Homily for the Sunday of Forefathers (Ancestors) of Christ in the Orthodox Church

 

Colossians 3:4-11; Luke 14:16-24

              As we continue to prepare to welcome Christ into our lives and world at His Nativity, we must remain focused.  There is no shortage of distractions this time of year that appeal to our passions and threaten to convince us that there are matters more important than accepting His gracious invitation to enter fully into the joy of the banquet of the Kingdom of Heaven.  The  Savior calls us to embrace our true vocation not only during divine services or in the eschatological future, but in every moment of our lives.   

             The people in today’s gospel reading had made themselves deaf to the urgency of their calling, for they rejected the invitation to enter into the joy of the great banquet that represents the Kingdom of God.  They did so for the most mundane reasons:   One owned real estate, another had animals, and a third was married.  They somehow convinced themselves that the commonplace circumstance of having regular responsibilities justified their refusal.  After the invited guests refused to attend, the master commanded his servant to “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame.”  Because there was still room, the master ordered him to go out even further to “the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.”   Even as God wants all to be saved, the master in the parable wanted as many people as possible to share in the blessings of the festival.

           There may be deeper spiritual significance to the symbolism of the yoke of five oxen in the parable, for there are five books of law in the Old Testament.  Having a field of land may represent those who wanted the Messiah to set up a nationalistic religious kingdom on Earth.  Marriage may represent the belief that God’s blessings were only for their particular family line or ethnic group.  Many did reject our Lord because He interpreted the law in a way that challenged the authority of the Pharisees, rejected the temptation to become an earthly king of the Jews, and extended the blessing of His Reign even to foreigners and enemies.

           In the historical setting of the passage, “the poor and maimed and blind and lame” brought in from the streets to the great banquet represent the Gentiles, who were not the descendants of Abraham and did not know the law and prophets of the Old Testament.  Especially as we prepare for Christmas, we must remember that we are those with no ancestral claim to the blessings of the Messiah.  Our hope for entering into heavenly joy has nothing to do with having the right ethnic heritage or mastering a set of religious laws.  Apart from the mercy of the Savior, we would have no part in the great spiritual heritage of those who foreshadowed and foretold the coming of the Christ across the centuries before His birth.

           Those who looked forward in faith for God’s fulfillment of the promises to Abraham did not do so simply on the basis of the law, which came later through Moses.  The law was necessary for sinful people as a tutor in preparation for the coming of Christ.  The ancestors of the Lord hoped not merely for a great teacher, but for liberation from slavery to sin and death, which the law lacked the power to accomplish. The forefathers of the Savior trusted God that their hope would not be in vain.  The original promise to Abraham extended to the Gentiles, for God told him, “In you all the nations of the world will be blessed.”  (Gen. 22:18) Now all who are in Christ “are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3:29) Jew or Gentile, “those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” (Gal. 3:9) The Savior is born to bring all who bear the divine image and likeness into the joy of the heavenly banquet.

         The Hebrews of the Old Testament who prepared for the Messiah’s coming through faith did so of their own free will in response to their calling as the children of Abraham.  That is true also for the Theotokos, who is the highest offering of the Hebrew people and became God’s living temple in a unique way as His virgin mother.  She was chosen for this astounding vocation and responded in freedom to the message of the Archangel Gabriel.  No one forced her at all, but she chose to remain focused on hearing and obeying the Word of God.  Likewise, no one forces us, but we all have the ability to respond to Christ with the obedience of humble faith.

       Unfortunately, those who had convinced themselves that the normal cares of life excluded them from entering into the joy of the heavenly kingdom responded very differently.   As the master said in the parable, ‘”For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’  For many are called, but few are chosen.”  Those who are chosen are those who follow the Theotokos’ example of making receptivity to Christ the top priority of their lives.  Like her, we must use our freedom as those who bear the image of God to seek first His Kingdom.   

         Contrary to some of our favorite excuses, the conventional responsibilities of life are in no way incompatible with uniting ourselves to Christ, for they provide opportunities to reorient the desires of our hearts to God as we love and serve Him in our neighbors.  Nothing but our own sinfulness keeps us from making our daily responsibilities points of entrance into eternal joy.  By mindfully offering them to God every day of our lives, we will gain the strength to obey St. Paul’s instruction to “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”  Family life, work, and the countless challenges of living faithfully in our culture present opportunities to find healing from “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk,” as well as lying.  This is possible not because we have fulfilled a list of legalistic requirements, but because in baptism we have “put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.” 

          As in the parable, “many are called, but few are chosen.”  As in the parable, many of us have become blind to the profound spiritual significance of living faithfully amidst our daily challenges.  Perhaps we have made work, school, family, our financial situation, or concerns about political or cultural issues into false gods that take precedence over our calling to share more fully in the life of the God-Man born at Christmas for our salvation.  We make the choice every day of our lives whether we are going to offer the blessings and struggles of this life to the Lord as opportunities for finding the healing of our souls or whether we are going to use them as excuses to become further enslaved to our passions.  The path we take will shape us decisively, leading us either into the joy of the heavenly kingdom or into the despair of those who have wasted their lives on what can never truly satisfy the living icons of God.  If we remain so enslaved to our passions that we refuse to welcome Christ into our hearts and lives with integrity on a daily basis, then we will shut ourselves out of the joy that He is born to bring to the world.  Before His holy glory, we are all “the poor and maimed and blind and lame” in need of His gracious healing mercy.

          Christ came to save us who are perpetually distracted by disordered desires in every area of our lives.  He calls us to learn to see all aspects of our life in this world as an invitation to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” with the humble trust that “all these things” we need “will be added unto you.”  (Matt. 6:33) That is our calling every day of our lives and especially now during the busy and often stressful last days before Christmas, when we must remain vigilantly on guard against every temptation to excuse ourselves from focusing on entering into the great joy of the feast of the Nativity in the Flesh of the Word of God. 

          What St. Porphyrios taught about the spiritual possibilities of our daily work applies to the rest of life in this and at all other times of the year:

At your work, whatever it may be, you can become saints—through meekness, patience and love.         Make a new start every day, with new resolution, with enthusiasm and love, prayer and silence—not with anxiety so that you get a pain in the chest.[1] Let your soul devote itself to the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me” in all your worries, for everything and everyone.  Don’t look at what’s happening to you, look at the light, at Christ, just as a child looks to its mother when something happens to it. See everything without anxiety, without depression, without strain and without stress.[2]

During the remaining days of the Nativity Fast, let us refuse to exclude ourselves from the great joy of the heavenly banquet by focusing on Christ through prayer, fasting, generosity, confession, and repentance.  That is how we will gain the spiritual clarity to accept His gracious invitation to the blessedness of the heavenly banquet, where “there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] St. Porphyrios, Wounded by Love, 144.

[2] St. Porphyrios, 145.

Becoming Living Temples of Christ, Who Is Our Peace: Homily for the Twenty-fourth Sunday After Pentecost & Ninth Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

Ephesians 2:14-22; Luke 12:16-21

 Having begun the Nativity Fast on November 15 in preparation to welcome the Savior at Christmas, today we anticipate the Feast of the Entrance into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos. Her elderly parents Joachim and Anna offered Mary to God by taking her to live in the Temple in Jerusalem as a young girl, where she grew up in prayer and purity as she prepared to become the Living Temple of the Lord in a unique and extraordinary way as His Virgin Mother.  This feast directs us to the good news of Christmas, as it is the first step in Mary’s life in becoming the Theotokos who gave birth to the Son of God for our salvation. 

Joachim and Anna had a long and difficult period of preparation to become parents, as they had been unable to have children for decades until God miraculously blessed them in old age to conceive.  They knew that their daughter was a blessing not simply for the happiness of their family, but for playing her part in fulfilling God’s purposes for the salvation of the world   Their patient faithfulness throughout their years of barrenness helped them gain the spiritual clarity to offer her to the Lord.  They knew that their marriage and family life were not simply about fulfilling their desires, but were blessings to be given back to God for the fulfillment of much higher purposes. 

Joachim, Anna, and the Theotokos are the complete opposites of the rich man in today’s gospel reading.  His only concern was to eat, drink, and enjoy himself because he had become so wealthy.  He was addicted to earthly pleasure, power, and success, and saw the meaning and purpose of his life only in those terms.  When God required his soul, however, the man’s true poverty was revealed, for the possessions and accomplishments of this life inevitably pass away and cannot save us.  This man’s horizons extended no further than his dreams of the large barns he planned to build in order to hold his crops.  Before the ultimate judgment of God, he was revealed to be a fool who had wasted his life on what could never truly heal or fulfill one who bore the divine image and likeness.  He had laid up treasure for himself, but was not rich toward God in any way. The problem was not simply that the man had possessions, but that he had made them his god, which is another way of saying that he worshipped only himself and surely was not concerned about the needs of his neighbors.  His barns were a temple of the greed to which he had offered his entire existence in a vain effort to satisfy his self-centered desires.   

In stark contrast, the Theotokos followed the righteous example of her parents.  She was prepared by a life of holiness to agree freely to become our Lord’s mother, even though she was an unmarried virgin who did not understand how such a thing could happen.  When she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” this young Palestinian Jewish girl bravely made a whole, complete offering of her life to God.  She did not ask what was in it for her in terms of money, power, or any kind of earthly success.  Unlike the rich fool in the parable, she was not blinded by passion and had the purity of soul to put receptivity to the Lord before all else.

The world is full of tragic circumstances today that are caused by people who are so enslaved to their self-centered desires that they think nothing is more important than doing whatever it takes to gratify their lust for possessions, power, and pleasure.   But even if they succeed in gaining the whole world, they will lose their souls because they have offered themselves to false gods which lack the power to heal people from the ravages of sin, let alone to raise anyone up from the tomb.   Those who serve such idols inevitably lack peace within their souls and act in ways that make peace with their neighbors, especially those they consider their enemies, impossible.   

In today’s epistle reading, St. Paul taught the Ephesians that “Christ is our peace, Who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the Cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.”  That is why Gentile Christians are now also part of the holy temple “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone…”  Though we had been “strangers” to the blessed heritage of the Hebrews, we are now built into the living temple of Christ’s Body, the Church, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Too many people today insist on preserving whatever “dividing wall of hostility” they can use to promote their vain desires for power, wealth, and other signs of worldly success.  Doing so  enables them to justify in their own minds how they refuse to pursue reconciliation with those who pose real or imagined threats to their dreams of earthly glory.  There are ways to “eat, drink, and be merry” that have nothing to do with food and beverage, but everything to do with impoverishing our souls by indulging in self-centeredness to the point that we cannot even imagine living according to the good news that Christ “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” and brought peace to those “who were far off, and peace to those who were near.”

The Jewish Messiah Whose ministry extended to Samaritans, Roman centurions, Gentiles, the poor, the sick, the demon-possessed, and those viewed as hopeless cases of depravity has brought all with faith in Him into His Body, the Church, the living temple of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.  He worked that reconciliation through His great Self-offering on the Cross by which He has released us from bondage to the fear of death through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  If we want to pursue reconciliation with those we consider our enemies concerning any matter in this world, we must embrace our true identity as “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.”  We must find healing for our souls as we embrace our identity as a holy temple of the Lord.  We must reorient the desires of our hearts toward His Kingdom and away from any version of worldly glory.  In other words, we must become like the Theotokos who offered herself fully and without reservation to receive the Savior.  We enter into His peace not by gaining wealth, power, or victory over enemies, but by offering ourselves to Him with complete receptivity, as she did.  

We are now in the Nativity Fast, the 40-day period during which we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Savior at Christmas.   The weeks of Advent call us to wrestle with the passions that threaten to make us so much like the rich fool that we become blind to the healing and peace brought by our Lord.  Far from obsessing about earthly cares and indulging in the richest and most satisfying foods, this is a season for fasting, confessing and repenting of our sins, giving generously to the needy, and intensifying our prayers.  It is a time for preparing to open our hearts to receive Christ more fully into our lives at His Nativity.  

