St. Thomas Sunday

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

“Christ is risen!”

Last Sunday at Agape Vespers we read the first half of this morning’s gospel lesson [John 20:19-31], ending with St. Thomas refusing to believe the joyful testimony of his fellow apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead. Today we continue the story to find that, one long week later, the disciples were again gathered behind locked doors and this time Thomas was with them. Jesus came and stood in their midst, and after blessing them with peace, He summoned the suddenly-not-so-doubting Thomas to examine the wounds on His hands and His side and behold the undeniable reality of His bodily resurrection.

Listen to some of the hymns from last night’s vespers:

O good Christ, when Thou didst enter unto Thy Disciples, the doors being shut, Thomas, who was called Didymus, was not with them. Therefore, he doubted what was told to him. Nevertheless, Thou didst not deem him unworthy for his lack of faith, rather Thou assured him of faith, by showing him Thy pure side, and the wounds in Thy hands and feet. Therefore, having sought and beheld, he confessed that Thou art an unabstract God, and an unsimple Man, crying, My Lord and my God, Glory to Thee.

As the Disciples were being doubtful, the Savior, after eight days, came to where they were gathered and granted them peace. Then He cried unto Thomas, Come, O Apostle, and probe the two palms which were pierced by the nails. O the delicacy of the beautiful unbelief of Thomas, as coming with the heart of an unbeliever to knowledge, he called out with fear, My Lord and my God, Glory to Thee.

There are three things I would like us to take note of today. The first is that our Lord did not despise Thomas for his doubts, but in yet one more example of the immeasurable and inexhaustible divine humility, He offered His hands and side to Thomas for inspection, as the disciple had so brazenly demanded just the week before. Now think about that. Even after all the horrible things that Christ had been made to suffer at the hands of sinful men, He still was not out of patience for sinners. He might have had every right to be angry with Thomas. Instead, our Lord showed great meekness, submitting to His disciple, giving permission for him to poke dirty fingers into His blessed wounds if that is what he still needed in order to believe. We are not told that Thomas followed through on that; possibly by this time he was feeling a bit meek and humbled himself.

Because our Lord spoke so often throughout the gospels on the need for faith, it is comforting to know that He also shows mercy toward those whose faith sometimes fails them. In this world of sin and darkness, in a culture that is increasingly secular and hostile toward faith, we might even say that such struggles to believe are to be entirely expected. The gentle compassion which Christ shows here is an assurance that He knows what we go through and is willing to help us. When Jesus said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed,” was He not in fact speaking of us? By so doing He was showing that He knows belief can be difficult at times, but that the mercy of God is upon those who persevere in the struggle to maintain an active and growing faith.

The second thing I would like us to notice is the phrase in that second hymn, “O the delicacy of the beautiful unbelief of Thomas”. Now “beautiful” is not an adjective we might normally associate with unbelief, and yet in this case it applies perfectly, because the unbelief of Thomas was so simple and without guile. Overcome by grief and false expectations the Messiah’s ministry—remember that the disciples were all expecting Christ to take a glorious earthly throne, not to die miserably upon a sinner’s cross—the soul of Thomas was stunned. But when Christ appeared to him and he suddenly began to connect the dots, the great purity of his heart allowed the Holy Spirit to illumine him as he cried out “My Lord and My God!”

There certainly exists simple or “beautiful” unbelief. It can be found in many who have never heard the gospel, or those who, through no fault of their own, have only been exposed to distorted or incomplete versions of it. It can be found in some who have suffered great hurt in life, and who thus wonder if God is indeed good and merciful. When such people are presented with the true gospel or otherwise have their sincere questions answered, they may discover (Somewhat to their surprise!) a deep longing in their hearts for God and will joyously come with faith unto Jesus Christ in His Church to receive holy baptism and divine illumination. Such people are truly blessed!

We must add that there also exists “ugly” unbelief. This is unbelief that is rooted in the passions, not in simple ignorance, and which seizes upon some pseudo-intellectual excuse not to believe in God or obey Him. Most often this is accompanied by the desire to “be free” from the morality of the Church to pursue the lusts of the flesh. This is a terrible spiritual condition, and reveals that considerable darkening of the soul has taken place in a person, most often and tragically with that person’s full consent. People afflicted in this way are by no means beyond redemption, but their path back to God will often involve the painful crucifixion of their enormous pride and an ongoing and difficult renunciation of their enslaving passions.

One final thing I’d like to mention regarding our gospel story is that Thomas didn’t do himself any favors by being off in his own private little hell of despair and disillusionment while the rest of the disciples were rejoicing in the presence of the risen Christ. It is never a wise idea to be a marginal participant in the life of the Church, but it is an especially bad idea to withdraw yourself when you’re faced with spiritual struggles. If anything, that’s the time when we most need the Church, together with the support of our brothers and sisters, our father/confessor, and our loving God. There will always be trials and tribulations in this life. We need to make sure we always face them in God’s Church, united to one another as our Lord intended. In this way, we can also experience all the joys together, such as in our celebration of the glorious resurrection of Christ Jesus.

+To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Sunday of Orthodoxy

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

Today is the first Sunday of Great Lent, the day on which the Orthodox Church celebrates the decision of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of 787 which defined, defended and upheld the proper use and veneration of the holy icons. We call this day the Sunday of Orthodoxy, because icons are held to be of such tremendous importance to the faith that their preservation is made equal to the preservation of Christian Orthodoxy itself!

To underscore that statement, we should know that a great many saints died in their attempts to protect the icons against those who came to destroy them. For a period of about 13 years leading up to the Seventh Council, icon veneration was actually outlawed and so many hundreds of Christians were put to death for possessing them that the time later became known as the “Decade of Blood”. How important do you think the holy icons were to those saints and holy martyrs? Many of these people were monastics who had joyfully given up all their earthly possessions to follow Christ, but who would not surrender the icons even at the point of the sword. Could icons possibly be so important that such God-enlightened and holy people would willingly die for them?

That’s exactly how the holy fathers of the Seventh Council saw the matter. To those men, losing the icons would be equal to losing touch with the apostolic faith itself.

Last night at Great Vespers the choir sang the following ancient hymns:

“Inspired by your Spirit, Lord, the prophets foretold your birth as a child incarnate of the Virgin. Nothing can contain or hold you; before the morning star you shone forth eternally from the spiritual womb of the Father. Yet you were to become like us and be seen by those on earth. At the prayers of your prophets in your mercy reckon us fit to see your light.
“We praise your resurrection, holy and beyond speech. Though infinite Lord, as divine, in the last times you willed to become incarnate and finite; for when you took on flesh you made all its properties your own. So we depict the form of your outward appearance and pay it equal respect, and are thus moved to love you; and through it we receive the grace of healing, following the divine traditions of the apostles.
"The grace of truth has shone out, the things once foreshadowed now are revealed in perfection. See, the Church is decked with the incarnate image of Christ, as with beauty not of this world, fulfilling the tent of witness, holding fast the Orthodox faith. For if we cling to the icon of him whom we worship, we shall not go astray [Emphasis added]. May those who do not so believe be covered with shame. For the image of him who became human is our glory: we venerate it, but do not worship it as God. Kissing it, we who believe cry out: O God, save thy people, and bless thine inheritance.
"We have moved forward from unbelief to true faith, and have been enlightened by the light of knowledge. Let us then clap our hands like the psalmist, and offer praise and thanksgiving to God. And let us honor and venerate the holy icons of Christ, of his most pure Mother, and of all the saints, depicted on walls, panels and sacred vessels, setting aside the unbelievers' ungodly teaching. For the veneration given to the icon passes over, as Basil says, to its prototype.
“At the intercession of your spotless Mother, O Christ, and of all the saints, we pray you to grant us your great mercy. We venerate your icon, good Lord, asking forgiveness of our sins, O Christ our God. For you freely willed in the flesh to ascend the cross, to rescue from slavery to the enemy those whom you had formed. So we cry to you with thanksgiving: You have filled all things with joy, our Savior, by coming to save the world.”

