Annunciation

Tags

Annunciation, Christmas, Cross, Entrance into the Temple, Holy Spirit, prayer, Sacrifice, St. Ambrose, Theotokos, Trinity

I hope you don’t mind, but I am going to continue to meditate upon what I wrote about yesterday. Namely, this image of the Theotokos in Orthodox Christian hymnody (this particular verse being sung at the Vespers of the Nativity):

The Virgin is now more spacious than the Heavens; for light has shone upon those in darkness, and has exalted those of low degree who sing like the Angels: Glory to God in the highest.

The Evangelist tells us in Luke 1:31 that the Archangel Gabriel informed our Holy Lady the Theotokos that

You will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus

because (Luke 1:35)

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you.

That is to say, the Holy Spirit descends upon Mary and Jesus Christ, the Incarnate God, enters her body. This very same salvific action happens during the Divine Liturgy to Orthodox Christians. The Holy Spirit descends upon us and the gifts set forth and changes the bread and the wine into the very Body and Blood of Christ.

In other words, when we take communion we experience what Mary underwent at the Annunciation. For, as St. Ambrose states in the twelfth chapter of his treatise One the Holy Spirit:

There is communion between the Father and the Son is plain, for it is written: ‘And our communion is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3). And in another place: ‘The communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all’ (2 Cor. 8:14). If, then, the peace of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, the grace one, the love one, and the communion one, the working is certainly one, and where the working is one, certainly the power cannot be divided nor the substance separated. For, if so, how could the grace of the same working agree?

Here, again, we find the marvel of the Incarnation: in the moment we take communion, not only do we experience what the Theotokos underwent at the Annunciation, but we, too, are made more spacious than the Heavens. In that moment we can ask of ourselves: How is that the uncontainable is contained within me?

There is one caveat, here, however. During the Canon of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, celebrated on November 21, we sing repeatedly:

You, O pure and virgin Maiden, are truly superior to all.

We say this because Mary experienced the descent of the Holy Spirit and the Incarnate God within her through faith. In order that the rest of us experience this truly awesome mystery, Christ had to go to the Cross. So, too, must we all pick up our Cross in order to follow Him and experience that which the Theotokos underwent at the Annunciation and become more spacious than the Heavens. Amen.

Tabernacle

Tags

Entrance into the Temple, Kontakion, St. Ambrose, Tabernacle, Theotokos, Worship

St. Ambros’ treatise On the Holy Spirit is written in the form of a letter to the Emperor Gratian, who reigned from A.D. 375 to 383 and, through the influence of Ambrose, was a champion of the Nicene faith over and against both Arianism and its off-shoots as well as paganism. Written in A.D. 381, it coincides with the Second Ecumenical Council which affirmed that the Holy Spirit is God “even as the Father and Son are God: who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and together glorified.” These words echo those of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed that Orthodox Christians recite at every Divine Liturgy — the section on the Holy Spirit being added to the Creed at the Second Ecumenical Council, convened at Constantinople.

Ambrose begins the First Chapter of his letter to Gratian by complimenting the Emperor on his decision to restore the Basilica to the Church. One might be tempted to chalk this compliment up to what we today crudely call “brown-nosing;” however, Ambrose insists that this decision had its source in the grace of the Holy Spirit:

So, then, we have received the grace of your faith and the reward of our own; for we cannot say otherwise than that it was of the grace of the Holy Spirit, that when all were unconscious of it, you suddenly restored the Basilica. This is the gift, I say, this the work of the Holy Spirit, Who indeed was at that time preached by us, but was working in you.

He uses this compliment to launch into a defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Thus, he argues that the inspiration for the restoration of the Basilica to the Church did not come from a mere creature (as Arianism and its off-shoots would claim) but God Himself.

This is particularly important to realize today, on the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple when we sing this Kontakion:

The whole world is filled today with joy and gladness on the Theotokos’s auspicious and resplendent feast, whereon with great voice it cries out: In truth, she is the heavenly tabernacle.