 The Theotokos entered the Temple, living there for years in preparation to become the Son of God’s Living Temple through whom He took on flesh. The Nativity Fast provides us blessed opportunities to become more like that obscure Palestinian Jewish girl who said “Yes!” to God with every ounce of her being.  It calls us to become more like Joachim and Anna in the patient trust in God that enabled them to offer their long-awaited daughter to Him.  They show us how to enter the Temple by embracing the difficult struggle of learning to offer ourselves and all our blessings fully to the Lord. It is only by following their righteous example that we will gain the spiritual clarity to provide the world a much-needed sign that the Savior born at Christmas truly “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” that we know all to well.   Let us use these weeks to find healing for our passions as we embrace our true identity as “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in Whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in Whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

 

    

On Serving One, Not Two, Masters: Homily for the Great Martyr Kyriaki of Nicomedia and the Third Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 3:23-4:5; Matthew 6:22-33

          Today we celebrate the memory of the Holy Great Martyr Kyriaki, who gave the ultimate witness for Jesus Christ by refusing to worship pagan gods and giving up her life after suffering brutal persecution from the Roman Empire.  A beautiful young virgin, Kyriaki came from a wealthy family, but she refused the offer of marriage to the son of a magistrate who wanted their money.  The magistrate then denounced the family as Christians to the Emperor Diocletian.  Even when offered great riches and marriage to one of the emperor’s relatives if she would worship the pagan gods, Kyriaki refused and miraculously survived horrible tortures from four different rulers.  The Lord appeared to her and healed her wounds.  The next day her prayers destroyed a pagan temple, and the wild beasts to which she was later thrown would not attack her. Kyriaki gave up her soul right before she was to be beheaded.

If we want a powerful example of obedience to Christ’s teaching that one cannot serve two masters, we need to look no further than the witness of the St. Kyriaki.  She had wealth from her family, great beauty, and a way to become powerful, prominent, and even wealthier by worshiping false gods.  The eye of her soul was so pure, however, that she knew Christ not as a religious figure from the past, but as God.  Because she was filled with the divine light, she saw clearly that the blessings of this life must not become idols that would turn her away from the Lord.  Because they are His gifts to us, she knew that we must offer them and ourselves faithfully to Christ, recognizing that there is nothing more important than seeking “first His Kingdom and His righteousness.”

The witness of St. Kyriaki provides an especially vivid portrait of what is at stake in recognizing that we cannot serve two masters.  It is not hard at all to see that she faced a clear choice between the Lord and the things of the world.  Where we tend to fall into trouble is when our choices are less clear, when the contrast between faithfulness and idolatry is not as stark.  In our time and place, it is unlikely that someone will straightforwardly promise us great wealth and power if we will deny Christ and worship another god.  It is far more likely that we will endure subtle temptations to put fulfilling our self-centered desires before obedience to the Lord.  Because the eyes of our souls are not pure and clear, there is much darkness in our hearts.  We lack the spiritual vision clearly to see ourselves and all the circumstances of our lives before God.  Without recognizing what we are doing, we often blindly stumble into worshiping the false gods of pride, pleasure, and possessions.  Instead of learning to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” with the trust that “all these things shall be yours as well,” we easily fall into the trap of serving idols even as we think that we are being faithful to the Lord.

Saint Paul reminded the Galatians that to be in Christ as children of God is not a matter of obeying a mere code of conduct.  Through baptism, we put on Christ like a garment such that the distinctions between people as we know them in this world lack ultimate spiritual significance.  Christ adopts us as His children by faith and heirs to the ancient promise to Abraham, regardless of the outward circumstances of our lives. The transformation does not concern simply outward behavior, but goes to the heart.  The ultimate question for us all is whether we are becoming radiant with the gracious divine energies of God from the depths of our souls.  If we are, then we will gain the spiritual clarity to discern when temptations arise that would turn us away from faithfulness to the Lord.  That is how we will learn to see clearly when a false master threatens to turn us into idolaters.

We must be especially on guard, then, against the temptation to equate faithfulness to Christ with simply doing this or that good deed or holding an opinion on any issue.  It is possible to check off all the right boxes in terms of our behavior or ideas, but still to make our faith simply a means of trying to get what we want on our own terms in this world. Throughout history in ways small and great, many have fallen prey to the temptation to use Christianity to serve their own pride and desire for power, pleasure, and possessions. It is possible to distort even the most obvious dimensions of true discipleship into ways of serving ourselves and our agendas over those we consider our, and perhaps even God’s, enemies.

As St. Paul taught, being in Christ may not be reduced to outward obedience to a religious or moral law.  It is, instead, to be so united with Him in holy love that the eyes of our souls are filled with His brilliant light as every dimension of our life becomes radiant with His gracious divine energies. The more illumined we are in Him, the more we will see ourselves and all the blessings and challenges of this world in relation to Him.  This is not a healing that we can earn or give ourselves, for we are justified by faith in a God we not cannot control or make in our image.  We must, however, cooperate with our Lord’s mercy as we deliberately open our darkened souls to the healing light of Christ.

Doing so requires that, like St. Kyriaki, we make sacrifices that demand something of us.  She did not become a glorious saint by doing what was easy or popular or somehow figuring out how to consider herself a Christian while worshiping false gods just a bit.  No, she bravely drew a line and refused to cross it, no matter what.  If we want to acquire the spiritual vision necessary to seek first our Lord’s kingdom and righteousness in a world full of temptations, we must all mindfully turn away from thoughts, words, and deeds that we have made false gods.  We must recognize that we have been trying to serve two masters and that we must make painful choices in order to offer ourselves to Christ for healing.

