The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (4:5-42)

How beautiful is Our Lord Jesus Christ?  How overflowing is His love?  How merciful is His heart towards us as sinners?  The moment that we think we have an answer to these questions Our Lord breaks through our preconceived notions and shatters them completely and shows Himself to be far above anything that we think that we understand.  This became clear to me once again as I read and prepared for this week’s gospel reading.

We are told that the Lord Jesus Christ was in the region of Samaria.  As many of you know, this is not a Jewish region.  Samaritans are not Jews.  They are like an offshoot from Judaism, they would be something like schismatics, those who make a schism or break off from the larger group.  I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ came to this particular reason, not because He was thirsty for water, but because He thirsted to do the will of His Father and to bring a certain Samaritan woman to salvation.

Not so coincidentally this woman whom we call Photini, came to the well, but she did so at a very strange hour, at the sixth hour or noon.  To me this is strange since typically in a warm climate the people will go to the well either very early in the morning or very late in the day after the sun has started to go down.  Perhaps she was going to the well in the middle of the hot sun because she did not want to encounter anyone.  Perhaps she felt shame over the state of her life and her situation.

In fact we are quite sure that she felt shame since she tried to hide her broken situation from the Lord Jesus Christ when He told her to go and call her husband and she tried to lie to his face saying “I have no husband.”  

But first we notice something quite beautiful.  Our Lord asks her for a drink.  He sees this woman and He knows her to be someone who is living in sin.  He comes down to her level.  He doesn’t behave as if He is above her, although He is in fact above all the heavens and the earth.  He bends low in His person in order to ask her for a drink of water.  This is really quite important.  It is so shocking to her that she questions him because it is well known that Jews don’t have any dealings with Samaritans.  They were considered like a different class of people who did not honor God and believe as the Jews believed.  Yet He condescends not only to speak with her as a Jew but as the Son of God.

He does this because through appearing to need her assistance, He gets her to open up and to enter into a conversation.  This is always the path to salvation, conversation and engagement with Jesus Christ.  What follows is the single longest conversation that Our Lord had with one person in the whole New Testament.

He asked her for water but in fact He was getting ready to give her living water.  The water that she could offer him was natural water from the well.  One would drink some of it and just a little while later they would be thirsty and would require another drink.  Yet the water that Our Lord would offer her would be water that never runs out, water that continually refreshes, water that changes life forever.  He promised her this water and He immediately grabbed hold of her interest.  She wanted this water because she was tired and thirsty, but He knew that what she was really after was something much deeper.

In our lives we grow thirsty and tired.  We thirst for so many things and then when we receive them we are still surprisingly unhappy.  Think for a moment of the multitude of pop stars and actors who had everything, fame, fortune, influence and yet they were not happy and kept running to try to satisfy the thirst even more and typically because they ran towards the wrong things they found this thirst was never satiated.  They grew even more thirsty and they would follow these urges towards their own destruction, often through broken relationships and drugs among other things.  

Each one of us also has thirsts.  You can’t pretend that you don’t have them.  They are part of the human condition.  But where do we go to receive refreshment?  Where do we go to have our thirst quenched?  For Photini, she was thirsty for love and companionship.  So thirsty in fact that she was willing to live outside of the law of God to have it.  She had had 5 husbands, and we don’t know what happened to them.  We don’t know if they died or if they gave a certificate of divorce or what exactly happened to them.  And now this Samaritan woman was with a man to whom she was not married.  And she tried to hide this fact but the Lord saw right through her.  He examined her heart like a good surgeon and He knew immediately that she was seeking meaning in her life and that she was seeking deep and lasting love.

She found this deep and lasting love in the person of Jesus Christ.  From the very first moment that He spoke with her, He began to bestow His grace on her.  He began to fill her heart which was empty with that living water.  She allowed this to happen and because she engaged with Him, He filled her with a new joy and over time we have learned through our sacred tradition that His thirst became her thirst, that is, she thirsted to do God’s will and to share this living water which was given to her, with others.  

“At Pentecost Saint Photini received baptism, along with her five sisters, Anatole, Photo, Photis, Paraskeve, Kyriake, and her two sons, Photeinos and Joseph. She then began a missionary career, traveling far and wide, preaching the good news of the Messiah’s coming, His death and resurrection.

When Nero, the emperor of Rome, began to persecute Christians, Photini and her son Joseph were in Carthage, in Africa, where she was preaching the Christian gospel. After Jesus appeared to Photini in a dream, she sailed to Rome. Her son and many Christians from Africa accompanied her. Photini’s arrival and activity aroused curiosity in the capital city. Everyone talked about her, “Who is this woman?” they asked. “She came here with a crowd of followers and she preaches Christ with great boldness.”

Soldiers were ordered to bring her to the emperor, but Photini anticipated them. Before they could arrest her, Photini, with her son Joseph and her Christian friends, went to Nero. When the emperor saw them, he asked why they had come. Photini answered, “We have come to teach you to believe in Christ.” The half-mad ruler of the Roman Empire did not frighten her. She wanted to convert him! Nero asked the saints their names. Again Photini answered. By name she introduced herself, her five sisters and younger son.

The emperor then demanded to know whether they had all agreed to die for the Nazarene. Photini spoke for them. “Yes, for the love of Him we rejoice and in His name we’ll gladly die.””

Her life continued with many more trials and tortures and yet she overcame them all because the water that was in her was much more powerful than the fire within the emperor.  Hers was the living water, the water of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus.  Let us also receive Christ gladly and we will receive everything that we need to quench our deepest thirsts and to drink of the water of His glorious resurrection.  Christ is risen!

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark 15:43-16:8

“Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He has

risen, He is not here; see the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His Disciples and Peter that

He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him, as He told you.”

These are the words of the angel at the scene of the tomb of Jesus. “Do not be amazed”. But let us think about that for a moment. The angel is telling these women not to be amazed although the event that has just taken place is completely utterly amazing by every possible definition of the word.

You know that often people who might mean well but who know very little about religion will tell you that truth is relative and that all major religions are basically the same etc etc, so on and so forth. I beg to differ. You see there is only one major religion in the world that claims that its leader was crucified like a common criminal. In most cases you see religions that look at their leaders in a triumphalistic way, but with a crucified Lord where is the triumph? Yet amazingly with Christianity we see another feature not found in the other major religious groups. The impossible, unfathomable claim that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.

I submit that no other religion has the guts to make such a claim because no one could even imagine such an event. Who in their right mind would believe it? Even in the case of celebrities such as Elvis we see that people always imagine that he is alive…the difference is that some are convinced that he never actually died. But that is hardly the case with Jesus of Nazareth. His crucifixion was a public event seen by many. His disciples went into hiding for fear of the Jewish authorities. They felt that they would be the next ones to be crucified for following Jesus.

So we as the hearers of this gospel are forced into this situation where the angel is telling the women not to be amazed while it is quite apparent that what has in fact taken place is epic, cosmic and yes, amazing. But here is the reason why the Angel tells them not to be amazed……The Lord Jesus not only told them all that He would do it, but since He is God, His ability to do it is simply not amazing. The angel understands this because he understands the true nature of the Son of God. Life is a simple thing to the source and giver, to the Creator of life.

When our thinking is forced to change in such a crucial way that is called a paradigm shift. With the true revelation of the identity of Jesus, there is a new paradigm, a new set of rules…..a new reality. 2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” All things become new in the light of Jesus Christ, in the light of His suffering, His death and His defeat of death.

