Homily for the Sunday of All Saints and the Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 11:33-12:2; Matthew 9:36-10:8

 

            Today we commemorate our Lord’s Twelve Apostles and all the Saints, looking to them as brilliant examples of faithfulness to the Savior.  We may, however, be tempted to think that such glorious persons have little to do with the humble and broken circumstances of our lives.  After all, the Apostles were our Lord’s closest followers during His earthly ministry. Though they did not fully understand Who He was until after His resurrection, He sent the Holy Spirit to empower them to shepherd the Church as they fulfilled His command to “preach…‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”  They all struggled and suffered greatly in faithfulness to the Lord in their ministries, with St. John the Theologian being the only one not dying as a martyr. 

 

            If we are ever tempted to think that we have achieved something great in the Christian life, we should look to their example of abandoning all the comfort and security of a conventional life to experience the uncertainty of following a Messiah Who Himself was rejected and condemned by respectable religious and political leaders.  The Savior’s message was such a threat to their power that they crucified Him as a public example of what happened to those who got in their way and threatened the interests of the powerful.  As Christ foretold, “the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.” (Jn 16: 2) It is not surprising that the Apostles who continued our Lord’s ministry met deaths like His.  They obeyed literally the Savior’s teaching to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him.

 

The way of Christ was certainly not popular or celebrated during their lifetimes.  To the contrary, it was a path to persecution, imprisonment, torture, and death.  In contrast to false teachers who tried to use their position for self-glorification, true Apostles followed in the way of those in the Old Testament who looked forward in faith to the coming of the Messiah. As we read today from Hebrews: “Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

 

Christ fulfilled their hope not by setting up an earthly kingdom with geographical borders in which they or their descendants would rule, even though that is what the Apostles themselves had originally anticipated.  Instead, He offered Himself freely to the point of death on the Cross for the salvation of all in a Kingdom not of this world.  He then rose in glorious victory over the worst that the most powerful empire of the world could do.  Empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles were completely transformed and manifested the ways of heaven amidst the realities of a broken world.  They healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead.  They did not respond in kind to their enemies, but embodied the merciful love of the Savior.  Even as He prayed for the forgiveness of those who killed Him, St. Paul wrote of the Apostles, “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate.”  The Apostles are members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and chief shepherds of His flock. Their work is not their own, but Christ’s.  That is why St. Paul could say with integrity “I urge you, then, be imitators of me.” (1 Cor. 4:12-16) His life had become an enacted icon of the Savior.  As he wrote elsewhere, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.”  (Gal. 2:20)

 

No matter what our particular calling in  life may be, we all have the same fundamental vocation to become radiant with the holiness of God.  People should be able to look at any one of us and see a vibrant image of the healing of the human person in God’s image and likeness that our Savior has worked for the salvation of the world.  The Apostles are examples for us all in this regard, as are all the Saints.   We do not know the names of all the Saints, but God certainly knows all who have entered into the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom, regardless of whether they have been formally recognized by the Church.  We have the benefit of the teachings, ministries, and prayers of countless people who have manifested the holiness of God, and we must not excuse ourselves from faithfully following their examples.  As today’s epistle reading exhorts us: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfection of our faith.”

 

Christ said to the Apostles, “You received without paying, give without pay.”  All the more does His admonition apply to us, who have benefited from the witness of countless generations of holy people in the Church, not as a reward for good behavior, but due to the mercy of our Lord Who was and is at work through them by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We must resist the strong temptation to make the pursuit of the Christian life all about ourselves, or about people who are superficially like us, as though God’s salvation were our personal possession to be used for our own comfort and satisfaction.  The Apostles and the Saints have rejected the temptation to distort the way of Christ into an exercise in serving themselves or seeking earthly glory. Had their religion been something they had invented, they could have done with it as they pleased.  Our Lord’s salvation, however, is not a product of this world or a commodity to be divided up or bought and sold according to conventional human designs.  He has conquered death, the wages of sin, by His own death and resurrection.  We share in His life by grace, which means that we are always in the position of those who have “received without paying.”  Consequently, we must “give without pay” as we offer our resources, time, and attention in support of the ministries of our parish and to bless the suffering, outcast, and needy neighbors with whom our Lord identified Himself.  If we are truly in Christ, then His life will become our own; our character will conform to His.  He is the vine and we are the branches.  (Jn. 15:5) Since He offered up Himself freely for our sake, we must offer ourselves to become channels of His blessing and healing for the world, as all His faithful servants have done. 