In order to discern what those choices are, we must mindfully embrace the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life, such as prayer, fasting, almsgiving, regular confession of sins, and asking for and extending forgiveness to others.  We must be vigilant against wasting our time and energy in entertainment, conversations, relationships, or other activities that threaten to enslave us even further to our own self-centered desires.  Like St. Kyriaki, we must dare to be out of step with cultural trends that present the good life as being contrary to denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following our Savior.  His way has never been easy or popular, though many continue to identify themselves with Him while making the world their false god.  Instead of trying to use Christ to raise ourselves up over against anyone or any group, we must simply be faithful as we keep the eyes of our souls wide open to the presence of the Lord.  The more He illumines us with His holy light, the more we will be able to recognize, name, and reject the particular forms of darkness that threaten to blind us to the glory of His kingdom.  By pursuing this path faithfully, we will learn to see all the blessings and challenges of life in light of Christ as we turn away from worshiping false gods and serve Him as our true Master. That is how we too may follow along the path of the Holy Great Martyr Kyriaki and all the saints.

Overcoming the Paralysis Caused by the Fear of Death: Homily for the Sunday of the Paralytic in the Orthodox Church

Acts 9:32-42; John 5:1-15

Christ is Risen!

We all face difficult circumstances in our lives that we are tempted to think will never change.  Sometimes we lose hope of gaining health and strength when we have been sick and weak in body or soul.  Problems in marriage, family life, or other relationships may seem beyond healing or repair.  Before the difficulties of our lives, let alone the persistent problems of the world, we can easily feel helpless.

In today’s gospel lesson, the blind, lame, and paralyzed people who waited to be healed at the pool of water outside the Temple certainly felt that way.  Most probably despaired of ever being healed, for they lacked the ability to move themselves into the water at the right time.  The man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years had no one to help him get there, and he obviously could not move himself.  The Jews had a Temple in which animals were sacrificed, and the pool provided water for washing lambs before they were slaughtered.  This scene occurs at the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which commemorated Moses receiving the Law, which had been given by angels.

Fallen humanity, however, remained spiritually weak and sick, and enslaved ultimately to death.   In such a corrupt state, we lacked the strength to fulfill our calling to become like God in holiness, and certainly could not overcome the ultimate paralysis of the grave. The Law was surely both a blessing and a cause of frustration for the Jews, for it lacked the ability to heal the soul. The sacrificial system of the Temple foreshadowed the great Self-Offering of our Lord on the Cross, for He is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.  It did not, however, deliver anyone from bondage to death, the wages of sin.

The paralyzed man represents us all who lack the power to move ourselves to complete healing of body, soul, and spirit. He did not even call out to Christ to help him; instead, the Lord reached out to him, asking what may seem to be an odd question, “Do you want to be healed?”  Why would anyone who had endured thirty-eight years of paralysis not want to be made well?    Recall, however, how easy it is to adapt to our maladies and passions, to become accustomed to whatever forms of corruption have become second nature to us.  To be healed requires something very different, for we must obey the Lord’s command: “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.”  That means cooperating with the gracious divine energies of our merciful Lord as we rise up in obedience such that we are transformed personally to become more like Him in holiness.  Doing so is never as easy as lying comfortably in bed.  To receive personally our Lord’s healing requires getting out of our comfort zones.

The man in today’s gospel reading would never have found healing had he chosen to remain as he had been for thirty-eight years. Lying still for a long time makes us weak and unable to rise up and walk on our own.  The same will be true of us spiritually if we do not embrace the struggle to cooperate with the mercy of the Lord by serving Him as faithfully as we presently have the strength to do.  That is how we open ourselves to receive His healing, regardless of how weak we have made ourselves.  The paralyzed man would have rejected his healing had he refused to accept the struggle of standing up, carrying his bed, and walking.  After a lifetime of not moving, doing so must have been difficult and quite scary.  He had learned how to survive as an invalid, but now the Savior was directing him to a very different life, the challenges of which he could not predict.

Perhaps we look at the prospect of a life of obedience to Christ as being difficult and scary, for we have become accustomed to living as people enslaved to self-centered desire fueled by the fear of death.  If we think that the measure of our lives extends no further than the period of our physical existence on Earth, then the temptation will be great to indulge ourselves in whatever pleasures make life more bearable and distract us from despair about our ultimate fate.  But because “Christ is Risen!,” we must not continue in the weakness that comes from doing whatever it takes to distract us from fear of the grave and the insecurities it produces. Instead, we must do whatever it takes to share more fully in the ultimate healing of the human person in God’s image and likeness that our Savior has accomplished through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  We must live as those who already know the joy of life eternal as we look for the coming fullness of the Kingdom of God.

We will open ourselves to the healing and strength necessary to live in the joy of the resurrection by participating in the life in the Church, which is the Body of Christ.  In our reading from Acts, St. Peter heals a paralyzed man and commands him to get up.   He even raises a woman from death.  Peter did not do this by his own power or authority, but because the Risen Lord was working through him.  He said to the paralyzed man, “Jesus Christ heals you…”  Throughout Acts, we read of how the Lord works through the Church to enable people to participate personally in the new life brought by His empty tomb.

In baptism, Jesus Christ heals us as we die to sin and rise with Him into a new life of holiness.  In the Eucharist, the Risen Lord nourishes us with His own Body and Blood as we participate already in the Messianic Banquet.  In every celebration of the Divine Liturgy, we enter mystically in the eternal worship of the Heavenly Kingdom.  Because we fall short of fully embracing the healing and holy joy of His resurrection, the Savior forgives our sins when we humbly repent in Confession.  By offering our time, energy, and resources to support the ministries of the Church and participate more fully in our life together in Him, we find liberation from the isolation of self-centeredness and enter more fully into the abundant generosity of the Lord. He shares His life with us through the Church and we must share a common life in Him as we love, serve, and forgive one another.  In order to gain the strength to move forward in a life of holiness, we must unite ourselves to Christ in His Body through regular, conscientious participation in the Holy Mysteries and doing all that we can to strengthen our common life.