The tabernacle is the tent that God instructed Moses to make in order to house the ark of the covenant. Both the Temple and Orthodox Churches are modeled after the tabernacle. The narthex is where the Hebrews would bring their sacrifices. The nave (where, today, the Orthodox Christian laity worship) is where the sacrificial altar for the burnt and liquid offerings was — where only the priests were allowed. The altar, behind the iconostasis, is where the Holy of Holies was — where the ark of the covenant was — and could only be entered once a year. The tabernacle was where God resided — specifically where the ark was.

According to the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, Ioakim and Anna present their daughter Mary to the Temple when she was three years old as a temple virgin. Therein she enters the Holy of Holies in preparation for her role as the Mother of God.

Historically there were two Temples — the first built by Solomon which was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the second built after the Babylonian Exile. The second Temple — the one Mary entered — did not house the ark.

Thus, in her role as the Mother of God — the womb wherein the Incarnate God resided — she is the new ark. She is, as the Kontakion declares, the heavenly tabernacle. This is why most Orthodox Christian Churches have the icon of the Platytera — the Theotokos as a throne whereupon the Christ-child sits — behind the altar. This would be where that ark of the covenant would be in the architecture of the tabernacle.

This reality — in truth, she is the heavenly tabernacle — happens through the descent of the Holy Spirit, whereupon the Incarnate Christ comes to reside in her womb. This same reality happens during every Divine Liturgy. The Holy Spirit descends upon Orthodox Christians and the Gifts. The Gifts become the very Body and very Blood of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. Then, Orthodox Christians partake. In that moment, we participate in the reality of the Theotokos-as-heavenly-tabernacle because just like her, the Holy Spirit descends and Christ resides in us.

If the Holy Spirit is not True God, of one essence with the Father and the Son this reality is not possible. If the Holy Spirit, through His descent upon us and the gifts, is our source of communion, His being merely a creature and not God would only grant us access to that which we already have — creation. We would have no access to God. Christ’s Incarnation and Crucifixion would be rendered meaningless.

This is why St. Ambrose and the Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council insisted that the Holy Spirit is God — so that we, like the Theotokos herself, could be a tabernacle of God Himself. Amen.

God’s Good Will

Tags

Christmas, St. Gregory Palamas, Theotokos, Worship

13· But what is the cause of this praise from men and angels together and this much-extolled good news which so gladdens the shepherds and all men? “Behold”, it says, “I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10). What does this mean, and what is this universal joy? Listen to the Gospel song to the end and you will understand. “Peace,” it says, “good will toward men” (Luke 2:14)· For God, who was angry with the human race and subjected it to terrible curses, has come in the flesh, granting His peace and reconciling them to the heavenly Father. Behold, says the hymn, He has not been born for us angels, though now that we see Him on earth we extol Him as we do in heaven, but for you men, that is to sav, for your sake and in accordance with your nature a Saviour is born, Chris; the Lord, in the city of David.

14· What is meant by linking God’s good will with peace? “Peace”, it says, “good will toward men”. There were times before when He gave signs of peace to men. To Moses “the Lord spake, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exod. 33:n); and He found David a man after His own heart (1 Sam. 13:14, Acts 13:22); and He granted tokens of peace to the whole Jewish nation when He came down upon the mountain for their sake and spoke to them through fire and the thick dark cloud (Exod. 19:9, 16-18, Deut. 4:10-11), but not according to His good pleasure. For good will refers to that which is in and of itself well-pleasing, the original and perfect will of God. It was not the original and perfect will of God that He granted benefits, and not even perfect ones, to certain men or to one nation only. That is why, just as God called many people His sons, but there is only one in whom He was well-pleased (cf Matt. 3:I7; 17:5), so He gave His peace on many occasions, but only once accompanied by His good pleasure, which He grants, perfect and unchanging, through the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ to every race and to as many as desire it. — St. Gregory Palamas, Homily Fifty-Eight on the Saving Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior

God does not desire for His creation to be separated from Him. He does not desire us to be subject to the terrible curses of decay, disease, pain and death. He does not desire to be angry with us. It is His Good Will to be well pleased that Christ has taken on all our humanity so that we might be with Him — that we have the means to enjoy His eternity. He never desired only a few chosen to enjoy his favors. He never desired for only one nation to be with Him to eternity. His wish is for all people of all nations to have access to Him. We have this in and through the Incarnation of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ:

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. — Galatians 3:28

Come, let us rejoice in the Lord as we declare this present mystery. The middle wall of partition is broken asunder; the flaming sword is turned back, the Cherubim withdraw from the Tree of Life, and I partake of the Paradise of Delight, whence I was cast out before through disobedience. For the identical Likeness of the Father, the Express Image of His eternity, takes the form of a servant, and without undergoing change He comes forth from a Mother that knew not wedlock. For that which He was, he has remained, even true God; and that which He was not, He has taken upon Himself, becoming man out of love for man. Unto Him let us cry: O God, Who art born of a Virgin, have mercy on us. — Stichera from Great Vespers of Christmas

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Eureka!

