Greatness, Mystery, Accessible and Permissible, Time and Inner Power

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Atheists, Christmas, Pascha, Resurrection, Secularism, St. Gregory Palamas, St. John Chrysostom, Worship

Today I’d like to spend some time with the second sentence of the first paragraph of St. Gregory Palamas’ homily (I told you I could spend several days here):

Our address must be exalted therefore in accordance with the greatness of the feast, and enter into the mystery, as far as this is accessible and permissible, and time allows, that something of its inner power might be revealed even to us. — St. Gregory Palamas, Homily Fifty-Eight on the Saving Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior

There are five words/phrases that jump out to me: greatness, mystery, accessible and permissible, time and inner power. Let me explore each of them in turn.

Greatness

I spent some time yesterday on this, but it bears repeating: Christmas is one of the Great Feasts. I myself struggle with this — when the first Christmas commercials start as early as September/October, it is difficult not to be cynical. Let me quote the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom:

Remembering . . . all that came to pass for our sake, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious coming.

None of these things are possible without the Incarnation, without the Nativity of Christ. Therefore, if we rightly understand that Pascha is the Feast of Feasts, we must acknowledge the greatness of the Nativity without which Pascha cannot happen.

Mystery

How can anyone rationally explain the Virgin Birth? Despite what the secularists and atheists would like us to believe, there are limits to what human reason is capable of. This is especially true of our understanding of God. Again, from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom:

You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same; You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit.

Notice how God is described — St. John Chrysostom is using apophatic language. In other words, what God is not, rather than what He is. God cannot be contained by language, human reason is limited, a virgin birth cannot be explained and that is okay. It is a mystery, but one that has benefitted us all beyond our imagination.

Accessible and Permissible

There is an irony in these words that is not immediately apparent. God is not the one who limits the accessibility of the Nativity. God is not the one who denies us permission. We do. God has declared to all the world His Gospel. The Church has always acted in the open (they may have met secretly in times of persecution, but one need not look much further than St. Justin the Martyr to see that even under the threat of death, early Christians were very open as to what it was they were doing when they met). God has definitively acted within history. Our access to this reality is only limited by our own actions and belief. Are we going to give ourselves permission to celebrate the greatness of the Incarnation or not? The choice is ours.

Time

Time is part of creation. It, as is everything in creation, is radically different than God. This understanding allows us another layer of greatness to add to the Nativity — God not only became Incarnate, but entered into time.

Inner Power

Let me revisit the quote above from St. John Chrysostom:

Remembering . . . all that came to pass for our sake, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious coming.

All these things not only necessitate the Nativity, but they are all done for our sake. God does not need them. He didn’t have to do all these things. He chose to. He chose these things for all of us — for you. Imagine for a moment Christ on the Cross. As God, He is All-Knowing. Therefore, He knew of you. His love for us is so great, that He was willing to go through torture and death for you.

That knowledge, in itself, is power. God loves you no matter what. How much different can be your day, year, life be if you walk around secure in that knowledge? May we all accept the reality of the Nativity, accept all that has been done for our sake and live it. Amen.

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Sunday of the Paralytic

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Gospel, Holy Spirit, Pascha, Pentecost, Resurrection, Sin, Worship

John 5:1-15

This morning there was a little bit of confusion by the choir because they were expecting the Doxalogical hymn of Pascha, which ends with ‘Christ is Risen.’ This is a very reasonable expectation because we are still celebrating Pascha and will be until Ascension. This is the reason why we see all the bay leaves and all the flowers. They are out because we are still celebrating. The tomb has been opened.

We throw the flowers and the bay leaves all over the place because St. John tells us that Christ was buried in a garden tomb (John 19:41). We imagine the power of God and the energies present when Christ is risen from the dead bursting forth with power, glory, fragrance and wonder from the tomb. This is why we see the priest throwing the bay leaves and flowers on Holy Saturday crying out Arise O Lord! And we still have the kouvouklion out. It represents the tomb and note that we place in it the icon of the Myrrh-Bearing Women at the Empty Tomb. So, this stays out for 40 days.

Yet, today is the first Gospel Reading we hear on a Sunday after Pascha that isn’t directly related to the Resurrection. On Thomas Sunday, right after Pascha, we see Thomas encounter the Risen Christ and place his hands in the mark of the nails and in His side. Last week we read about the Myrrh-Bearing Women discovering the empty tomb. In contrast, today we read about the Paralytic next to the Sheep Pool. This is before Christ went to Golgotha and was crucified — before we know Him as the Risen Christ.