Apart from the Lord’s resurrection, there would be no Church, and it is through our participation in the Church that we may enter more fully into the eternal life of the resurrection.  We celebrate Pascha by participating personally in the Lord’s victory over Hades and the grave, and there is simply no way to do that which does not require obedience to the command that Christ gave to the paralyzed man.  That is how we will find healing from our maladies of soul that are driven by slavery to the fear of death.   Because of the resurrection, we may all rise up from our comfortable beds of sins and provide the world a sign that something radically new has come into the world through the Savior’s Cross and empty tomb.  Not by our own power, but by embracing His, we may all find fulfillment and transformation that we could never give ourselves.  All that we must do is to want to be healed, to unite ourselves to the Risen Lord in His Body, and to move forward in holiness as we serve Him in the world as a sign that “Christ is Risen!”

Bearing Witness to the Resurrection in our Bodies: Homily for Thomas Sunday in the Orthodox Church

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

Christ is Risen!

Today we continue to celebrate the glorious resurrection of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ on the third day.  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 death.  He has made even the tomb a pathway to the glory of life eternal. As He 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)

The Savior was able to rise in glory because He was born, lived, and died with a human body just like ours.  When He rose from the dead, He did so as a whole person with a glorified body which still bore the wounds His crucifixion.  Thomas doubted the news of the resurrection because he was not present when the Risen Lord first appeared to the disciples and said that he would not believe unless he saw and touched His wounds.  When the Savior appeared again eight days later, He told Thomas to do precisely that.  Thomas responded by recognizing Him as “My Lord and my God!”

This exchange with Thomas reminds us of the profound importance of Christ’s bodily resurrection to the Christian faith.  Indeed, it is impossible to give a plausible account of the origins of the Christianity apart from the reality of the Lord’s rising from the dead.  He certainly died on the Cross, as Roman centurions were professional executioners who knew what they were doing and would lose their own lives if they let a victim escape.  The disciples fled in fear at the Lord’s arrest with Peter, the head disciple, denying Him three times.  The women showed greater love and courage by going to the tomb in order to anoint Christ’s dead body.  It is clear, however, that they all acted in response to His death and showed no hope of His resurrection.  Remember that the idea that someone would rise from the dead was as outrageous, if not more so, in that time and place than it is in ours.  No one associated being the Messiah with dying on a Cross and resurrecting.  Since the apostles later died as witnesses to their belief in the Lord’s rising, it is absurd to say that they had concocted the story.  Countless generations of martyrs have likewise made the ultimate testimony to the Lord’s victory over death with a strength and peace that are not of this world.

As 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)  The Savior foretold His death and resurrection many times, though the disciples never got the point.  If One Who claimed to be God was wrong in predicting His resurrection and simply decayed in the tomb like anyone else who died, the Christian faith would never have appeared.  There would be no Church and no reason for anyone to remember Jesus Christ as anything but a failed Messiah with grandiose delusions about being divine.

Our faith is not in warm feelings or sentimental memories about someone who lived a long time ago.  It is not in a vague notion of a dead person being with us in spirit or in the abiding relevance of ancient moral teachings for our lives.  To proclaim that “Christ is Risen!” is to confess the reality of the God-Man’s victory over death as whole Person, of His bodily resurrection which 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, then St. Paul was a fool for dying out of faithfulness to Him.  He became a Christian only after the Risen Lord miraculously appeared to Him in blinding light on the road to Damascus   It is impossible to make sense of this Pharisee who zealously persecuted Christians becoming one without belief in the reality of the Savior’s resurrection.

Hope for eternal life is not reserved only for the coming fullness of the Kingdom, but also concerns how we live in the world as we know it with our bodies and in relation to others.  Having been empowered by the Risen Lord through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the apostles ministered by healing the suffering bodies of the sick as they bore witness to the restoration of the whole human person through His resurrection.  Even the pagan critics of the early Christians marveled at how they risked their lives to care for people with contagious diseases during plagues.  They rescued infants abandoned by their parents to death, slavery, or other terrible fates, which was a common practice among the Romans to dispose of children they did not want to raise.  Instead of aborting unborn children in the womb, they welcomed them as neighbors to love and blessings from God.  In a time when desperately poor people had no more dignity than so much garbage left on the side of the road, the early Christians shared their resources sacrificially with them.  In a culture where a master could abuse the body of a slave literally however he chose, the Church knew that in Christ   “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  (Gal. 3:28)

The differences in the bodies of men and women remain, but Christians must treat everyone, regardless of sex or social standing, as someone who bears the dignity of a living icon of Christ.  He was raised in the body and how we treat anyone’s body, including our own, is how we treat Him.  St. Paul condemned the sexual immorality of the Corinthians by reminding them that, “By His power God raised the Lord from the dead, and He will raise us also.  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself?...Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (1 Cor. 6: 14-20)  The same early generations of Christians that produced so many martyrs stood in stark contrast to the decadence of pagan society.  Their example of chastity, through abstinence for singles and fidelity for husbands and wives in marriage, reflected both the holiness of the body as revealed through Christ’s resurrection and how He has delivered us from slavery to even the most deeply rooted self-centered desires.

Because “Christ is Risen!,” we must unite ourselves to Him in holiness in every dimension of our being, including especially how we live in our bodies.  The more that we do so, the more that we will learn to see our neighbors, no matter who they are or what they believe, as persons called to find the fullness of their humanity in Him every bit as much as we are.  The best witness that we can make to others is to become living proof of the healing and fulfillment that the Savior has brought to the world by offering His own Flesh and Blood.  That is how He conquered Hades and the grave, and has restored fallen humanity to the sublime dignity of “partakers of the divine nature” through grace.   Let us not, then, simply sing Christ’s resurrection, but become living icons of the holy joy He shares with us through His risen and glorified Body.  Our faith makes no sense apart from the Savior’s rising from the tomb as a whole, embodied Person. Could the same be said of our lives?  Let us bear witness to Christ, our Pascha, as we live and breathe in a world that desperately needs a sign of hope for liberation from darkness and despair, for Christ is Risen!

Embodied Holiness: 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

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.