I realize that was a rather long quotation, but it shows that in the mind of the Church, the use of icons is tied directly to the incarnation of the Son of God as Jesus Christ our Lord. In His pre-incarnate state, the Son existed as the uncontainable and invisible God, eternally begotten of the Father. As Jewish Law rightly proclaimed, it would have been wrong, even idolatrous, to attempt to portray the incorporeal God in material images based solely on the imaginations of men. But when the Son of God assumed our flesh and dwelt among us, He was no longer invisible. As St. John wrote, “we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). For the very first time, men could look upon flesh and blood and see God. “Have I been with you so long,” the Master said to Philip, “and yet you have not known Me? He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Further describing this truth, in Colossians 1:15 St. Paul called Jesus the icon (image) of the invisible God. In His flesh Jesus shows forth God and reveals Him to the world.

The holy icons show forth this same Jesus, and thus continue the revelation of God incarnate. According to the Seventh Ecumenical Council, because the Son of God truly took flesh and joined Himself to matter, matter itself can now be used to reveal this. But there is more. Just as the images of Jesus depict the God who has become man, the images of the Theotokos and the saints depict human beings who are united to God. In union with Christ and sharing in His divine energies, the saints are depicted as people filled with God and transformed by holiness. Is this not our calling as well? We are all called to be saints, to become living icons of Christ. According to the holy fathers of the Seventh Council, take away the icons and you stand in danger of losing faith, not only in the incarnation of Christ, but also in our calling to become partakers of the divine nature; holy people sharing in God’s glory.

In contemporary Christendom, the proof that our fathers knew what they were speaking of is sadly evident in those denominations which no longer use icons. Some of these have gone so far as to reject the virgin birth and the true incarnation of the Son of God and can no longer rightly be called Christian. Most other denominations no longer understand theosis, and thus offer the Christian no means to attain holiness, many believing that such a thing is not even possible in this life. The heart of the Christian gospel—that God became man so that man might become like God—has been cut from these churches, in part at least because they did not listen to the wisdom of our Christian Forefathers.

The holy icons are essential elements of Orthodox faith and devotion. We must be diligent to place icons in our church, in our “prayer-corners” and throughout our homes, in our cars, and even if possible in the places where we work. Icons are Orthodoxy, and help bring us to God in a way that books and words alone simply cannot do.

This is what we remember on this Sunday of Orthodoxy. May God preserve His Church and the true Faith of the Orthodox.

+To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

True love, or self-love?

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

I want to open today’s homily with the words that our dear friend Fr. John Limbeson would use whenever he would give the sermon here. Fr. John (May his memory be eternal!) would always begin by saying, “My brothers and sisters, remember that God loves you!” This seemed an appropriate reminder on this Meatfare Sunday as we contemplate today’s gospel lesson on the Final Judgment. It is not at all out-of-place to speak of the love of God and the fearful and terrible judgment of mankind together. The two absolutely go together, and if our Christian lives are to have any eternal value at all we must understand how this is so.

First and foremost, let us be quite certain to understand that the judgment described here in Matthew 25 is the one that will be faced by each and every human being, including you and me. This is not some sort of “separate judgment” reserved only for those who “come out of the tribulation period” as many of us were once taught. I’m sure we can understand the motive behind such a teaching. Given a choice, who wouldn’t want to sidestep an actual judgment in favor of the idea that believers need only gather before that happy place called “The Great White Throne” to undergo a mere formality of “giving an account” for their lives, the outcome of which will in no way affect their salvation which has already been assured by their faith alone? It’s not too hard to see why this is a popular belief and why people defend it so fiercely.

Unfortunately, it’s a false and misleading belief. From the beginning, Christians have always understood and taught that every human being—believer and unbeliever equally—shall on that one dreadful Day be made to stand before God to be judged for how he has lived in this life, for the choices he has made, and in turn, for what those choices have made of him. This isn’t a matter of “faith vs. works”. This is a matter of whether your faith has worked and made you one with the love of God, or of discovering that it was an empty faith which made no measurable difference in your life.

This is where the connection between the love of God and our ultimate judgment is made. When we each stand before the Judge, He will be searching our lives for evidence that His love has taken root in us and produced some measure of fruit, or whether there is no love in us and we have been left barren.

This is exactly what we see in Matthew 25. The Judge scrutinizes each person to see if during his lifetime, he had made it a priority to do such things as feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in the stranger, clothe the naked, or visit the sick and those in prison. God looks for genuine love in the hearts of people. This is a remarkably simple standard of judgment, and yet how many human beings will ultimately fail it because such a love will not be found within them?