The reason for this is that in the life of the Church we are in periods of expectation and periods of celebration. Great Lent is an example of one long act of anticipation. We anticipate Pascha and saying to the world, “Christ is Risen!” Then, after Pascha, for 40 days we continue to say it: “Christ is risen from the dead, by death he has trampled death and to those in the tomb He has granted life!” We sing this over and over and over again. At the same time, however, we begin to anticipate Pentecost.

In today’s Gospel reading, we see hints that the Church is beginning to turn its attention towards Pentecost. The Sheep Pool, Bethesda, had a liturgical significance to the life of the Jews. The Gospel according to John speaks of the festival of tents, which the Church equates with Pentecost. There was a liturgical act that the Jews used to do during this festival. The priests would take a big, golden pitcher to the Sheep Pool to take water from the pool to use as a liquid sacrifice at the altar. Thus, the Church is using the story of the Paralytic, which happens next to the Sheep Pool, to pique our interest and get us to start anticipating Pentecost.

On top of this we hear about the descent of the Angel of the Lord upon the waters, which reminds us of both the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles at Pentecost and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the waters at our own baptism. We are reminded of the glorious miracles through the presence of the Holy Spirit that made it possible for the Holy Apostles to go forth and accomplish, against all odds, the great commission to baptize all the nations in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Given this context, I’d like to read you today’s Kontakion, read during Orthros this morning:

I have sinned in every way, I have improperly acted; therefore with paralysis my soul is woefully stricken. Raise it up, O Lord, through Your own divine attention, even as of old You raised up the paralytic, so that saved I may cry, Glory to Your dominion, O my compassionate Christ.

The Church is making the story of the Paralytic into a metaphor. It reminds us of the reality of the fallen world. Though each and every one of us may be a faithful Orthodox Christian, though we make time in our lives to come to church on a Sunday morning, though we make time for Him in our daily lives, each of us — including and especially myself — sins. This reality of sin is like a paralysis and if left untended, it will paralyze our whole life. The cure for this paralysis, according to this morning’s Gospel reading, is coming into the presence of Jesus Christ. By a word, He heals the paralytic, “Pick up your pallet and walk” (John 5:8).

Our cure is the same. Come into the presence of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ and the paralysis of our sin is healed. It is washed away. The most obvious way that we come into the presence of Christ is what we do every Sunday. Christ is on the Table. His Body and Blood are right there. We are given the great blessing to partake of them. He is with us.

The challenge for all of us is to take this moment, this liturgy — this work of the people — and apply it out in the world. We must make choices on a daily basis to be in the presence of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. This is made possible out in the world by the descent of the Holy Spirit.

We are the Temples of God. The Holy Spirit is with us always. As we say at the beginning of many of our services:

O heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who are everywhere and fill all things, the treasury of blessings and giver of life, come and dwell within us and cleanse us from every blemish and save our souls, O Good One.

We participate in the Holy Spirit with the life of the Church. We do this when we choose prayer over turning on the TV or the computer to catch up on the morning news — something I struggle with. We do this when we choose to be at church during the week — whether to do work around the church (such as maintenance) or to attend Bible Study, Chant Class or a service — instead of playing golf, catching up on work, watching a movie, etc. These are choices we are given on a daily basis. So we need to make the choice to make the time to be with our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. Make the choice to pray. Make the choice to spend time with Scripture — to learn about our Savior.

During Orthros this morning, we read about Cleopas and Luke on the Road to Emmaus. Our Risen Lord opens up the Scripture for them, about how all of them speak about Him. He wasn’t taking about the Four Gospel accounts or the Epistles (they didn’t exist yet!), He was speaking about the Old Testament. As Christ tells us, the OT is replete with information about who Jesus Christ is. We need to make the choice to look for Him there. Make the choice to be with Him, to get to know Him and understand who He is.

When we make the choice to be with someone who needs our help, who needs our presence — “For two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20). Thus we make the choice to visit people in the hospital and those in need in order to bring Christ with us where ever we go. We make the choice to be with Christ through other people — the people we see on a daily basis.

Make the choice to live that life where we get out of the way — we must decrease so that Christ can increase within us, as St. John the Baptist says (see John 3:30). When we make these choices to live and walk with with Christ all the time, when we allow the Holy Spirit to flow through us unabated by our own fallenness we will see miracles happen.

This past week, I was talking to a friend of mine, who happens to be a pastor. He was struggling with the idea of miracles. He says to me, I read the Scripture and about all these miracles — where have they all gone? I told him about what they tell you on Mt. Athos. You will see miracles on Mt. Athos every day, but don’t make a bid deal out of it, because it’s normal. When you are with God, when you walk with Christ every where you go the miraculous is normal. The miraculous is the way the world should be. A world without miracles is abnormal — it is not what God intended for His creation. When we make the choice to walk with God, our hearts are softened, our eyes are opened, our ears will open and we will see and hear miracles every where we go.