Tags

Christmas, Joseph, Manasseh, prayer, repentance, Theotokos, Worship

Today, during the Gospel, we are faced with the temptation of tuning out, rolling our eyes and wondering why is it necessary that we listen to all these “begats” and strange names? Such a temptation fails to understand the richness of today’s Gospel (Matthew 1:1-25). There are wonderful stories behind each of these names and these wonderful stories each reveal something to us about Christ. There is so much here that I have been struggling all week just to narrow it down to something to preach about — if I were to try and chase everything down available to us, we would be here for hours.

Normally, I’d chase down the oddities in this list — the law requires that ancestry be traced through the male lineage, yet Matthew mentions five women. These women have a lot to tell us about Christ. Due to time restraints, however, I am merely going to ask that you chase these names yourself. Rather, today I am going to focus on two names — one from the Old Testament and one from the New — Manasseh and Joseph.

Manasseh was the son of the righteous King Hezekiah. According to both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He built altars and to pagan gods — even in the Temple — and worshipped idols. When Manasseh ignored the warnings of God, the Lord allowed him to be captured by the Assyrians and put in fetters. In this humbled state, Manasseh cried out to the Lord in repentance (which at its root means to turn around — turn towards God). In our rich Orthodox liturgical tradition we have Manasseh’s Prayer which we have as part of our Great Compline service. Using the same imagery that God used in His promise to Abraham about the number of offspring God would give him, Manasseh cries out (and we with him), “I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea.”

Although Manasseh was returned to Judah and tore down all of the pagan altars, poles and idols that he had previously built, St. Paul tells us in today’s Epistle that Manasseh’s (albeit beautiful) repentance didn’t really gain him much:

And all these [faithful from the OT], 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. — Hebrews 11:39-40

This promise — this “something better” — was found by Joseph. Note the eighteenth verse of the first chapter of Matthew:

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.

This word “found” falls flat in the English translation. It doesn’t have any connotation of amazement. The Greek — εὑρέθη — does. It is the root for the English word “eureka!” In other words, “Eureka! Mary is with child by the Holy Spirit!” Thus, Joseph knows from the beginning the importance of this child. So much so that the devil (depicted in the icons of the Nativity) tries to tempt Joseph to disobey the Law — which calls for adulterers to be stoned — and put Mary away and divorce her.

Of course, he doesn’t because he heeds the words of the angel Gabriel:

Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. — Matthew 1:20-21

The name “Jesus” means “Saviour.” Note what the angel says that He will save us from: our sins — our separation from God. This is only something that God Himself can do. Thus, Joseph understood from the very beginning that the child Mary carried in her womb was God Himself.

God, whose flesh He took from the likes of Manessah. He embraces even those who do evil in the sight of the Lord. This is the “something better.” This is the fulfillment of the promises made by God to all those faithful throughout the OT — Emmanuel! God is with us!

What an honor it is to be a Christian. What a gift it is to worship a God who loves us so much that He was willing to do all these things for us. How awesome is that when we repent — when we turn towards God — we get the fullness of the promise that is Jesus Christ.

Today the Apolytikion tells us that “Great are the achievements of faith!” It goes on do demonstrate one of the many amazing things that happened in the OT through faith — the three holy youths in the furnace fire unharmed. We have more than they did.

Let us all, then, have the repentance of Manasseh and turn toward God. Then, let us all have Joseph’s “eureka” moment when we take to heart the reality of the gift that God has given us through Jesus Christ. Let us embrace the opportunity to give Him thanks and take advantage of all the Orthodox Church has to offer through Her worship services. Come and see and be amazed. Amen.

Bible Study Notes: Chasing Names

Tags

Abraham, Barak, Bathsheba, Christmas, David, Manasseh, Old Testament, Rahab, Ruth, Tamar, Theotokos

From the perspective of studying the Bible, the readings from the Sunday before Christmas (Hebrews 11:9-10;32-40 and Matthew 1:1-25) are absolutely some of my favorites. Both the Epistle Reading and the Gospel Reading are replete with names and stories from the OT. It is a wonderful invitation to chase these stories down and to see how they speak to us about our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. In our limited time this week, we did not begin to cover all of these stories, but here are the ones that caught our immediate interest:

The promises made to Abraham first appear in their most basic form in the twelve chapter of Genesis:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” — Genesis 12:1-3

These promises do not find their fulfillment until Christ and the founding of the Church. Our land is the Kingdom of God. Our nation is the Christian people. Christ (and by extension the Church which is His Body) blesses all of the families of the earth because Christ has united Himself to our human nature — embracing everyone. Please note how Matthew traces Christ’s human lineage back to Abraham.

Barak is one of the Judges that was called by God to defend the people against their adversaries. His story coincides with that of Deborah in Judges chapters 4-5.

David is a King, as opposed to a Judge. The people of God transitioned from being a nation without an earthly king — the era of the Judges — to being a kingdom at their own request. This request angered the Prophet Samuel, but God said to him, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” (1 Samuel 8:7) This is a key verse and it is a caution to all who place their faith in earthly governments. Our true king is Christ, not any earthly power. Samuel then goes on to tell the people about the reality of what they are asking for:

These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in that day.— 1 Samuel 8:11-18

The people get what they ask for in Saul. Then to prove the point, God gives them a pair of good Kings — David (the Beloved) and Solomon the wisest man ever to walk the face of the earth. David was a murderer and an adulterer. Solomon fell away from God and became an idolater. Even the best of earthly kings and politicians will fail us.

Matthew specifically mentions five women in Christ’s genealogy:

• Tamar is the daughter-in-law of Judah — the founder of the tribe of Judah. After her husband, his brother (Judah’s sons) and Judah’s wife die, she seduces Judah, disguised as a prostitute, in order to get pregnant with his child. It is this child, Perez, that continues the lineage of Christ (cf Genesis 38)
• Rahab is the prostitute that helps the spies of Joshua escape the city of Jericho. She is spared from the coming destruction by identifyinh her household with a red chord. This is reminiscent of the mark of blood that the Hebrews place on their door to be passed over by death in Egypt. She goes on to become the mother of Boaz, who marries Ruth.
• Ruth is a Gentile who insists on staying with her Hebrew mother-in-law despite the fact that they have no men to protect them and she is an outsider
• The wife of Uriah (Bathsheba). King David commits adultery and murder in order to get Bathsheba as a wife. This is emphasized by the way Matthew refers to her — not by her own name, but by her rightful and murdered husband.
• Mary is he mother of Jesus.

This all speaks to the humanity that God has united Himself to in the person of Jesus Christ. It includes prostitutes, adulterers, murderers, and Gentiles. In other words, God has embraced everyone, no matter who they are, where they come from or what they have done.

Finally, we highlighted one more name: Manasseh. He was the son of the righteous king Hezekiah. After the efforts his father to return the Kingdom of Judah back to the proper worship of God, Manasseh falls back into idol worship, for which he is condemned in both 2 Kings (21:2-16) and 2 Chronicles (33:2-19). His story does not end there, however. According to 2 Chronicles, he is captured by the Assyrians. After repenting, he returns to Judah and his father’s ways (cf 2 Chronicles 15-17). His prayer of repentance (found in what is called the “Apocrypha” by Protestants) is part of the Orthodox Christian Great Compline. Its text is as follows:

O Lord, Almighty God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of their righteous seed; who hast made heaven and earth, with all the ornament thereof; who hast bound the sea by the word of thy commandment; who hast shut up the deep, and sealed it by thy terrible and glorious name; whom all men fear, and tremble before thy power; for the majesty of thy glory cannot be borne, and thine angry threatening toward sinners is importable: but thy merciful promise is unmeasurable and unsearchable; for thou art the most high Lord, of great compassion, longsuffering, very merciful, and repentest of the evils of men. Thou, O Lord, according to thy great goodness hast promised repentance and forgiveness to them that have sinned against thee: and of thine infinite mercies hast appointed repentance unto sinners, that they may be saved. Thou therefore, O Lord, that art the God of the just, hast not appointed repentance to the just, as to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, which have not sinned against thee; but thou hast appointed repentance unto me that am a sinner: for I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea. My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied: my transgressions are multiplied, and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven for the multitude of mine iniquities. I am bowed down with many iron bands, that I cannot lift up mine head, neither have any release: for I have provoked thy wrath, and done evil before thee: I did not thy will, neither kept I thy commandments: I have set up abominations, and have multiplied offences. Now therefore I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching thee of grace. I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge mine iniquities: wherefore, I humbly beseech thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me, and destroy me not with mine iniquites. Be not angry with me for ever, by reserving evil for me; neither condemn me to the lower parts of the earth. For thou art the God, even the God of them that repent; and in me thou wilt shew all thy goodness: for thou wilt save me, that am unworthy, according to thy great mercy. Therefore I will praise thee for ever all the days of my life: for all the powers of the heavens do praise thee, and thine is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

A Royal Wedding

Tags

Christmas, Gospel, Holy Spirit, Old Testament, Psalms, St. Gregory Palamas, Theotokos, Worship

As I noted on Saturday, I pay attention when a Father of the Church quotes the Old Testament. So, when St. Gregory Palamas highlights Psalm 45:2 in his Homily Fifty-Eight on the Saving Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior, I went and re-read Psalm 45. Once again, Palamas demonstrates a level of intimacy with Scripture that I can only hope to aspire to.

On its surface, Psalm 45 is about a royal wedding. As St. Gregory points out, it praises the beauty of the king. Interestingly, most (if not all) English translations disagree with his reading of the verse. Whereas Palamas insists that the language is not comparative (He is fair in beauty beside the sons of men), these translations are:

You are the most excellent of men and your lips have been anointed with grace, since God has blessed you forever. (NIV)

Of all men you are the most handsome, gracefulness is a dew upon your lips, for God has blessed you for ever. (NJB)

You are fairer than the sons of men; Grace is poured upon Your lips; Therefore God has blessed You forever. (NKJ)

You are the most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. (NRS)

It is useful to look at the Septuagint Greek translation (noted as LXX), the translation St. Gregory most likely knew and used.

ὡραῖος κάλλει παρὰ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων

The key word here is παρὰ, which can be translated as “from (the side of)” in the genitive case which implies a comparison. This is how all English translations have come about. Palamas, however, uses παρὰ in the dative, where it means “beside.” St. Gregory isn’t playing a linguistic trick, nor are the various English translators wrong. Both are correct, depending on what perspective the Psalm is read. It demonstrates how the Holy Spirit uses language — in the same way Christ uses parables:

He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that ‘looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand.’ — Luke 8:10

As I noted earlier, Psalm 45 is about a royal wedding; however, the Church understands it to be a messianic Psalm with images of Christ as the bridegroom and the Church as the bride. St. Gregory understands Psalm 45:2 from this perspective, so he sees παρὰ in the dative, not the genitive.

Key to understanding this perspective is verse 6, where the king is called God:

Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity.

In verse 7, we get a glimpse of a Trinitarian understanding of God:

Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

The first God in this verse refers to the king — the Son — and the second God — the God of the king — refers to the Father.

In other words, St. Gregory quotes this Psalm, not out of happenstance, but because it specifically speaks to the Nativity. It helps us understand the reality of Christ — He is King, He is the Son of God, He is God and through His Incarnation He weds Himself to His Church. Not only that, Psalm 45 is the source of these verses which the Church strongly associates with the Theotokos:

Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty. — Psalm 45:10-11

This is used as a Prokeimena (the verse chanted prior to an Epistle or Gospel reading) on feasts for the Theotokos.

Again, St. Gregory has the Nativity in mind when he seemingly refers to Psalm 45 in passing. It not only helps us understand the person of Christ, but it calls to mind His mother through whom He chose to take on flesh — the very event Palamas is preaching about.

