, and honor monasticism.
Those who remain virgins and celibates have the opportunity to offer
themselves to Christ in uniquely powerful ways.
They are beautiful icons of single-minded devotion to our Lord, Who
Himself obviously did not marry. Those
who are widowed or divorced also have no lack of opportunity to become more
like Christ by responding faithfully to the challenges present in their lives
and serving Him in their family members and neighbors. Abstaining from sexual intimacy is essential for
persons who are not married to gain the strength to orient their lives to the eternal
joy of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. For Christ is the Bridegroom and His Body, the
Church, is His Bride. The point of the
Christian life is to perfect our love for the Savior as we grow in a “one flesh”
union with Him as members of His Body.
Married people and celibates pursue the same goal, but in different
ways.
As we celebrate
the restoration of icons today, let us grow in our commitment to enter into the
perfection in holiness that Jesus Christ has made possible for all who bear the
divine image and likeness. Let us
undertake bodily discipline that will enable us to participate even now in His
eternal blessedness as whole persons.
For He calls us to nothing less than seeing “heaven opened, and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” That is what it means to be made perfect in
Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment