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 spirituality 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/
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