This just goes to show how important the Old Testament is. In fact, Fr. Eugen Pentiuc, professor of the Old Testament and Hebrew at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, insists that we know more about Christ from the Old Testament than we do from the New. Seeing Psalm 45 as St. Gregory does allows us a glimpse of just how true this is.

Before Her Pain Came Upon Her She Delivered a Son

Tags

Christmas, Entrance into the Temple, Isaiah, Old Testament, St. Gregory Palamas, Theotokos

One of the most stunning claims made by St. Gregory Palamas in the second paragraph of Homily Fifty-Eight on the Saving Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior is that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ without any labor pains:

He is born without suffering, as He was conceived without passion, for as His mother was shown to be above the pleasure of passion when she conceived, so she is above grievous pains when she gives birth.

He quotes Isaiah 66:7 as his proof:

Before the pain of travail came upon her, she escaped it.

This is what I love about reading the Fathers. They have a relationship and a knowledge of Scripture that puts modern man to shame. Whenever I encounter a short verse like this, the cynical modern man in me wants to believe that it is taken out of context from some obscure section of the OT, and will most probably have nothing to do with (in this case) the virgin birth.

Fortunately, I have experienced this before and I never cease to be amazed at how I always find myself re-reading Scripture with new eyes when I follow the Fathers of the Church down these apparent rabbit holes. Reading Isaiah 66 from the perspective of our Most Holy Lady the Theotkos and Virgin Mary, is like taking light to a diamond — it reveals its stunning beauty. Take for example, the opening verses:

Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is my resting place? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things are mine, says the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word. — Isaiah 66:1-2

Modern biblical scholars will tell you that these verses are merely about the temple; however, we are fresh from the the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple where the Church declares:

The Savior’s most pure and immaculate temple, the very precious bridal chamber and Virgin, who is the sacred treasure of the glory of God, on this day is introduced into the House of the Lord, and with herself she brings the grace in the divine Spirit. She is extolled by the Angels of God. A heavenly tabernacle is she! — Kontakion of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

In other words, St. Gregory has not taken Isaiah 66:7 out of context. He knows very well that the Church understands that the verse, and the verses around it, are speaking of the Virgin Mary.

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word: Your own people who hate you and reject you for my name’s sake have said, “Let the Lord be glorified, so that we may see your joy”; but it is they who shall be put to shame. Listen, an uproar from the city! A voice from the temple! The voice of the Lord, dealing retribution to his enemies! Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be delivered in one moment? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor she delivered her children. Shall I open the womb and not deliver? says the Lord; shall I, the one who delivers, shut the womb? says your God. Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her — that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious bosom. — Isaiah 66:5-11

Amen.

The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

Tags

Christmas, Entrance into the Temple, Katavasiæ, Theotokos, Worship

Whenever we encounter a reading from Scripture that is associated with a specific feast, we must understand that the Church has already interpreted it for us. We must therefore look at it from the perspective of the feast in question. Thus, the Church is calling us to see this reading from Hebrews in light of God’s Mother, our most holy Lady, the Theotokos and more specifically, her Entrance in the Temple:

Brethren, the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. For a tent was prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence; it is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain stood a tent called the Holy of Holies, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, which contained a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. — Hebrews 9:1-5

Since the story of this feast cannot be found in Scripture, we must turn to the hymnody of the Church. This, from the Kathismata of the feast, tells us the basic story:

The feeder of our Life, now an infant in body, the offspring of the just Joachim and Anna, is offered to God today in the holy Sanctuary. She was blessed therein by the priest Zacharias. Therefore let us all, with faith, proclaim she is blessed, for she is the Mother of the Lord.

However, the key to understanding today’s reading from Hebrews is found in the Lauds:

V. When they saw the Entry of the all-pure one the Angels were astonished at how the Virgin entered into the Holy of Holies.

Now let no uninitiated hand approach the living Ark of God to touch it. Rather let believers’ lips sing out in exultation the Angel’s salutation unceasingly to the Theotokos and cry out: You, O pure and virgin Maiden, are truly superior to all.