 

Across the centuries and to this very day in some parts of the world, countless Christians have followed the Apostles in literally dying as martyrs.  Such martyrdom is a particular calling that requires a God-given strength to make the ultimate witness for Christ.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord calls and enables us all to bear witness to Him as we take up the crosses we bear in our particular circumstances. In order to gain the spiritual strength to bear faithful witness to Him, we must make the most basic spiritual disciplines part of our daily lives as we pray, fast, share our resources, read the Scriptures, forgive our enemies, and keep a close watch on the thoughts and desires that we welcome into our hearts.  These practices are essential for gaining the spiritual clarity to discern how the Lord is calling us to serve Him in the Church and in the world.  Embracing them is an essential step in following in the way of all the Saints.   

 

By the power of the Holy Spirit, an unlikely group of Palestinian Jews became our Lord’s Apostles.  To this very day, people who face all the problems of life in our fallen world become radiant with the holiness of God as His Saints.  Let us take the small, faltering steps that we are capable of taking today as we follow in their path to the Kingdom.  We have no lack of opportunities to do so in our parish, our families, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods.  By responding to those opportunities as best we presently can, we will learn to take up our crosses and take our place among those who bear faithful witness to the saving mercy of our Lord.  We have received from Him without paying.  Let us give ourselves to Him and our neighbors in the same way. That is how, by His grace, we may all become Saints.

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Great Feast of Pentecost in the Orthodox Church

 

Acts 2:1-11; John 7:37-52; 8:12 

On today’s great Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the fulfillment of the deepest desires of those who bear the divine image and likeness to participate personally in the eternal life of God.  At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes upon on the Apostles as they are gathered together in obedience to the command of the risen Lord.  The same divine breath which first gave us life from the dust of the earth now comes as a mighty, rushing wind.  The divine glory beheld by Moses in the burning bush now rests upon each one personally as flames of fire.   The divided speech of the tower of Babel is now overcome by the miracle of speaking in different languages as a sign that everyone is invited to share in the life of the Lord.  This great feast manifests the fulfillment of God’s gracious promises for the entire world and every human person in the Body of Christ, the Church born at Pentecost.  Today we celebrate the restoration of our true unity in God through the unifying power of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter sent by the risen and ascended Savior Who is seated at the right hand of the Father in heavenly glory. 

The sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit empowers the Church as a living icon of the common life of humanity in which our petty divisions are healed.  He enables us to become persons in communion united organically as members of the one Body of Christ instead of isolated individuals obsessively choosing sides over against one another due to the fear of death.  The Persons of the Holy Trinity share a common life of love, unity, and holiness; by the power of the Holy Spirit manifested at Pentecost, we participate by grace in Their eternal communion.  Our journey to theosis calls us to nothing less than being united in and with God such that we become radiant with the divine energies in every dimension of our being, like an iron left in the fire of holy glory.

As those who bear the divine image and likeness, we become both more truly human and more like God as we find healing from the passions that divide and separate us, and instead embrace our life together. That is why St. Paul wrote, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23) That is why St. Silouan the Athonite taught, “One can only love one’s enemies through the grace of the Holy Spirit.” And “He who does not love his enemies, does not have God’s grace.”[1]

The Lord said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’”  He uses the image of living water to describe what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, even as He did with St. Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well.  Our risen and ascended Lord did not send mere theological ideas, moral instructions, or spiritual practices to His followers.  He did not limit His salvation to any particular group of people.  After His Ascension, the Savior sent the Holy Spirit to quench the deep thirst, the primal longing, of all the broken, confused, and alienated people of the world for sharing personally in the eternal life of God, for nothing else can truly satisfy us as those who bear the divine image and likeness.