The resurrection is not simply an afterthought in our lives. It is not simply something that happened 2000 years ago to Jesus in a far away land. The resurrection is ours…..it is our hope and reason for a life of joy. It is a reminder that even when things in our life are looking bad, maybe terrible, nothing really scares us because Our Lord is greater than these things. If anything does scare us it should be that we don’t have enough faith and that we don’t take enough care for our souls to protect ourselves from falling into sin, for this we should each be terrified. But we shouldn’t worry about the things of this world and the threats of this life because Our Lord Jesus Christ has conquered the worst that the world could throw at Him while saying “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

The one who has overcome the world has overcome not only the little difficulties of life, He has overcome the worst things that we can even imagine. Injustice, cursing, reviling, slander, imprisonment, suffering, torture and finally death. If He is my Lord and Master and if He has endured and defeated all of this, and if He has permitted me to draw near to Him and to partake of His life, then shouldn’t I see the whole world and all of my life and all of my struggles and sufferings differently?

St. Barsanuphius of Optina writes, “You need not be despondent. Let those be despondent who do not believe in God. For them sorrow is burdensome, of course, because besides earthly enjoyment they have nothing. But believers must not be despondent, for through sorrows they receive the right of sonship, without which is impossible to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The resurrection is indeed the amazing event that proves to us that the rules have changed. It proves to us that Jesus has overcome death and subjected it under His feet. This tells us that because He is on our side, we can and will overcome whatever is thrown at us. But we won’t so this by our own power and strength, we are powerless without Him. But through Him, we become “a new creation.”

It is true that until we begin to understand the identity of Jesus Christ as the only Son of God we are amazed by the story of the resurrection. But after we understand His identity, the story is much less amazing because it is a story about life and life is the signature of God. Yet we are still amazed because He has allowed each of us the opportunity to enter into His unending life.

May we see His signature all over our own lives.

(based on homily preached April 29, 2012)

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (25:31-46)

I want to share a few words from one of our modern saints, St. Nektarios of Aegina. He said,

“After the end of the General Judgment, the Righteous Judge (God) will declare the decision both to the righteous and to the sinners. To the righteous He will say: ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;’ while to the sinners He will say: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” And these will go away to eternal hades, while the righteous will go to eternal life. This retribution after the General Judgment will be complete, final, and definitive. It will be complete, because it is not the soul alone, as the Partial Judgment of man after death, but the soul together with the body, that will receive what is deserved. It will be final, because it will be enduring and not temporary like that at Partial Judgment. And it will be definitive, because both for the righteous and for the sinners it will be unalterable and eternal.” — St. Nektarios

According to our Lord in today’s gospel, this is coming for each of us. This will happen. Our Lord is not guessing or trying to scare us, He is telling us the truth out of His immense love for us. And according to this gospel passage the criteria for the judgment will be our love or lack of love for everyone even those who are the most difficult to love. Love even for those who are easy to ignore. According to Our Lord Jesus, God will accept and welcome those who open their hearts and welcome others into their lives.

This is not an easy task. To take care of the poor or to visit the sick or the prisoners or to help those in need is an effort. It requires a sacrifice of time and effort. But these are the things that make us like God, our Father. While none of this is easy, it is blessed by God! What is better, to have an easy life and lack God’s blessing or to have a difficult path that is infinitely blessed by the Lord? No doubt, the second option is better. Well, my brothers and sisters, that option is available to you.

This path is still open to you today. Take hold of this calling and this invitation to serve and to care for others who have no power to care for themselves. If we accept this and attempt to live this way, it will change us. We will be transformed by acts of love. Start with small acts of sacrifice for your own family and friends. This will help train you and prepare you for more and more. We become saints when our lives are a living sacrifice and this is your potential in Christ. And if we have not lived for others until now, if we have lived for ourselves and our own pleasures, let us consider turning back, repenting and confessing. Now is the time my friends, because God is waiting for us.

I will leave you with a short excerpt from the Canon of St. Andrew, which we will begin reading in about one week…“The end is drawing near, my soul, is drawing near! But you neither care nor prepare. The time is growing short. Rise! The Judge is near at the very doors. Like a dream, like a flower, the time of this life passes. Why do we bustle about in vain? [Matthew 24:33; Psalm 38:7]

Come to your senses, my soul! Consider the deeds you have done, and bring them before your eyes, and pour out the drops of your tears. Boldly tell your thoughts and deeds to Christ, and be acquitted.”