So, let us cry out to our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, heal me of the paralysis of my own sin. Be with me. Walk with me. Allow me to see and hear Your work in Your world through me.

Christ is risen from the dead, by death He has trampled death and to those in the tombs, He has granted life.

Amen.

Earth Day

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Al Gore, Earth Day, Environmentalism, James Cameron, Pascha, Resurrection

Today is Earth Day. I know this because, as a father of three children, various television channels have been screaming “Earth Day is Thursday!” at my family for a week now. As I write this, these same channels are now spewing forth propaganda into living rooms across the U.S., as opposed to the stuff that my generation grew up with (and wouldn’t have a prayer of getting produced in today’s zealously PC environment):

Now, let me be very clear, I have nothing against living in harmony with our environment. As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us that we should be living up to our roles as the royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9) and take care of God’s creation (Gen 1:26). However, I do have a problem when we actively take God out of the equation. Though we are less than a month after Pascha (Easter) — and the Orthodox are still in the midst of celebrating the Resurrection — I have heard more about Earth Day in the last 24 hours than I have about the Risen Lord in the past month. This is idolatry.

In 2 Chronicles (33:7-8) we see King Manasseh become an idolater:

He put a sculpted image, an idol which he had had made, inside the Temple of which God had said to David and his son Solomon, ‘In this Temple and in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I shall put my name for ever.

In context of Christ, the Temple is now Humanity, because God now resides in us — both the Holy Spirit when we are chrismated, and in the person of Christ who is perfect God and perfect man. Thus, when we bring into our lives anything that keeps us from God or that we make more important than God, we have made it into an idol. St. Paul confirms this logic in Colossians (3:4-5):

When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Environmentalist leaders, such as Al Gore and James Cameron have taken to calling those who question man-made global warming “deniers.” This kind of language recalls the lapsed — those Christians who, in the face of martyrdom at the hand of Roman authorities, denied Christ by sacrificing to the image of the Roman Emperor. Thus, we have replaced Christ with environmentalism, global warming and the earth itself.

Charging forward into a “green” lifestyle sans God, and without a careful examination of all the consequences, can only lead to disaster. Take the Toyota Prius, for example. It is one of the biggest users of rare earth metals of any object in the world. If every vehicle in the world became a hybrid or electric, we would be trading one limited resource (petroleum) for another more scarce resource. What are the long term environmental consequences? Those metals have to be extracted from the earth, just as petroleum does. What impact does this type of mining have? We still need to produce efficient electricity to run these vehicles — where does it come from? Are we asking these kinds of questions, or are we bowing down to the idol of environmentalism?

As Christians, we should be taking care of the garden — co-creating with God and sanctifying His creation. We also need to be prophets, warning the world that turning our back on God, as Adam and Eve did, has dire consequences.

Christ is Risen!

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Pascha

The Gates of Brass

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Pascha, Psalms, Worship

Just yesterday, I was reading a prayer from the Book of Needs which, in listing all of the things that God has done for us, mentioned the shattering of the gates of brass. This, in turn, brought to mind the hymn we sing at the Vespers of Pascha on Holy Saturday:

Today, Hades groaning cries out, “It would have been better for me if I had not received the One born of Mary, for He came upon me and destroyed my power. He shattered the gates of brass and the souls which I held captive of old He resurrected as God.” Glory, O Lord, to Your Cross and Your Resurrection!

Both of these prayers are based upon Psalm 107:16, “For He crushed the gates of brass and shattered the bars of iron.” Placed in context, we are given an image of Christ descending into Hades to shine His glory upon the countless dead trapped there from the beginning of time:

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His mercies and His wonders to the sons of men;

For He fed the empty soul and filled the hungry soul with good things,

Those sitting in darkness and shadow of death, bound in poverty of fetters;

For they rebelled against the teachings of God and provoked the counsel of the Most High;

Thus their heart was humbled by troubles; they were weak, and there was no one to help them;

Then they cried out to the Lord in their afflictions, and He saved them from their distress;

And He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their chains to pieces.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His mercies, His wonders to the sons of men;

For He crushed the gates of brass and shattered the bars of iron.

He helped them out of their lawless ways, For they were humbled because of their transgressions.

Their soul abhorred all manner of food, and they drew near the gates of death;

Then they cried out to the Lord in their afflictions, and He saved them from their distresses;

He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from their distress. — Psalm 107:8-20

Amen.