As everyone who pays attention to the weather knows, wind, fire, and water are powerful realities that escape our control. At Pentecost they convey the profound mystery of what it means to participate in the divine life in ways that transcend even the best rational definitions:  As living members of the Body of Christ, we may truly know and experience God from the depths of our hearts and in our common life as did the Apostles.

 In order to celebrate this great feast with integrity, we must mindfully open ourselves as fully as possible to the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit.   In order to do that, we must live faithfully each day through the spiritual strength that we gain from participating in the sacramental and ascetical life of the Church.  The Holy Spirit came upon Christ’s followers as they were gathered together in obedience to the Lord’s command, and we must never fool ourselves into thinking that the spiritual life is an individualistic endeavor that caters to our preferences, prejudices, or feelings, no matter what they may be.  Pentecost calls us to get over the pride that divided the tongues of humanity in the first place and to gain the humility to find our true personhood as members together of the Body of Christ, where the distinctive beauty of our souls will shine evermore brightly as we partake of the same living water as did the Apostles.  

Indeed, Pentecost is a time for becoming so receptive to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that we overflow with His living water, becoming channels of blessing that enable our neighbors and world to flourish with the peace, joy, and holiness of God’s Kingdom.  For that to happen, we must turn away from all that separates us from full participation in the life of our Lord in His Body, the Church.  For that to happen, we must kneel in prayer before God and live in humility as we forgive our enemies, share our resources with the poor, and take up the daily struggle to purify our hearts.  That is the only way for us to overflow with the gracious divine energies poured out abundantly for the salvation of the world on this great Feast of Pentecost.   

 

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[1] See Jean-Claude Larchet, “On the Love of Enemies According to Saint Silouan,” https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2020/10/on-love-of-enemies-according-to-saint.html

 

Homily for the Sunday of the After-feast of the Ascension and Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in the Orthodox Church

 

Acts 20:16-18, 28-36; John 17:1-13

            Forty days after His resurrection, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ ascended in glory into heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father.  He did so as One Who is fully divine and fully human, One Person with two natures. He ascended with His glorified, resurrected body, which still bore the wounds of His crucifixion.  Our Lord’s Ascension reveals that we may participate by grace in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity and share in His fulfillment of the human person in God’s image and likeness.  We may experience such blessedness even now by uniting ourselves to Christ even as we live and breathe in this world with our feet on the ground.

We also commemorate today the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea.  They rejected the teaching of Arius that Jesus Christ was not truly divine, but a kind of lesser god created by the Father.  The Council declared, as we confess to this day in the Nicene Creed, that our Savior is “the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all worlds. Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made.”  The Fathers of Nicaea saw clearly that the One Who brings us into the eternal life of God must Himself be eternal and divine.  No mere creature could ever enable us to shine with heavenly glory.    

Had Christ been simply a great religious teacher, He could not have conquered death or enabled us to share in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.  Those who claim to admire the Savior as merely an excellent human being actually reject Him, for they deny the true identity of the God-Man Who unites humanity and divinity in Himself.  Only He could say to the Father, “Glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory which I had with You before the world was made.”  Only He can bring those made of the dust of the Earth into the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.   

            The divine brilliance of Christ’s Ascension is entirely different from the illusion of trying to raise ourselves up according to the standards of a world that has not yet entered into the joy of the heavenly Kingdom.  Since we all know how weak and insignificant we are in the larger scheme of things, we are eager to distract ourselves from facing that truth.  We do that by seeking fulfillment in created things that can never heal our souls.   Doing so only serves to make us even more enslaved to self-serving illusions that alienate us from God, our neighbors, and ourselves.   No wonder that we so often know the misery of captivity to disordered desires that hold us captive to vain pursuits of pride, power, and possessions that will never satisfy us.  That is a path not of ascent but of descent to slavery to fear, anxiety, and despair.  