Joseph the Betrothed, a Model of Obedience: Homily for the After-Feast of & Sunday After the Nativity of Christ in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 1:11-19; Matthew 2:13-23

Christ is Born!  Glorify Him!

As we continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world, we should acknowledge that we are probably so familiar with the Christmas story that we often imagine it happened in a world quite different from our own.  We tend to make His Nativity a sentimental event that we celebrate yearly with various cultural customs before going back to life as usual.  When we do so, however, we miss the point of how this great Feast challenges us to live faithfully in the very same world in which the Savior was born as a vulnerable Child.

Today we remember a crucial, and often overlooked, figure in the real life drama of Christmas:  Joseph the Betrothed, an elderly relative of the Virgin Mary who reluctantly became her guardian when she had to leave the Temple where she had grown up.  One of the verses chanted at vespers last night states that “a strange betrothal fell unto his lot,” and that is surely an understatement.

Betrothal was an arrangement in which a man became the guardian of a woman; it did not imply the intimate relations of marriage.  As an 80 year-old widower, Joseph did not want to take on this responsibility for the teenaged Virgin Mary, but he obeyed God’s command nonetheless.  That is how he came to play a key role in the salvation of our world of corruption.

The story of Joseph connects with so much of the heritage of the Old Testament.  An evil ruler wanted to murder the young Savior because He viewed Him as a threat.  Pharaoh had ordered the deaths of Hebrew male infants long ago in Egypt, and now a wicked king like him reigned in Israel.  Herod slaughtered the young boys in and around Bethlehem when he realized that the wise men had tricked him.

In the Exodus, the Hebrews had fled Egypt on the night of the Passover.  Now the young Messiah flees Israel to go to Egypt at night.  Once the danger had passed, Joseph brought the family back to the Promised Land, just as the Hebrews eventually returned after wandering in the desert for forty years. Recall also the story in Genesis of another Joseph.  He went to Egypt unwillingly, as a slave, but eventually saved his whole family from a famine by bringing them there.

Matthew’s gospel describes Joseph’s role in the Lord’s early life with obvious Old Testament symbolism.  The point is not simply to glorify Joseph, of course, but to show how Christ fulfills God’s promise of a Savior to the Hebrews and to all people.   Joseph’s story is a clear reminder that God calls people to cooperate with His gracious plans to bring salvation, blessing, and healing to the entire world. No, that world is not one of imaginary sentimental perfection, but the very same one inhabited today by those who suffer from persecution, abuse, and war.  There are still many Herods among us.

The necessity of our free response to God’s calling in such a world should be obvious at Christmas.  The Theotokos freely chose to say “yes” when the Archangel Gabriel visited her with the good news that she was chosen to be the Virgin Mother of the Son of God.  Despite his reluctance to become her guardian in the first place, old Joseph accepted the responsibility.  And then after being horrified to discover her pregnancy, he had the faith to believe the message of the angel that the Child was conceived of the Holy Spirit.  Despite his advanced age, Joseph successfully guided his family to Egypt as they fled the murderous Herod.  He had not anticipated involvement in such a dangerous set of circumstances in his latter years, but he did what had to be done for the safety of his family, as so many parents struggle to do today in life-threatening circumstances around the world.

The example of Joseph reminds us that God uses our cooperation to accomplish His gracious purposes in the world.  That was certainly the case in the Old Testament:  Abraham, Moses, David, and countless others responded to God’s initiative, and He worked through them, despite their many failings.  The same is certainly true of the Theotokos, for through the free response of a teenaged Palestinian Jewish girl came the Messiah in Whom the ancient promises to the descendants of Abraham are fulfilled and extended to the entire world.

The details of our Lord’s conception, birth, and infancy show that God does not force people to obey Him.  It is entirely possible to disregard God and refuse to live as those created in the divine image and likeness.  Herod provides a shockingly clear example of where the choice to turn away from truth and goodness leads.  Doing so does not simply weaken us as particular people, but also frustrates the accomplishment of God’s blessing and healing of the world.  Just look at the pain and brokenness that violence, hatred, and lust for power still bring to people today.  Unfortunately, Herod remains an all too familiar figure whenever the lives of the weak and innocent become inconvenient and expendable before the dominant forces of the world as we know it.

Our calling is not simply to avoid becoming like Herod, but to become as much like the Theotokos and Joseph the Betrothed as we possibly can.  Though there is obviously a uniqueness in how she freely agreed to contain the Son of God in her womb as His Mother and Living Temple, we may all become better temples of the Holy Spirit as we welcome God’s sanctifying presence more fully into our lives.  Her life plans changed at the Annunciation, and we must recognize that the healing of our souls likely will not occur according to our own preferences.   That was certainly the case for old Joseph, who took on responsibilities that he did not want because He knew that was God’s calling in his life.  Because this unlikely couple freely obeyed God, salvation has come to the world.

Let us celebrate Christmas by growing in our cooperation with God’s good purposes for us in the broken world we inhabit.  That means rejecting the lie that we are isolated individuals who will find fulfillment in getting what we want on our own terms in any area of life.  It means learning to see and serve Christ in neighbors, family members, and coworkers, in the lonely, sick, and suffering, and especially in anyone we are inclined to view as an enemy.  It means turning off nonstop media and disregarding intrusive thoughts as we open our hearts to God in the stillness of the Jesus Prayer.  It means undergoing a change of mind such that fulfilling our role in the salvation of the world becomes what is most important to us, even when that is difficult and we would rather be doing something else.  The next time that you feel that way, remember Joseph the Betrothed, the old man who put aside his preferences in order to become a refugee with his unlikely family.   Knowing how God used his faithfulness, how can we set any limits on what He will do with ours?  All that we have to do is to listen and cooperate. The rest is in God’s hands.