Some complained that the judgment was unfair. “Lord, when did we see Thee hungry or thirsty and not minister unto Thee?” But that was the problem. Being so completely out of touch with the love of God, they never saw Christ in any of the hurting, lonely, or needy people that surrounded them daily. So entirely self-absorbed, they were oblivious to everything except the pursuit of their own pleasure and happiness.

Life is not meant to be such a selfish pursuit. We human beings were designed by God to participate in His life and be shaped by His love. We were created to share eternally in the perfect communion of love with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But our First Parents rejected that love, and every generation since has rejected that love, preferring to embrace a counterfeit that in reality is the exact opposite of the love of God.

The love of God can be described as selfless, always mindful of the other, always willing to give all for the benefit of the beloved. The love of God is perfectly seen in the humble self-emptying and sacrificial self-offering of Jesus Christ for our sakes and for our salvation. The more we come to see the love of God as the true definition of genuine love, the more we realize what the opposite of that love is. The opposite of love is not “hate” as most people might think, but rather, the opposite of genuine love is self-love.

Unlike God’s love which is fundamentally the love of the other, fallen human love is the love of the self over the other. Even when we make our clumsy attempts to love someone else we often do so selfishly, mostly concerned with our own feelings, our needs, or even just our fear of being alone. Self-love, rooted in the sinful passions and directed by them, in every way manifests the exact opposite of what we see in God’s love. Self-love is not long-suffering; it does not bear all things, believe all things, or hope all things. Self-love is easily offended, remembers every wrong, envies the good enjoyed by friends, and rejoices in the evil that befalls those whom we dislike.

But there is more. Because of self-love we shy away from spiritual practices and nearly always refuse to be strict with ourselves in the ascetic disciplines of our faith. Self-love doesn’t think that we should “work too hard” for God, but rather should enjoy life. Self-love is also the reason why we refuse to give up our favorite sins or to struggle too earnestly against them. If the truth were told, we enjoy our sins so why should we give them up? Motivated by self-love, we would rather pamper ourselves, go easy on ourselves, shrug off anything the least bit difficult, and pursue every delightful, pleasant thing in this fallen world. It’s the broad and easy way to destruction that self-love leads us down. And all the while it assures us, “Do not fear the judgment, for God loves you!”

Yes, my brothers and sisters, God does love you. And because He loves you, He wants you to die to your twisted self-love so that you might come alive to His genuine love and be saved. Another sign that God loves us is Great Lent, which is our annual opportunity to attack the spiritual sloth and indifference brought about by our self-love and not simply cave in to it forever.

If you’ve let anything limit your Lenten participation in the past, why not approach it differently this year? Before you fall into the habit of staying home and skipping most of the services, or ignore the fast, or refuse the prayers and almsgiving, take a look at yourself and ask, “How long am I going to let my twisted self-love limit my communion with God? When will I take on the challenge to be a bit hard on myself and try to make a positive difference in my soul?” Once you ask yourself that, may I suggest your answer should be, “This year! This Lent!”? And why not? God is with us. He has given us these spiritual disciplines so that we can make a difference in our lives. The only thing that’s needed is our willingness to be courageous, to make the effort, to give it our best.

Thank God for Lent! Thank God that He loves us, though we mostly only love ourselves. May His love, through the Lenten season, deliver us from self love to embrace the genuine love of God. And may His love, shared among us as genuine love always is, save us from destruction in the coming judgment.

+To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

St. Euthymios the Great

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

Today the Orthodox Church remembers a remarkable 5th-century Armenian saint known as St. Euthymios the Great. Like many familiar stories from the bible, this one begins with a righteous Christian couple named Paul and Dionysia who, even after many years of marriage had remained barren and childless. Despite their sorrow, their faith in God remained sure, and their prayers were constant. One day they heard a voice from heaven announcing, “Be of good cheer! God will grant you a son, who will bring joy to the churches!” Soon, Dionysia conceived and in due time brought forth a son, whom the thankful parents named Euthymios, which means “good cheer”.