            Embracing such darkness in our souls will make us blind to the glory of our ascended Lord, Who went up to heaven only after dying on the Cross, being buried in a tomb, and enduring the ultimate descent to Hades.  He rose from the dead because He had humbled Himself to the point of accepting rejection, torture, and crucifixion as a blasphemer and a traitor purely out of selfless love and compassion for His broken and suffering children, who were held captive by the inevitable consequences of sin. 

Christ endured all this as the eternal Son of God Who spoke the universe into existence. The unfathomable humility of the Savior destroys popular assumptions about God and about what it means to find fulfillment as a human person.  He does not ascend by taking vengeance upon His enemies, causing those who opposed Him to suffer, or serving Himself, but by suffering the consequences of their sins, of which He was in no way guilty.  The divine glory of His Ascension shines brilliantly in contrast to the illusions of those who assume God must be just like them in their spiritual blindness.   If we dare to identify ourselves with Him, we must open the eyes of our souls to the light of His heavenly glory and refuse to live as those who wander in darkness and alienation.  In order to celebrate the Ascension with integrity, we must rise up with Him into the eternal life of the Holy Trinity even as we remain in a world marred by war, mass murder, disease, and all the sorrowful brokenness known by the children of Adam and Eve.

By rising into heavenly glory as the God-Man, Christ has shown us what it means to become truly human in the divine image and likeness.   In order to unite ourselves to Him, we must reorient our desires away from the false gods we have welcomed into our hearts and toward the One Who overcame the very worst the corrupt world could do in order make us participants in the eternal day of His heavenly reign.  The contrast between the heights of heaven and the mundane realities of our lives is obviously very great. That is not because we are ordinary people with ordinary problems.  It is because we have not united ourselves to Christ to the point that every aspect of our life in this world has become a brilliant icon of His salvation.  There is so much in each of us that has refused to ascend in holiness with our Lord.          

Our calling to rise with Christ into heavenly glory is obviously high and no one may claim to have fulfilled it.  God is infinitely holy and the journey to become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect is truly eternal.  No matter where we are on that path, we must all grapple seriously with what holds us back from embracing the fulfillment of the human person made possible by our Lord’s Ascension.   We must conform our character to Christ’s such that His radiant glory shines through us as we embrace the challenges of finding healing for our souls from the disordered desires which we are so strongly inclined to make the driving force of our lives.     

In order to ascend with Him in holiness, we must abandon the hypocritical spirituality of those who corrupt Christianity into a way of raising ourselves up in this world in any sphere of life.   Nothing will keep us wedded to the spiritual decay of the fallen world more than perverting the way of our ascended Lord into a justification for crucifying our neighbors in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Our Savior calls us to rise up from the corruption of the world, not to fall even deeper into it through the delusions of spiritual pride.    

In order to ascend in holiness with Him, we must reject all the proud fantasies that distract us from true faithfulness in the present circumstances of our lives as we take the small steps toward the Kingdom that we presently have the strength to take. In our families, friendships, and workplaces, and also in our parish, we must humble ourselves by putting the needs of others before our own desires.  We must refuse to allow thoughts that tempt us to self-centeredness to take root in our hearts, for they will make it impossible for to become like Christ in self-emptying love for our neighbors.  The only way to ascend with Christ is to unite ourselves to Him in humility from the depths of our hearts.    