Born to Fulfill the Hope of the Righteous and to Save Scandalous Sinners: Homily for the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ (The Genealogy) in the Orthodox Church

Hebrews 11:9-10, 32-40; Matthew 1:1-25

Now that the great feast of Christmas is almost here, the Church directs our attention to the family tree of Jesus Christ. Today’s gospel reading from St. Matthew is our Lord’s genealogy, which traces the Savior’s human ancestry back through many generations to Abraham.  It shows that He has the correct heritage to be the Messiah, the Anointed One in Whom the ancient promises are fulfilled. The great saints of the Old Testament looked forward to the completion of their hope for the fullness of the blessing, which we have now received in Christ.  As our epistle passage from Hebrews states of them, “And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”

            As we prepare to celebrate our Lord’s Nativity, we do well to consider our relationship to the many generations through whom God prepared for His Son to become the God-Man born in Bethlehem.  If we know the stories of the people of the Old Testament, we should know that we have a lot in common with them.  The Bible makes clear that they suffered from the same forms of pain and brokenness that people do today in their families, in social strife and war, and as exiles and refugees.  They often fell short of what God required of them and committed idolatry by worshiping false gods, including their own desires for power and pleasure. Like King David, many sinned greatly and repented greatly.  Even the most righteous of them, however, did not experience the fulfillment of the human person in God’s likeness, for it is only through the God-Man that we are able to become “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  He alone has healed every dimension of our humanity by becoming one of us. 

            The Old Testament presents our Lord’s ancestors as unlikely people to prepare the way for the coming of Christ.   For example, not long after God said that He would bless him as the father of a multitude, Abraham gave his wife Sarah away to Pharaoh, encouraging her to say that she was his sister (Gen. 12).  Later, when they were impatient about their inability to conceive, Abraham fathered a child by Sarah’s servant Hagar (Gen. 16). These were not the actions of people with perfect faith.  When God called Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt in the Exodus, he made excuse after excuse to try to get out of it  (Ex. 4). Even after their liberation, the Israelites worshipped a golden calf (Ex. 32) and wanted to go back to Egypt as they complained about the hardships of wandering in the desert (Exod. 16).   That God remained faithful to His promises to the descendants of Abraham was a sign of His mercy, not that the people had earned or deserved any particular blessing.

            The family tree of Jesus Christ in today’s gospel reading certainly does not shy away from the scandalous truths about the people of the Old Testament.  The first of the women mentioned in the genealogy is Tamar, who became pregnant by her father-in-law Judah.  A widow, she disguised herself as a prostitute when he would not give her his youngest son in fulfillment of the requirements of levirate marriage (Gen. 38).  Judah, Tamar, and the twins they conceived are listed in the genealogy. The family tree includes Rahab, a Gentile prostitute who protected two Hebrew spies before the conquest of Jericho (Josh. 2).  She is listed as the mother of Boaz, a Jewish man who married Ruth, a Moabite woman, even though the Old Testament clearly prohibited such marriages (Ruth 4). Nonetheless, Boaz and Ruth are listed as David’s great-grandparents.  Then we read that “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.”  David had committed adultery with Bathsheeba, who became pregnant, and then had Uriah killed in battle in order to hide what he had done (2 Sam. 11). David composed Psalm 50 (51) as he repented of his great sin.

            Matthew’s account of the family tree prepares us for the kind of Savior we encounter in Jesus Christ.  Even as His ancestors sinned, He came to show mercy upon those who had fallen short of fulfilling God’s purposes for them.  Even as His family line included Gentiles, He makes all with faith in Him the heirs of the promise to Abraham.  Even as He is a descendant of many whose lives were scandalous, He brought salvation to the world in a fashion that was shocking and offensive to the religious leaders of His day. 

            The circumstances of His conception were outrageous, as His teenage virgin mother became pregnant by a miracle of the Holy Spirit.  Joseph, the older man to whom she was betrothed as her guardian, was horrified to find her pregnant.  Knowing that he was not the father, he planned to divorce her quietly, but did not after an angel told him in a dream of the virginal conception of the Savior.  We may have heard this story so many times that we are no longer shocked by it.  It is important to remember, however, that Christ was born in circumstances that were quite scandalous, for the idea of a virginal conception and birth was just as shocking in the first century as it is in ours.

            Think for a moment about how our Lord’s ministry was received.  He was charged with being a servant of the devil, a blasphemer, and one who disobeyed God’s commandments.  He showed mercy to Gentiles, tax collectors, prostitutes, and other public sinners and lowly people whom the religious establishment had rejected.  The Pharisees and Sadducees were scandalized by what He taught and did.  For a Messiah to die on a cross was considered an act of complete failure which no one expected.  When the tomb was empty three days later, a different kind of scandal occurred when the Crucified One rose in glory.  In a totally expected and unconventional way, He did what not even the most righteous people of the Old Testament could ever have accomplished, for He overcame death, the wages of sin.

            Is it surprising, then, that Church reminds us today both of the great faith of those who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah and of how they often fell short of what God required of them?  No, that is precisely what we should expect, for those great saints were human beings like us, living in a world of corruption as they bore the weight of their own sins and were  weakened by the failings of others.  They did not earn the promise made to Abraham by good behavior, and we have certainly done nothing to merit the merciful love of God that led to the incarnation of the Savior.  Though they did not yet have the fullness of the promise, they suffered greatly in order to be faithful to God and repented greatly when they disobeyed Him.  All the more, then, should we who have received the fullness of the promise unite ourselves to Christ in humble faith, regardless of how profoundly we sin or have sinned at any point in our lives. 

            Had we needed simply a code of conduct or a great teacher or example for the healing of our souls, the Son of God would never have been born to restore and fulfill us in His image and likeness. The Savior, born in so shocking a fashion at Bethlehem, alone is able to overcome the ultimate scandal of the grave itself, as well as all the ways in which we have diminished ourselves as His living icons.  In the short time remaining before the feast of Christmas, let us all embrace the outrageous blessing that is ours in the Messiah.  He came to save the scandalous sinners of past, present, and future generations, including you and me.   Now is the time to complete our preparation to receive Christ at His birth, for He came to fulfill His gracious purposes for all who bear His image and likeness. Not to be ready for Him would be the greatest scandal of all.  