+ The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, Mon 4.2-3

May we boldly give mercy that we may receive it from our King and Judge. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (15:11-32)

If we desired to walk away from God would He prevent us from doing so? If we desired to betray Him would He stop us? If we truly desired to live in sin and rebellion and to destroy our own souls would God stop this from happening?

We see these questions answered in the parable of the prodigal son. Prodigal means wasteful or reckless. This reckless son desired to be far away from his father’s house. He desired to take his inheritance and leave. The father not only allowed him to leave but he honored the request and gave him his share of the inheritance. Likewise, God has done the same for us. Sometimes we have moments in our life when we allow our passions and feelings to direct our lives. We might even become convinced that we should run away from God or run away from His Church. When do this we demonstrate that we are absolutely like the prodigal son. We can be reckless and wasteful with the gifts that were given to us by grace from God.

Sometimes we become too haughty and prideful and we begin to think that our bodies or our brains or our talents or riches are our own to use as we please and we forget that health and intelligence and talents and wealth are gifts from our Father. This is a great sin. Yet as we see in today’s passage, God allows us to go on ignorant and reckless and prideful if that is what we desire. If we choose to leave the comfort of His home, which is actually the Church and if we choose to cut ourselves off from the table and the food that is served at the Father’s table, as did the prodigal, God will not stop us, just as the Father did not stop the son. The table would be the Holy Altar, and the food is the teaching of the Holy Church and her sacraments. These things give life to us and nourish us only when we are near to them and choose to partake of them with humility and joy. But we see that sometimes people, especially the young and immature, like this prodigal, desire something different. They see the comfort and warmth as uncomfortable. They see the teachings that are meant to give them life and they regard them as poison. They see their father’s love and they sense that it is painful. They can become curious about life outside their father’s home. They may desire to run away and they imagine that they will find something better on the outside, away from their Father’s house. And the Father will allow it.

If we desired to walk away from God and from His house and from the safety of His teachings and from the nourishment of His sacraments He would allow it. Why is this? Because He loves us. For a time He would put up a few obstacles and He would work very hard to turn our hearts back to Him, but He can’t force us. Our Lord did not even force Judas the betrayer to turn back, in fact He looked directly at Him and said, “do what you have to do.” Our Lord tells us the same. You feel that you need to walk away and betray Christ. You feel that you need to fall into sin. You feel that you need to be lazy. You feel that you need to put other things ahead of Christ. You feel that you need to reject the teaching of the Church. So be it. Christ will allow you to do so if that is what you desire.

The father in today’s passage allowed his son to leave and he gave him many riches and blessings right before he left. The father was wise. Had he not given him anything then the young man would have been resentful and had a cause for anger with his father. But later, he had no one to blame but himself. Likewise God has given us everything for our life. You can’t blame God for your situation. You received new life through baptism. You received the gift of the holy spirit in Chrismation. You receive spiritual nourishment and renewal through Holy communion. You receive divine food in the teachings of Christ and His Church. You received the blessings of the prayers of the saints. You were served and your wounds were tended to and cleaned by the servants of the house who work for the father. You received forgiveness and mercy through Christ and His Church. So you lacked nothing. So if we then choose to leave God, we are left without any excuse.

The young man first contemplated his departure from the house and then he executed it. We do the same. First we start with a seed of an thought towards sin and then we move from a seed to an action of rebellion. St. James writes,  “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James 1:14-15

If we choose to live like the prodigal, then we eventually find ourselves alone and empty just like the prodigal. But in fact, this was precisely why the father allowed his son to leave. Because he loved him and he knew that he couldn’t control him or change his heart through force. God our Father also loves us. He loves us so much that He will allow us to go wherever we please. But He is also wise. He knows that sometimes after we leave and we experience the pain of the world, the pain of our choices, the emptiness of our lives, the distance and the coldness away from God and from His house, then sometimes, some will come to their senses and return. Some will repent and in their pain and sorrow and hunger and thirst they will remember that their Father was always good to them. They might cry out to Him and run towards His house.