Euthymios was educated by his godly uncle, the priest Eudoxios. In time the boy grew to become a reader in the church, then a monk, and finally a priest. Because of his monastic zeal and great piety which soon became evident to his bishop, he was appointed to oversee all the monasteries in that region. This great responsibility weighed heavily upon Euthymios, whose deepest desire was to live a life of solitude and uninterrupted prayer. Eventually he left that country and moved, first to Jerusalem, and from there into the wilderness beyond Jericho to live amongst the desert fathers. Seeking even greater solitude, Euthymios and his close friend, the monk Theoktistos, soon moved even further into the desert, and finally found a hidden cave high on the side of a river’s gorge where they thought they could finally pray undisturbed.

God had other plans for St. Euthymios, however. It was not long before the monks’ “secret hideout” was discovered by passing shepherds, who reported the news of their discovery in the village. Soon, many people seeking spiritual guidance came out to the gorge to visit the saints. After this came many monks from nearby monasteries, also seeking wisdom. In just a short while, an entire monastic community began to be built right on the spot. Finding that he simply could not escape the will of God, Euthymios finally accepted the role of spiritual director to all those who came to him seeking salvation.

I must leave out many details to condense the story of his nearly century-long and most remarkable life. His spiritual wisdom became great, and his love for all those who sought his guidance was pure and genuine. His teaching was simple and direct. "Whoever desires to lead the monastic life,” he once said, “should not follow his own will. He should be obedient and humble, and be mindful of the hour of death. He should fear the judgment and eternal fire, and seek the heavenly kingdom." All of us would do well to heed this word.

Once, a monk named Auxentios refused to carry out his assigned obedience. Despite the fact that St. Euthymios summoned him and urged him to comply, he remained rebellious. The saint then shouted loudly, "You will be rewarded for your insubordination!" A demon seized Auxentios and threw him to the ground. The brethren asked Abba Euthymios to help him, and the saint immediately healed the unfortunate one, who came to himself, asked forgiveness and promised to repent. "Obedience," said St. Euthymios, "is a great virtue. The Lord loves obedience more than sacrifice, but disobedience leads always to death."

Euthymios was also granted the power to heal all infirmities and all illnesses among the vast numbers of people who came to him. Many other miracles came through him as well. Once, on an occasion when 400 pilgrims had descended upon his monastery and Euthymios was told there was no food for them, the saint insisted that the monks should feed their visitors anyway, and that God would surely provide. The monks returned to the storeroom expecting to see it nearly empty as before. To their astonishment, the wine and oil jars were filled, and the boxes were overflowing with bread. For the next three months the pilgrims remained and ate their fill every day, yet the food in the storeroom continued to multiply at such a pace that it blocked the doors from shutting. God had provided.

Euthymios also converted and baptized many Arabs, turning them from their error to true faith in Jesus Christ. He built lavras, which are monastic churches, and aided countless souls to find their salvation. When he served the Divine Liturgy, witnesses reported that a sort of fire often descended from heaven and surrounded him as he prayed. He himself admitted that he often saw the angels serving with him at such times. He was granted the gift of clairvoyance and could determine a person’s spiritual condition—and whether or not they took communion worthily—by merely looking at their faces.

In 451, following the Fourth Ecumenical Council which took place in Chalcedon, there remained many dissenters who would not accept the Council’s decision. St. Euthymios reviewed the decision and accepted it as completely Orthodox. When word of this got out, a great many of these people who had at first rejected Chalcedon, completely reversed themselves and accepted it, solely on the word of Euthymios—so deep was their love and respect for this saint. Thus he saved many people from error and division.

As we can see from even these few examples, he truly deserves the title bestowed upon him by the Church of “Euthymios the Great”.

At the age of 97, and informed by God that he would soon lay aside his earthly life, Euthymios gathered his spiritual children and told them, "Look to yourselves, and preserve your souls and bodies in purity. Do not fail to attend the church services, and keep the traditions and rules of our community. If one of the brethren struggles with unclean thoughts, correct, console, and instruct him, so that he does not fall into the devil's snares. Never refuse hospitality to visitors. Offer a bed to every stranger. Give whatever you can to help the poor in their misfortune."

After he had given much more guidance, he dismissed everyone and remained at the altar for three more days, until he finally reposed in the Lord on this day, January 20th, in the year 473.

What a blessing it is to remember that while the earthly portion of the lives of such saints may indeed have ended long ago, they continue to live in Christ. Remember: there is no such thing as a “dead saint”. Did not the blessed Paul assure us that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ, not even death? Thus all the saints who have reposed are very much alive in Christ—alive in fact on a level infinitely greater than our own—and dwell in union with Him wherever He Himself dwells, which by the way, is everywhere.