According to the Church, not only was Mary dedicated to the Temple, but she entered the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest was allowed to go once a year. When describing the Temple, St. Paul tells us “Of these things we cannot now speak in detail” (Heb 9:5) because they no longer had access to the First Temple, destroyed by the Babylonians. The Second Temple — the temple in which the Virgin Mary was presented — no longer had “these things,” especially the Ark of the Covenant whose proper place was in the Holy of Holies.

Note how the Church not only claims that the Theotokos went into the Holy of Holies, but equates the Theotokos with the Ark of the Covenant. The metaphor calls attention to the proper function of the Ark — the place where God dwelt. The Theotokos is properly called the Ark because she is the place where God dwelt in the person of Jesus Christ. This, by the way, is one of the reasons that we see the icon of the Theotokos, called the Platytera, behind the altar in most Orthodox Churches — the place where the Ark of the Covenant would have been in the First Temple.

This calls attention to the amount of preparation that God has taken for our salvation. He chose Mary from birth and prepared her for her role in salvation history. Indeed, God’s preparation goes back generations:

Let us with faith extol in song the Virgin Mary, child of God, of whom the assembly of Prophets prophesied and of old declared to be the tablet and the rod, the mountain that was quarried not. For she is introduced today into the Holy of Holies, to be fostered by the Master. — Exaposteilarion from the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

All of this, however, does not diminish Mary’s free will. She had the choice to reject her role. She did not have to say, Thy will be done (or more specifically, “let it be with me according to your word” — Luke 1:38).

What this demonstrates to us is that God has a place for each of us in the story of salvation. Just as he gave the Virgin Mary a means to prepare herself for her role — today’s feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple — He has given us means to prepare for our role. The key is our free will. Are we willing to prepare for our role in the story of salvation? Are we willing, as the Virgin Mary was, to say Thy will be done?

The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple takes place in context of our preparation for the Nativity of Christ. Today we do not sing the Katavasias for the Theotokos, we sing the Katavasias for Christmas. We are a week into the Nativity Fast. In other words, we have before us an opportunity to prepare — not just for Christmas, but for whatever it is that God has prepared for us. This is an opportunity for us to re-center our lives on Christ through fasting, through prayer and through alms-giving. It is an opportunity for us to enter the temple with the Virgin Mary and eagerly await for our chance to say Thy will be done.

Today the animate temple of the great King comes into the Temple, to prepare herself to become His divine dwelling. O peoples, be exultant. — Troparia after Psalm 51 from the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

Amen.

The Forefeast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple

Tags

Christmas, Entrance into the Temple, Gospel of Judas, New Testament, Protoevangelium, St. Ireneus, Theotokos, Worship

By blossoming forth the only Ever-virgin as fruit, today holy Anna betroths us all to joy, instead of our former grief; on this day she fulfills her vows to the Most High, leading her with joy into the Lord’s holy temple, who truly is the temple and pure Mother of God the Word. — Apolytikion of the Forefeast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple

I am going to pause today from St. Gregory Palamas to speak about an oft neglected part of our preparation for Christmas — the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple. Today is the Forefeast of this celebration where we commemorate, as declared in the Apolytikion, Anna fulfilling her promise to God to dedicate her daughter Mary as a Temple Virgin. This act itself prefigures Mary’s own role in the history of salvation as the temple of God the Word — a reality without which Christmas doesn’t happen.

Of course, one of the first questions our Protestant friends might ask (if we are not asking it ourselves) is where does this story come from? The answer, in part, is the Protoevangelium of James. I say in part, because this text bubbles up out of Tradition (more on that in later). We find the Church acknowledging aspects of this text in its services (including the Conception of the Theotokos on Dec. 9, the Nativity of the Theotokos on Sept. 8 and the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple on Nov. 21). We can therefore accept these elements that show up in the services with confidence.

The Protoevangelium of James is not part of the NT canon for one simple reason — it does not deal with the apostolic kerygma of Christ crucified and risen. Yet, the Church still recognizes the book as significant by celebrating the Mariological feasts recorded in it. In other words, the term Apocrypha (meaning hidden or spurious) is a misnomer in the case of the Protoevangelium of James.

This means that the formation of the Biblical canon as we have received it today is not as simplistic as one might be led to believe (though it is rather simple). Christians have been writing about their faith since beginnings of the Church. It took almost three centuries for there to be a consensus as to what belonged in the NT Canon and what was simply good for reading.