Christ prayed to the Father that His followers “may be one, even as We are one.”  Contrary to popular opinion, it is not possible to pursue the Christian life as an isolated individual on the basis of emotion, ideas, morality, politics, or anything else.  The Church is Christ’s Body and we are members of Him together.  He is the Vine and we are the branches.  The Lord ascended with His Body and, by His grace, we will too as we serve Him together in His Body, the Church, by doing what needs to be done for the flourishing of our small parish and for the good of our neighbors.   We ascend into the heavenly Kingdom whenever we “lay aside all earthly cares” in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy.  Nourished by His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we must join ourselves to the great Self-offering of the Savior in our common life, for it is only in Him—our risen and ascended Lord—that we may enter into the heavenly glory for which He created us in His image and likeness. Let us make His Ascension the lens through which we see every dimension of our life together and every aspect of our lives in this world.   He has already ascended.  Now we must go up together with Him as we find liberation from slavery to our passions and share more fully in the salvation that He has brought to the world. That is His calling to us all even as we remain in this world with our feet on the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Sunday of the Blind Man in the Orthodox Church

 

 Acts 16:16-34; John 9:1-38

  Christ is Risen!

 On this last Sunday of Pascha, we celebrate that the Risen Lord has brought us from the spiritual darkness of sin and death into the brilliant light of His heavenly Kingdom.  Even as Christ restored sight to the man born blind in today’s gospel reading, He illumines our darkened souls.  That is how the Lord enables us to know and experience Him as “partakers of the divine nature” by grace. 

Before the God-Man’s healing of our corrupt humanity, grave spiritual blindness was the common lot of the children of the first Adam, who were enslaved to the fear of death as the wages of sin. When the Lord spat on the ground to make clay for the man’s eyes in today’s gospel reading, He showed that His healing is an extension of His incarnation in which He has entered fully into our humanity as those made from the dust of the earth.  The blind man regained his sight after washing in the pool of Siloam, which is an image of baptism, which illumines us and restores our spiritual sight.  The man did not really know Who the Lord was when he first encountered Him, thinking that He was merely a prophet.  After the restoration of his sight, the Savior revealed Himself as the Son of God; then the eyes of the man’s soul were illumined to know Christ in His divine glory. “He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshiped Him.”

In today’s reading from Acts, there is another man who knew darkness all too well.  The Roman jailer was ready to kill himself when an earthquake opened the doors of the prison and broke the chains of the prisoners.  Knowing that he would be executed for failing to keep the prison secure, he was about to take his own life with his sword.  He was in the pit of despair when St. Paul assured him that the prisoners had not escaped.  Then “the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, ‘Men, what must I do to be saved?’’’ Through this extraordinary experience, the man became aware of his spiritual blindness.  The apostles responded, “‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’”  Then the jailer was baptized along with his whole family. After washing the apostles’ wounds, the man took them to his home and served them food.  He “rejoiced with all his household that he had believed in God.”  Like the blind man in the gospel reading, the jailer gained the vision to know Christ in His divine glory.

To say that these men were shocked and disoriented would be an understatement. The good news that “Christ is Risen!” is even more extraordinary than a man blind from birth gaining his sight or a jailer finding that his prisoners are secure after an earthquake. The Savior’s resurrection is not simply a religious teaching or point of history.  The blind man had thought that Christ was a prophet who had worked a great miracle of healing.  The jailer was a pagan Roman and there is no telling what he knew about the Lord before asking Paul and Silas what he had to do in order to be saved.  The Lord changed their lives radically and in ways that they could neither predict nor control. He will do the same for us when the eyes of our souls become radiant with the brilliant light of His resurrection.      

When Christ was asked whose sin was responsible for the man being born blind, He answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”   Becoming the self-appointed judges of others, even those who commit the most heinous deeds, will only darken further our spiritual vision.  The Risen Lord has illumined even the tomb itself, making it an entrance into eternal life.  Our participation by grace in the joy of His resurrection is not a reward for morality, legality, or religiosity; it is no more a matter of getting what we deserve than was the healing of the blind man or the deliverance of the jailer.  We stand in need not of greater justice, but of infinite healing mercy.  If we are truly sharing in the life of Christ, the light of His mercy will shine brightly through us, providing a sign of hope in our darkened world.        