Many of us have experience this and we turned back, we repented, we came to our senses and ran back to the living God and to His Church because we realized that we were truly lost and our souls were withering without the grace of God and the life giving treasures of the Church. Thankfully the story of our lives doesn’t have to end in rebellion and in brokenness or spiritual death. Through the parable of the prodigal son we are witnesses to God’s generosity of spirit and mercy and true love for His children, for you and for me. Indeed we see that the father waits near the doors of his estate and looks for any sign of his sons return. When he catches a glimpse of his son, he doesn’t wait at the house, but runs to meet his son who was lost. He runs to embrace him and to celebrate his return.

If you have been struggling and living far away from God in your heart, know with certainty and faith that He is waiting for you precisely where you left Him. Turn around. Speak to Him. Apologize to Him. Invite Him back into your life. It is the joy of God to dwell within us and to truly be our Father and our God. He will forget everything in the past and will welcome you back into His house, in to His kingdom, not merely as a servant, but as His very son or daughter. But I leave you with a warning from St. Augustine who writes “God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.” -St. Augustine of Hippo

Glory be to God forever, AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (17:12-19)

There were ten lepers who met Our Lord Jesus Christ as He was entering a village. Lepers are people who have a disease called leprosy. It is relatively uncommon in the first world countries but it is a disease that affects the skin. It is also contagious. When someone developed this disease it was akin to a death sentence because they were forced to live far away from the healthy people within their families and within the community. So they travelled together in packs of lepers.

These ten lepers saw Jesus and we are told that they “lifted up their voices” and said “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” For me there are at least 3 significant points we can take from this reading. The first is that it is necessary for each one of us to lift up our voices to God in prayer. We may not need to say many words, but the words that we say have to come from a genuine depth in our hearts, we need to follow the example of the lepers and lift up our voices, or the voice of our hearts to the Lord. It only took 6 words to grab hold of the attention of the Lord Jesus that day. 6 words changed their lives. The lepers who were completely cut off from the world around them and from their own towns and families somehow found a way, with merely 6 words, to receive the blessings of God incarnate. The words they used are familiar to us, especially to those who have practiced the Jesus prayer. This is an alternative version of the same prayer. Jesus, have mercy on us. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Our Orthodox tradition of spirituality and prayer tells us that these words, when repeated by one who is truly struggling to live according to the Lord and within the life of the Church, will open up new dimensions and avenues for increasing our knowledge of God and receiving grace to heal us. So these words should really be second nature to us. We should have them ready all day, at every moment. At the first sign of trouble, “Lord Jesus have mercy on me.” At the first sign of temptation or bad thoughts “Lord Jesus have mercy on me.” When you wake in the middle of the night with anxiety and worry, “Lord Jesus have mercy on me.” When you feel spiritually rotten and unable to do work, “Lord Jesus have mercy on me.” When you are preparing to undertake any work or project, “Lord Jesus have mercy on me.” When you are worried about someone, such as a friend or one of your children, “Lord Jesus have mercy on (name).” For spiritual inspiration, for renewal and for the cleansing of heart, we raise our voices with the name of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus is so powerful as the Apostle Peter reminds us, “…there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12

Next we should take notice that after Our Lord heard the pleadings of the lepers, He gave them instructions. We notice that they immediately responded to His guidance. They obeyed without hesitation! How many times has the Lord tried to help us and to heal us but we refused to be healed? How did we refuse? We did not immediately follow through with obedience to His teachings and to the teachings of His body, the Church. The one is the extension of the other. If you love Christ, you must love His bride and His body, the Church for which He gave His life on the cross.