Thus while we commemorate St. Euthymios the Great and remember his life from so long ago, in truth, he is with us here today. If Christ is here, then all His saints are here; they could not be any other place than where He is! Furthermore, we celebrate the Divine Liturgy this morning in the company of them all. What a great and fearful blessing this is! May we never forget this most basic teaching on the mystery of Christ’s Church.

+To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Been away a'spell

Yep, it looked like The Abandoned Mind had truly been abandoned for good. Folks came a'visitin' but ole Fr. Michael was nowhere to be found. No signs of activity and no new posts in months! Did the "mind" play out and force him to find better diggin's elsewhere? Or did a cave-in way down in the earth below leave him trapped and forced to try to dig his way out with nuthin' more than his rusty old pocketknife and a broken Dairy Queen plastic spoon?

Nah, that couldn't happen. Fr. Michael would never carry a rusty pocketknife!

Nope, instead I've just been laid low a bit by a gimpy ticker. The medical term is atrial flutter. It seems the top half of my heart can't figure out how to beat in rhythm with the bottom half, and thus it just sits up there and does its own wacky thing like a hopped-up beatnik on a new set of bongos. The docs say its an electrical current problem. I had it about 6 years ago, and at that time they fixed it by making me lick my finger and stick it in a lampsocket while they giggled and secretly flipped the switch. They yelled "Clear," I yelled "OwWhatTheF***!!" and just like that, my heartbeat was back to normal.

OK, I'm kidding about the lampsocket. They used a device called a defibrillator. It obviously didn't work since I still tell the occasional fib.

Anyway, since the flutter returned after only a few years, they now tell me that the zappo-treatment probably isn't the best option at this time. It might covert the rhythm to normal again, but only temporarily. I need a more permanent fix. Too bad; I really liked what the zappo thing did for my hair. Here's a photo from back then...

Oh man, was I cool! But it's all gonna be different this time. They have decided to do a procedure called a cardiac ablation in which, as I understand it, they begin by shaving parts of you that have likely never been shaved before unless you are an exotic dancer, in order to insert catheters into places you really didn't know it was possible to do, which they then snake up all the way into your heart to zap it and burn it from the inside to destroy the nodes that are causing the bogus electrical signals in the heart muscle. This is supposed to make the top half of my heart wake up and remember its job and beat in sync with the lower half once again. If it works, that will be way cool. All except for the shaving and catheters part. The part in which I go home well is the cool part.

I will be undergoing that procedure at the end of this month (November) so if you would like to keep me in your prayers, I would very much appreciate it. The doctors say it's an easy procedure (yeah, for them) with a high success rate. I'm actually looking forward to it at this point. I must be crazy.

If all goes well, I should be cleared to return to The Abandoned Mind in a few weeks to resume my work there. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for checking in.

The Sunday After the Elevation of the Holy Cross

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

Today is the Sunday after the Elevation of the Holy Cross we continue the theme we have examined all week. As we have learned, the cross, that ancient device of shame and torturous death has been changed by Christ into the very Tree of Life by which the wounds we receive in this world are healed, our very lives are refreshed and transformed, and we are brought into everlasting life in the eternal kingdom of God. This morning I would like to expand and elaborate on some of these points to help us see how important the cross is to every Christian.

In today’s gospel lesson, our Lord declared, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”. At first blush, this may not seem like the world’s greatest invitation. In a culture which frantically seeks to avoid even gray hair and wrinkles, why would I voluntarily take upon myself something that actually promotes an image and a form of dying as a good thing? Perhaps it is because death is inevitable. We are all dying already as the result of being born into a fallen world. What the cross offers us is a safe passageway through the experience of death into life everlasting in Christ. This is why our Lord tells us that he who seeks to save his own life now by avoiding the Way of the Cross will lose it. But conversely, he who loses his earthly life through the Way of the Cross, the same shall save it in the end.