  In order to gain the spiritual clarity to do that, we must mindfully turn away from all that would keep us in the dark and enslaved to sin and the fear of death.  Because the eyes of our souls are not yet fully transparent to the light of the Lord, our spiritual vision is distorted.  We do not yet see or know God, our neighbors, or ourselves clearly, but in ways that are deeply corrupted by our passions.  That is why we must struggle to become fully receptive to the brilliant divine energies of our Lord through the healing found in the sacramental and ascetical life of the Church.   As those who were born spiritually blind and have been illumined through the washing of baptism and the anointing of chrismation, we must remain vigilant against the persistent temptation to fall back into the comfortable ways of corruption.  There is so much within us that would prefer to hide in the darkness rather than to be illumined in God.   That is why we must pray daily, fast and confess regularly, serve our neighbors (especially those we find it hard to love) at every opportunity, and refuse to worship any of the false gods of this world (especially those we find most appealing).

Note that the blind man did not respond to Christ’s instructions with questions and reservations driven by anxiety about the future course of his life.  He simply obeyed, washed, saw, and then moved forward to encounter challenges he could never have anticipated.  The jailer, terrified to the point of taking his own life, simply asked how to be saved once he realized that the captives had not escaped.  Their examples remind us not to allow anything to distract us from attending to our one essential calling of opening the eyes of our souls to the brilliant light of Christ.  The question of the jailer, “Men, what must I do to be saved?” is not a one-time question with an easy answer, but concerns the eternal journey of becoming radiant with the divine energies of our Lord as we become more like Him in holiness. The Savior has conquered death in order to illumine every dimension of our darkened souls with the light of heavenly glory.  We must offer every aspect of our existence to Him for healing and transformation, no matter how great the personal struggles we may face in doing so. 

As we conclude this season of Pascha, we must mindfully resist the constant temptation to live as those obsessed with the fear of death.  Such fear is at the root of the conventional wisdom that encourages us to hate and condemn those we perceive as threats to our vain hopes for gaining whatever we prize most in the world; doing so, of course, inevitably leads to losing our souls.  Above all, we must never distort the way of Christ into an idolatrous cult that worships at the altar of any earthly kingdom, faction, or agenda—regardless of what religious, moral, or cultural label it bears.  There is no surer path to darkening our souls than embracing the spiritual blindness of serving the false gods of this world, even as we think we are being righteous.  The Savior’s kingdom remains not of this world.  His Cross alone is “a weapon of peace and a trophy invincible.”   

Our Lord, Who died as the innocent victim of violence at the hands of corrupt religious and political leaders, calls us to become living witnesses of His victory over even Hades and the tomb in the world as we know it.  Nothing can keep us from doing so as we become radiant with holy glory other than our own choice to persist in blindness.  As we prepare to bid farewell to the season of Pascha this year, let us persist in the struggle to enter as fully as possible into the new day of the Savior’s resurrection as we turn away from darkness in all its forms and embrace the Light of the world from the depths of our hearts. Let us live accordingly in a world that so desperately needs the healing that shines from the empty tomb, for Christ is Risen!       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, Pious Joseph of Arimathaea, & Righteous Nicodemus in the Orthodox Church

  

Acts 6:1-7; Mark 15: 43-16:8

           Christ is Risen!

             As we continue to celebrate our Lord’s glorious resurrection on the third day and victory over Hades and the tomb, we have to admit that all too often we live as though death still reigned.  We do so especially when we obsess about how weak, broken, and vulnerable we are, especially in light of the grave.  In order to distract ourselves from the resulting fear and anxiety, we often build ourselves up in our own minds, put others down in so many ways, and think of life as a battle against anyone or anything that threatens to expose the truth about our being made from the dust of the earth, to which we will return.   We ignore that sobering recognition by trying to maintain illusions of power and self-sufficiency over against other people, our own weaknesses, and the harsh realities of life.  Doing so fuels anger, resentment, and condemnation of those we perceive as our enemies and rivals.  It also prevents us from seeing clearly where we stand in relation both to God and to our neighbors.    