Please Note: there were a number of texts also written by the heterodox which were rightly rejected by the Church (the Church has every right to determine what is and isn’t Christian). An example of one of these rejected works is the Gospel of Judas, which the Orthodox Church had known about for over a millennium through the writings (and righteous rejection) of St. Ireneaus when the book was recently “discovered.”

Some examples of the books that the Church sees as good for reading include the Epistles of Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas, both of which were popular enough to be read in the services of the early Church.

In other words, the formation of the NT canon was a process — something that came out of the Tradition of the Church, where Tradition is understood to be the collective experience of the Church. We should not be ashamed of this reality. In fact, we should embrace it. The issue of whether or not the Gentiles should be circumcised was dealt with in a very similar manner. Please note how the Council of Jerusalem declares their decision:

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us — Acts 15:28

The Bible vs. Tradition is a false dichotomy. We celebrate the Forefeast of the Entry of the Theotokos today to remind us that through the Theotokos — the temple of God the Word — and the child that she bore, we, too, have been made into the temple of God. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself, and it is He that has guided us from the beginning. Amen.

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Feminism (Updated)

Tags

Anne Rice, Christmas, equality, feminism, Secularism, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Photini, Theotokos

I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen. — Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicals

Continuing my series of posts in reaction to this quote, today I will write about Rice’s second complaint — that Christianity is anti-feminist. This is actually a tougher task than it might seem, not because the Church is inherently anti-woman (it most definitely is not, as will be seen) but because there are so many different brands of feminism. For simplicity, I will deal with the definition of feminism as found in Webster’s Dictionary:

1. the theory of the political, social, and economic equality of the sexes.
2. organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.

Let me begin with the radical equality found in Christ:

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. — Galatians 3:28

This reality is ultimately found in the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ — an activity in the Orthodox Church that is open to every member of the Church, regardless of age, sex or ethnic background. Beyond this, women have been specifically highlighted in the life of the Church:

• the first person to hear the Good News of the Incarnation: a woman (the Virgin Mary — Luke 1:31)
• the first sign performed by Christ in His ministry: done at the request of a woman (the Virgin Mary — John 2:5)
• those who were brave enough to stand by Christ at the Cross: women (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, Salome, the Virgin Mary, etc. — Matthew 27:55, Mark 15:40, Luke 23:55, John 19:25)
• those who were first given the Good News of the Resurrection: women (Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and Salome and others — Mark 16:6, Matthew 28:6, Luke 24:1)
• the first person to witness the Resurrected Christ: a woman (Mary Magdalen — Mark 16:9)
• the first apostle: a woman (St. Photini the Samaritan Woman and Equal-to-the-Apstles — John 4:39)
• the first European convert: a woman (St. Lydia — Acts 16:14-15)
• the Saint the Church invokes more often than any other: a woman (the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary — of the Twelve Major Feasts, five are Mariological: Nativity of the Theotokos, Presentation of the Theotokos, Christmas, Annunciation and the Dormition of the Theotokos)

All of this is rather significant, given the context within which Christianity arose. In the ancient world, women were second class citizens. An institution dedicated to making women second class citizens in a world that saw women as second class citizens would never rely so heavily upon the testimony of women, nor raise women to such a degree of honor. Thus, Christianity fits both definitions of feminism according to Webster’s.

Additionally, there is no other philosophy, religion or political entity that can justify or defend the equality of women better than Christianity. Divorced from the radical equality found in Jesus Christ, all of these quickly fall apart in the face of the real objective inequality between men and women (men are definitely not the equals of women in terms of childbirth, for example). In order to justify equality in the face of this objective inequality, one must in some way deny reality and force a false reality upon oneself and others. The beauty of Christianity is its acceptance of these objective differences and, at the same time, the miracle that in Christ we are radically equal despite these differences.

UPDATE: I just ran across a sermon by St. John of Damascus on the Dormition of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. I share this quote, because it flies in the face of any notion that Christianity is anti-woman or anti-feminist:

There is no one in existence who is able to praise worthily the holy death of God’s Mother, even if he should have a thousand tongues and a thousand mouths. Not if all the most eloquent tongues could be united would their praises be sufficient. She is greater than all praise.