Now most of us are at least theologically aware of these things, but how practically aware are we of them? What place to we give to the cross in our daily lives, if any at all? The only way we can answer that question well is if we make the time to contemplate the cross in our lives and decide each day to live by it. Most of us are far too busy to do this. We seldom give thought to how the cross can be applied to our lives daily because we are too occupied with simply trying to get through each day, surviving its many cares, concerns, and injuries. But the cross is the very thing which can set our cares and concerns in order, and redeem and give meaning to our injuries. Thus we truly make a serious mistake if we don’t take the time to meditate upon the cross and find ways to bring it into our busy lives.

Here is an example along the lines of those I gave last Thursday night. Let us say that you have been offended by someone you know or care about. Such injuries are common in life because we are all fallen people and filled with many sins. In fact, we each contain such a toxic mix of sins and passions within us that it rarely takes very much to set us off on someone else. A careless word, a thoughtless action, a whiff of condescension in the attitude of another is often all it takes to set fire to our personal mix of sins and fill us with hurt or rage. Thus we are wounded; what will we do?

If we live in the way typical of the world, our choice will be to blame the other guy. It’s his fault after all; he offended us. To deal with this awful person, we may try to snub or avoid him. We might speak evil of him to any sympathetic audience that we know won’t judge us for our gossip. Or if we actually care about the relationship, then we will likely try to make the other person admit his offense and stop being such a pain in the fanny. And if over the years we find that we cannot change such rotten people, we will slowly find ourselves with fewer and fewer close friends and an ever-growing list of people we simply can’t stand. We might think that such grouchiness comes with old age, but it doesn’t really. It comes from our own unrepentant and steadily-hardened heart.

By always trying to change others and never changing ourselves, we are in effect trying to selfishly preserve our own sinful life and keep it just the way we like it. By doing this, we will suffer endless wounds from other people, become more and more bitter toward them, and eventually perish in our sins. He who seeks to save his life will lose it. What a sad way to discover that the words of Jesus are always true!

But the Way of the Cross is different. First of all, each of us is issued a cross that is only large enough for one. That should tell us something right there. There is simply no room to crucify the sins of others upon your cross; there is only room enough for yours. The message of the cross is simple and straightforward: I must change; I must repent. Until I am involved in this activity each day, I will constantly repeat the error of trying to change others and will forever blame them for my suffering.

When I am focused on changing others, all my wounds go unredeemed. They are just a series of endless and pointless injuries, leading me to weariness and death. But when I begin to see that the wounds inflicted upon me by others have actually been greatly amplified by my own pride, my own self-love, and my own perverse thoughts that I somehow deserve better, then I can begin to die to these atrocious sins and find that the misdeeds of others no longer hurt me quite as badly. This is what I mean when I say that the cross can redeem and give meaning to our injuries. Through the aid of the cross we can see that the wounds we receive from other fallen people land with precision exactly upon those faults that we need to change in ourselves.

This is why the fathers teach that when your brother says something that insults you, he is your best and truest friend. Flee from those who praise you, for they are only adding to your certain condemnation. But the one who has insulted you has, by this simple action, revealed in you what your years of contemplation have failed to uncover, namely your prideful desire to be well-spoken of by men and your utter disregard for the praise of God, which is given only to the humble.

What a great lesson! And yet, so few of us learn it. We remain far too concerned with correcting others, and far too negligent of our own correction. We are on constant guard every minute to protect our pride and other sins, when the wounding of them is the very thing that will save us. We have so many rules governing how people may treat us, and God help the person who violates them! In the end, I suppose we expect to be treated better than even our Lord Jesus Christ.

May God help us to humble ourselves and take on the mind of Christ, rather than the complete opposite. Let us not fear or resent the nails that pierce our flesh, for they bring healing to our souls. Such is the transformational power of the cross of our salvation.

+To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Sunday Before the Elevation of the Holy Cross

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

This Thursday evening we will celebrate the Feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross. This feast commemorated the finding of the actual Cross of Christ by St. Helena, and its lifting up and veneration by the Church ever since. We’ll discuss these events more on Thursday, but we should note that because this is such an important feast, the Church leads us to begin our preparations for it on this Sunday preceding it. The special epistle and gospel that were just read preempted the normal readings for today, and have been selected because they underscore the importance of the Cross in the life of the Christian.