            Today we commemorate people who refused to live as individuals obsessed with illusions of self-protection in the midst of terrible sorrow and the loss of all hope, but who instead became persons united to Christ in a communion of love and selfless service. With broken hearts and in deep shock and grief, the Theotokos, Mary Magdalen, two other Mary’s, Johanna, Salome, Martha, Susanna, and others whose names we do not know went early in the morning to the Lord’s tomb in order to anoint Him for burial.  They had seen Him die a horrific public death and expected to find His disfigured body lying in the grave.  By somehow acquiring the strength not to become paralyzed by fear, anger, or despair, they did what they could to perform one last act of selfless loving service for the Savior.  That is how the Myrrh-Bearing Women became the first witnesses of the empty tomb as they received the good news of His resurrection from the angel. 

             We also remember today Joseph of Arimathea, who bravely asked Pilate for the dead body of the Lord and took Him down from the Cross with his own hands.  Imagine how difficult that must have been for him.  Nicodemus, the Pharisee who had previously not understood Christ at all, helped Joseph bury Him.  These were both prominent Jewish men who risked a great deal by associating themselves with One Who had been rejected by their own religious leaders as a blasphemer and crucified by the Romans as a traitor. Like the women, they overcame their fears to show self-emptying love for the Savior in the only ways still available to them.   

            In contrast, the disciples acted more like cowards in this moment of crisis.  Peter, the head disciple, had denied Christ three times.  John was the only one of the twelve to stand at the foot the Cross, for the others had run away in fear.  They were more focused on saving their own skins than on faithfully serving their Lord. The Myrrh-Bearing Women, along with Sts. Joseph and Nicodemus, certainly knew bitter grief and disappointment every bit as much as the disciples.  They all saw the Lord’s crucifixion as a complete disaster and their hopes for Him, and for whatever they hoped to gain through Him, were completely destroyed.  Nonetheless, how they acted during this terrible tragedy revealed that they had become persons truly united to Christ in self-emptying love. They transcended the anxieties and fears of individuals concerned only with themselves in order to do the difficult and dangerous tasks necessary to give their departed Lord and friend a decent burial, which was the only way left for them to love and serve Him.  That is how they accepted the risks inherent in being identified even further with One Who had just been crucified as a blasphemer and a traitor.    

             What they did was not the result of calculation about what was in it for them.  Had they not, even before His resurrection, already begun to unite themselves to Christ in selfless devotion, the women would not have had the spiritual strength to be in the position to see the Lord’s empty tomb and to hear from the angel the good news of His resurrection.  That news was shocking to the point of absurdity, as shown by their reaction, for “they went out quickly and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  To see and hear what they did was not to receive confirmation that they had somehow been right all along, for they had no expectation of His resurrection and went to the tomb in order to anoint a dead body.  To see and hear what they did was not a result of using religion to help them get what they wanted in this world. Their eyes were opened to behold the joy of the resurrection because they were so closely united to Christ in love that they had overcome the fear of death that so easily turns people away from following a Lord Who calls His disciples to take up their crosses. To see and hear what they did was to encounter God from the depths of their souls in a way that called their deepest assumptions about life, death, and themselves into question.  Even when all seemed lost and there was literally nothing left to do but anoint His dead body, the Myrrh-Bearing Women acted not as self-interested isolated individuals but as persons radiant with Christ’s selfless love, for that is who they had become.     

 The devotion of the Myrrh-Bearers, Joseph, and Nicodemus shows us what true faith looks like, and it has nothing to do with figuring out how to use God to help us get what we want on our own terms in a pathetic attempt to distract ourselves from the fear of death. Instead, we must unite ourselves to Him in self-emptying love if we are to acquire the spiritual strength to embrace the good news of His resurrection from the depths of our souls.  That is the only way to enter into the joy of Pascha as persons who find their life in Him together as members of His Body, the Church, with all of the struggles and difficulties that doing so entails.  Todays’ reading from Acts describes how the Church flourished when the first deacons, or servants, took on the task of meeting the practical needs of distributing food to widows in a context of ethnic division.  By offering our time and energy to attend to the mundane matters necessary for the wellbeing of the Church, we grow in love for Him in His Body as we serve one another, even as He has served us.  We grow out of our illusions of self-sufficiency and self-importance when we embrace the calling to serve even in the unremarkable ways available through our small parish.  No needed opportunity for serving our Lord is beneath any of us and it is by embracing the most humble forms of service that we become more like the Savior who came not to be served, but to serve. As the Lord taught, “he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.  And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  (Matt. 23:11)    