St. Cyprian of Carthage writes, “one cannot have God as his Father unless he has the Church as his mother.” It means that we show honor, reverence and deep respect to the teachings of Christ and His Church. We can’t piecemeal the teachings of the Church or of Our Lord Jesus Christ and pick and choose what is convenient for us. If we pick and choose it means that we worship our own minds and feelings, not the living God. So if you find someone who claims to love Christ but they don’t believe the teachings of the Church on basic theology and morality, you should run far away, because that person cannot help you or teach you. They won’t offer healing for your soul. Everything is given within the teachings of Christ and His Church for the healing of our souls and not to coddle our feelings or stroke our egos.

Frequently God shows us what we ought to do to be healed, He reveals things to us either through our reading or in our prayers or through the guidance of a priest or through the wisdom of a fellow Christian or some other avenue. How do we respond to that? With hesitation, with doubt, with a spirit of contradiction, or with faithful obedience?

Now as the lepers went away in obedience to the Lord, they were healed of the physical illness. This is remarkable on it’s own, but something even more remarkable happened at that moment. One single leper, who was a Samaritan, not a Jew, turned back and went to the Lord Jesus Christ to offer thanks and praise. He was so moved, so overwhelmed by what Christ had done in healing him that he fell on his face at the feet of Jesus and gave thanks.

It is such a powerful moment because this man was the only one who turned back to give thanks to God and it is even more powerful because we now know that this many was not a Jew. He was not of the people of God. Yet in his heart he was faithful and he showed the demeanor and the actions of one who truly knows God. How often has God answered our prayers? How often has God showed each of us mercy? How often has God healed us, in our souls and our bodies? Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we don’t often give God the glory or praise which is due to Him. As the children of God, it is our task and our life to give thanks to God in every situation and condition. That might surprise us. We might be inclined only to give thanks when things are going well in our opinion, but that is not correct. God is always working on behalf of His children, even when we don’t pay attention or recognize this.

As St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ..” (Eph 5:20) When the leper returned it pleased our Lord greatly. It likewise pleases Him when we come with gratitude and give Him praise for His many rich mercies. Only step back for a few moments and you will see the Lord’s hand all over your life and you will have many reasons to thank Him.

Finally, I leave you with a quote from St. John Chrysostom who writes,

“Let us give thanks to God continually. For, it is outrageous that when we enjoy His charity to us in deed every single day, we do not acknowledge the favor with so much as a word; and this, when the acknowledgment confers great benefit on us. He does not need anything of ours, but we stand in need of all things from Him. In point of fact, thanksgiving adds nothing to Him, but it brings us closer to Him. For if, when we recall the contributions of men, we are the more warmed by affection for them; much more, when we continually bring to mind the benefits of the Master towards us, shall we be more earnest with regard to His commandments.” + St. John Chrysostom, Homily 25, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew

May each of us be like the Samaritan leper, filled with this gratitude to Christ for all of His great work towards us and may this gratitude be convertedinto acts and lives filled with holiness and love. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (4:12-17)

We hear really amazing words today as St. Matthew the evangelist quotes from Isaiah the prophet once again. We notice this as a heavy theme throughout the gospel according to St. Matthew. He is constantly quoting from the Scriptures. By the way, this word “scriptures” when it is used in the gospels and in the New Testament, as well as when it is used in the creed that we recite during the liturgy, this word refers to the books of the Old Testament. Now Matthew is constantly quoting from the Old Testament Scriptures for a very specific purpose. He is a Jew and his goal is to convince all of the Jews that this man Jesus of Nazareth is very special. That He is in fact the chosen one, the anointed one, the Messiah. Matthew uses the Old Testament to make his defense and to prove to those who have ears to hear, that Jesus is the Christ, and that everything that He has done was previously spoken of throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. Furthermore, he demonstrates that so much of the life of Jesus Christ was foretold by the prophets.