From the Gospel of St. John we were reminded that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness to bring healing to all who gazed upon it, so the Son of Man is lifted up upon the Cross to bring healing to the world. If you remember the Old Testament story behind this reference, the people of Israel sinned greatly by speaking against the Lord and His servant Moses in their endless complaining over having been brought out of Egypt into the desert where they could find no food or water. To correct them, the Lord sent fiery serpents into their midst to bite them, and many of the people died. Moses, showing the heart of a true pastor, prayed for his people’s salvation even as they were bickering about him and questioning his leadership, and the Lord instructed Moses to fashion a brass serpent and erect it on a pole for the healing of the afflicted. All who looked upon the brass serpent were healed from their bites and made whole. The fiery serpents have been said to represent the sins of mankind which indeed have attacked us and led to spiritual sickness and death. The brass serpent is of course a prefiguring of Jesus Christ upon the Cross who, although He knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

In the reading from Galatians, St. Paul reminds us that we should glory in nothing but the Cross of our Lord, by which the world has been crucified to us, and we to the world.

Although these two readings cannot describe everything that the Cross means to us, they do a respectable job of illustrating the major points. The Cross of Christ is the very symbol of our healing from sin, as well as the single most vivid reminder of our need to continually die to this world and discover our true life as new creatures in Christ Jesus.

When we speak of the symbol of the Cross, we must remember that a sacred Christian symbol always contains something of the reality it portrays. The bread and wine of communion are premiere examples of this, for while these symbols speak of the Body of Christ broken and His Blood poured forth for us, they also contain the reality of that which they portray. They are bread and wine and the Body and Blood of Christ simultaneously. The same is true of the symbol of the Cross. Whether held in the hand of the priest to be venerated by the faithful, or worn on a chain about your neck, or traced over yourself with your fingers, the symbol of the Cross contains the power of the actual Cross of Christ to bring healing and newness of life to us.

Imagine the conversation of two snake-bitten Israelites discussing Moses’ latest bit of foolishness, the brass serpent. One says to the other, “Dude, come look at the serpent with me. People say they have been healed because of it”. The other fellow, the “pious” one, replies, “That’s nothing but a pagan intrusion into the faith. The bible doesn’t tell us to do that. God alone can heal us, brother; looking at some stupid snake on a stick won’t do that!” Thus the first finds healing and the second perishes, because his puritanical reasoning could not embrace the fact that God often uses physical means and symbols to bring spiritual healing and salvation to His people.

How can sacred symbols possibly accomplish such great things? As in all things Christian, it begins with the Incarnation of Christ, which represents the joining of the immaterial God to the material creation forever in the Person of the Son of God. The ancient pagans and the early Gnostics saw a separation between the pure and holy God and the fallen and evil world, and could not imagine a joining of the two. But Orthodoxy has dared to recognize that God did indeed join Himself to man and to all the material creation from which man was formed, in order to redeem man and creation by the only means possible, namely by the infusing of His own life and energies directly into us and into our world through our union with the Glorified Humanity of Jesus Christ.

Just as we recognize that the fall of man was as much physical as it was spiritual, and affected not just man alone but all of creation, so the redemption of man restores both the physical and spiritual facets of our being and extends outward to the redemption of all creation.

There is much confusion about this in Christendom today, with some believing that God will not redeem creation at all but will destroy it at the end of time to usher in an entirely New Creation. Orthodox Christianity has always recognized that St. Peter’s prophetic description of creation undergoing intense fire and the melting of its elements is not a picture of annihilation but one of purification, like gold being refined in a furnace. If God does not perfect and redeem creation in the end, then this is equal to saying that His power to save is not as great as man’s power to destroy, and thank God this is not the case!

We see this redemption now in part, as God’s energies transform sinners into saints, and water, oil, bread, and wine into holy things for the holy. The Cross stands as the greatest symbol of this transformation, for at the Cross of Christ death was transformed into everlasting life, and defeat into the greatest victory of all. The symbol of the Cross remains as a terror to demons and the consolation of believers. Its great power is the very reason the devil would have Christians today ignore it and leave it behind. But the upcoming Feast of the Elevation of the Cross reminds us that God allowed the recovery of the actual Cross of Christ by the Church so that we would never be without this great and sacred symbol as an aid to us in a world very much in need of transformation.

Let us continue to use this powerful symbol in a holy manner, and prepare ourselves throughout this week to give thanks to God for this great gift.

+To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.