The Struggle to Take Up the Cross: Homily for the Sunday After the Exaltation of the Cross in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 2:16-20; Mark 8:34-9:1

          In some ways, people today are too familiar with the image of the cross.  Some wear it as just another a piece of jewelry or otherwise use it to symbolize values or organizations that have nothing to do with the cross through which our Lord conquered death.  Unfortunately, those who confess its true spiritual significance can easily rest content with beliefs about the cross without actually obeying the clear instructions of our Lord that we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him. Celebrating the Exaltation of the Cross with integrity requires that we confess truthfully with St. Paul:  “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

The Lord’s Self-Offering on the Cross for the salvation of the world is unique and all encompassing.  As we chant when we especially celebrate the cross, “Before Thy Cross, we bow down and worship…”  We must not respond passively to the cross, however, as though all the work has already been done in a way that requires nothing of us.  For the only way to share in the Savior’s life is to enter personally into the deep mystery of His sacrifice.  He offered Himself fully and in free obedience to the point of death, burial, and descent into Hades in order to conquer the corruption to which we had enslaved ourselves.   In order to embrace the liberation and healing of our Crucified and Risen Lord, we must die to all that holds us back from embodying the fullness of His great victory.  That means offering ourselves without reservation for union with Christ in holiness as we become “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.

In the world as we know it, doing so requires a perpetual struggle of the soul.  The fight is not against other people and certainly not against God.  Instead, it is a battle with ourselves because we have all accepted the lie that true fulfillment comes from our own will being done.  In one way or another, we have all come to identify with our self-centered desires such that we think we could not exist without gratifying them.  Consequently, to put the demands of loving God and neighbor first in life requires us to deny ourselves and to abandon our well-settled habit of living in the service of our passions. We must all be “crucified with Christ” in the sense of dying to the corruptions that keep us from sharing in the Savior’s restoration and healing of the human person in the divine image and likeness.

The Lord’s command to take up our crosses, deny ourselves, and lose our lives has nothing to do with appeasing an angry Father by our suffering.  It is not concerned with the pointless task of trying to earn forgiveness by paying a debt or meeting a legal obligation.  Instead, it is about doing what is necessary to find healing.  In order to regain physical health, we may have to do some painful and difficult things at times, like having surgery, going to physical therapy, or changing our diet.  Those are not punishments, but simply what is necessary for us to regain our health in light of our particular physical condition.  If we want to get better, we will put aside our preferences and accept the inconvenience.

The same thing is true for us spiritually.  Offering ourselves to the Lord for the healing of our souls in whatever circumstances we face is how we take up our crosses.  From the origins of the Church to this very day, that has meant literal martyrdom for those who refuse to deny Christ when the powerful of this world kill them as a result.  For all who unite themselves to Christ, there must be some form of martyrdom as we die to self-centeredness by putting faithfulness to the Lord and service to our neighbors before satisfying our own desires.  If we do not take up our crosses in the challenges that we face daily, whatever they may be, then we show that we are ashamed of Christ and of His Cross.  We show that we want no part of Him and prefer to gratify our own desires instead of offering ourselves for the service of His Kingdom.

Like Peter before He denied the Savior three times, we may well believe that we would never do such a thing.  Like Peter, however, we may have such a poor understanding of the Messiah we serve that we will be unprepared when our eyes are opened to the truth.  Today’s gospel passage comes right after Peter tried to correct the Savior when He predicted His death and resurrection. The Lord said to him in response, “Get behind me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”   Peter had likely envisioned the Messiah as a successful military leader who would defeat the Romans and give the Jews a powerful earthly kingdom.  The idea of following someone like that appealed to his pride, for being the chief disciple of the new King David would bring riches, power, and glory.

When the Savior made clear that the religious leaders of Israel would reject Him, that He would be killed, and that He would rise from the dead, Peter was horrified to the point that he tried to set Christ straight.  That is when the Lord said in no uncertain terms that to reject the cross was the way of the devil, the way of completely rejecting His ministry for the salvation of the world.  Remember that Satan had tempted Christ in the desert by promising Him worldly power if He worshiped him.  Now Peter provided the same temptation.  That is when Christ told the disciples that they would have no part in Him if they did not also take up their crosses. In this light, it is not surprising that Peter later denied He knew the Lord three times after His arrest and abandoned Him at His crucifixion.  At that time, he and the other disciples were ashamed of a Messiah Who died on a cross.

Likewise, we show that we are ashamed of our Lord when we refuse to take up our crosses.  Our lives are filled with opportunities to turn away from prideful self-centeredness as we put the needs of those around us before ourselves.  Instead of indulging in gluttony, greed, hatred, envy, or other passions, we must redirect the energy of our souls to blessing our neighbors.  Remember that the Lord did not go to the cross for His own benefit, but for ours.  We will offer ourselves more fully to Him as we offer ourselves to serve those in whom He is present to us each day. If we do not, we will show that we are ashamed of our Lord.

The same is true whenever we refuse to keep a close watch on our hearts.  The ancient idols of sex, money, and power are worshiped openly in our culture, and we must be ready to embrace the cross of rejecting their powerful temptations.  Today reserving sexual intimacy for the union of husband and wife in marriage is widely considered archaic and oppressive.   Pornography is easily available and generally accepted, even though it is poisonous in so many ways.   Money and what it can buy often become the measure of our lives, regardless of what we say we believe.  Many people today seem to take pride in hating those with whom they disagree about politics and in self-righteously and hypocritically condemning them.  Nothing could be more contrary to denying ourselves and taking up our crosses than to embrace such temptations in our hearts.  Nothing could be more deadly to our souls.

Thankfully, there was hope for Peter and there is hope for us also through our Lord’s great victory over sin and death on His Cross.  Let us celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross by showing that we are not ashamed of His Self-Offering for our salvation.  No matter the circumstances of our lives, let us deny ourselves as we embrace the crosses of our lives.  That is how we may all enter into the joy of the Kingdom.