  Like the Myrrh-Bearing Women and Sts. Joseph and Nicodemus, we will not enter into the joy of the Lord’s resurrection by carefully calculating what is in it for us when we do this or that out of love for the Body of the Savior.  We must not obsess about how we would like to serve Him in His Church, what we think we are good at, or what we dare to presume that we deserve.  Instead, we must simply do what needs to be done out of selfless love, no matter how hard we find that to be.   That is how those blessed and righteous women put themselves in the uniquely glorious position to hear the unbelievably good news of the angel.  And that is how, by the grace of the One Who conquered death through His glorious resurrection on the third day, we too may embrace the wonderful news of this season, which destroys the fear of the grave that is at the root of so much of our worry, fear, and misery, for “Christ is Risen!”

 

 

 

 

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.

             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.  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 for them 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, 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 provides 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 He had not conquered the tomb.  Because “Christ is Risen!,” we must show our neighbors the care due those who are called to heavenly glory.

            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.  All 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.   

            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 hatred, greed, sloth, gluttony, drunkenness, lust, vanity, and other sins not because we are flesh and blood, but because we have refused to enter 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 our corruption.  We must unite ourselves to Christ in joyful obedience, even as we remain flesh and blood in this world. Then we may 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 like St. Thomas to the God-Man Whom death could not destroy, for “Christ is Risen!”

 

 

Homily for the Feast of 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, we must all resist the temptation to think that we understand fully the 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 all 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 faced and rejected the temptation to become an earthly ruler. But 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 Pilate went along with their desires.  Ironically, 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 that they had to destroy Him.  “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!” they said to Pilate, for “We have no king but Caesar!” 

Perhaps we can understand religious leaders so obsessed with gaining earthly power that they would commit such blasphemy and call for the murder of someone they perceived as a threat, 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 was apparently going to be destroyed by them.   

Were Jesus Christ merely a religious teacher of good character, His death 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 Lord Who said that His Name is “I AM” when He 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 claim to 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 human helplessness and horror.  He felt as alienated and abandoned as any victim of torture and brutal execution, as anyone rejected and abandoned by those He loved most, as anyone struggling to breathe His last in the midst of 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.   He was able to do so because He is also fully human.  Since He is also fully divine, we dare to confess the unfathomable mystery of a Person of the Holy Trinity freely experiencing the negation, weakness, despair, abandonment, and suffering that is 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, of course, but reveals that sacrificial love beyond all human understanding is characteristic of God.  “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 to the Holy Trinity (including 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 trust 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 for our salvation beyond all human understanding and definition.  Even as we entrust ourselves to Him, we must have the humility to say “I do not know” in recognition that the deep mystery of His Passion is infinitely beyond our understanding. He does not conquer the corrupting power of sin and death with ideas, arguments, or 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 best 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 loves us and refused to abandon us to the corruption and decay of the tomb.  

Holy Week is not a time for rational theological speculation and argument; neither is it a time to try to make ourselves feel a certain way.   It is, instead, a time for entering 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 are quick to reject or at least ignore Christ when His Cross does not serve our agendas and preferences.   We too have our preconceived notions about what kind of Savior we want and how He should fit into our lives.  We too cannot make sense of a Lord Whose Kingdom comes through what appears to be complete and shameful failure according to any conventional standard.

That is precisely why we need to stand and kneel 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 resist the temptation to assume that we have His Passion all figured out.  Instead, like Abba Joseph, we should say, “I do not know” before the deep mystery of His unfathomable love.  Let us lay aside our earthly cares and distractions this week, so that we may follow the advice of St. Paul, who wrote, “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.