Now this is a very interesting claim. Those who are opponents of the Church, such as atheists and pagans, will say that we have no proof that the Old Testament was not tampered with. Perhaps, they claim, the Old Testament was rewritten or verses were added to it after the fact to make it seem like Jesus Christ fulfilled the prophecies when in fact it hadn’t happened. To those claims we offer the proof of the dead sea scrolls which were discovered between the years 1957-1956. Many of the scrolls that were discovered dated back to at least the 3^rd century before Christ. They also demonstrated more than 95% textual accuracy including the scroll of Isaiah the prophet.

“But wait!” say the unbelievers, “Perhaps Jesus Himself engineered His life in such a way as to make sure that He fulfilled the prophecies that were written about the Messiah?” So according to this line of thinking, Jesus spent His time focused on fulfilling prophecies for the sake of fulfilling prophecies so that He would appear to be the Messiah. For instance, Jesus decided to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey to fulfill the prophecy that says “ Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Zech 9:9

Now let us examine that claim more closely. Did you know that most of the prophecies fulfilled by Our Lord Jesus Christ are completely out of His control? For instance, His birthplace and the place where He grew up are not possible to self-engineer. In addition it would be impossible to engineer the most important aspects of His life including the crucifixion and the actions of the soldiers such as casting lots for His garments and piercing His side with a spear or leaving His bones unbroken. All of these moments were prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus of Nazareth lived on earth and yet none of them can be manufactured at will.

Some of these points were further developed by a mathematician named Peter Stoner who calculated that the odds of any one person in history fulfilling just eight of the key Old Testament prophecies is about 1 in 10 to the 17^th power or 1 in 100 quadrillion. Now if we try to understand this it is too difficult for the human mind. The numbers are simply too large. But here is one example that has been used to help:

“Suppose we cover the entire state of Texas with silver dollars, to the depth of 2 feet. Take one of the silver dollars and mark an “X” on it. Thoroughly mix the coins (including the one with the “X”). Spend any amount of time randomly walking around the state, blindfolded, and then randomly pick up one of the coins. What is the chance that the coin you randomly picked would be the one with the “X”? About the same as a person randomly fulfilling these eight prophecies.”

Now this is the probability with just eight key prophecies from the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, while in reality He fulfilled about 300.

Of course we don’t use these points as empirical proofs for our faith, but they are bread crumbs that show us the way. They point to the truth. What is this truth? Jesus Christ Himself is the truth and the life. When we understand this with our hearts and live this hope in our bodies and in our bones, then we have light because Christ is the light of the world. His light wipes away our darkness. It wipes away the darkness of our hearts. It wipes away the darkness caused by our sins and sinful desires. This light of Christ, as we cultivate it in our lives, begins to truly attach to us. It changes us. It becomes a part of us.

We become filled with this light, the light of the grace of God, the light of the Holy Spirit. This is symbolized by the halo or the nimbus that we see around the heads of the saints in our iconography. The saints are like us but they are not people who sit in darkness or the shadow of death. That is reserved for those who either don’t know God or who choose to separate themselves from God. The saints are like us but they move towards Christ with their whole being, with their lives. They make friends with the light of Christ and they follow His teachings and the light of Christ becomes theirs. They become lamps that hold the flame of Christ. They are lamps that are capable of bringing the warmth and the light of Christ to others.

In our world there is still so much darkness. There are so many places where the light of Christ has not permeated, even in our own town or perhaps in our own families. But we were once in that same place, in the darkness and by God’s grace, we have received the Light. Now we are the ones who carry that light to the regions of darkness and to places that seem quite dead. We come to others with joy in our hearts and when we see them struggling and in darkness, we can gently, lovingly say “All is not lost. God exists and He is still working in the world. God loves you so much more than you could ever imagine. God proved it through His Son Jesus and His Son proved that His love was more powerful than any force that exists on earth, even more powerful than death itself. And those who turn from their wrong way of life and believe in Christ and are baptized will partake of this love and will also conquer death with Him.” That is the gospel and it still has the power to transform and change our lives one person at a time. And that is truly good news for all us. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (1:1-8)

Today we hear the beginning of the gospel of St. Mark. According to some scholars there is a belief that the gospel of Mark was the “source material” for both Matthew and Luke when they wrote their gospels. In fact as you compare these three gospels, known as the synoptic gospels, side by side, you will see that they have many similarities. Some scholars believe that his work was written in Alexandria, Egypt, while others believe that it was written in or near Rome.

St. Mark begins this gospel with these words, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” We understand that the word Gospel here means “the good news.” It is a declaration of the work that God has done through His Son Jesus. St. Mark starts this gospel by attaching it to the words of Isaiah the prophet. He is connecting the work of Jesus Christ to what was anticipated and foretold through the Old Testament Scriptures. He writes, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

Isaiah the prophet wrote this about John the baptist, calling him the messenger who will cry out to the people and tell them to “prepare the way of the Lord and make His paths straight.” St. Mark goes on to say, “John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”

John the baptist is mentioned in this gospel at this point in the church cycle because it is the Sunday before the great feast of Theophany (also called Epiphany) in some traditions. On this day of Theophany, which we will celebrate tomorrow evening, we commemorate and rejoice in the day that Our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized as well as the manifestation of the Holy Trinity above the river Jordan.

It should be mentioned that the baptisms of John and the Christian baptisms are not the same, however they contain some important similarities. First they are not the same because the baptism of John the baptist was mainly a symbolic baptism. It was an outward declaration of a change of heart and a change of our path. But wait a minute, did Jesus ask John the forerunner to baptize Him because He needed to change His heart or His path? Did Jesus ask to be baptized for the washing away of sins? Not at all. He was and is perfect and sinless at all times. Our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized in order to sanctify and bless the very act of baptism. He took a symbolic baptism and by allowing Himself to be baptized, he infused this activity with special grace that is given to us when we are baptized in water in the name of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He blessed it and gave what was a ritual, real transformative power. In fact, this baptism is necessary for each and every one of us when we become Christians.

For us as Orthodox Christians, following the teachings of all of the apostles and especially St. Paul, baptism in Christ is the giving of newness of life. Baptism is the putting on of Christ. It is burial and resurrection with Christ. It is the washing away of sins. It is the adoption into the household of God.

Closely associated with this baptism is also the reception of the seal of the Holy Spirit which was in early times given through the laying on of hands by the apostles and is now given through the anointing with sacred Chrism. A few of you who were previously baptized as Christians will receive the anointing of Chrism tomorrow evening by God’s grace. By this anointing you will become temples of the Holy Spirit and you will become small “Christs” that is you will literally be anointed ones.

While the baptism differs from that of St. John the baptist, it is also similar in that it requires a true change of heart. As we prepare to celebrate this feast we hear these words of St. John the baptist and the prophet Isaiah before him, “prepare the way of the Lord and make His paths straight.” This word is of particular importance to those who are preparing to enter the Orthodox Church, but this word applies daily to every Christian. Prepare the way of the Lord, by preparing the way of your heart. Make His paths straight by making sure that your heart aims directly towards Christ, that your desire is focused on Jesus Christ, without any winding turns or obstacles in the way. A clear path. A sure path. A path that allows Christ to reach us without difficulty. A path that allows us to see God without obstructions. That is the path of a Christian.

When we examine our lives and we see things that are taking our focus away from God, when we see sins or sinful ways of thinking and living in our lives, that is a sign that the path to God is not clear and not straight. It is a sign that I must change again and turn back to Christ or risk being alienated from God. We believe that the Holy Spirit is working ceaselessly to convict us and turn us back to God whenever we stray. But what can we say about those who have lost hunger for God, or who have lost a sense of right and wrong. Lord have mercy is all we can say. For the rest, for those who struggle honestly, then their baptism is not just a one time event, but a continuous renewal through repentance and the work of the Holy Spirit. It is our goal to join our works to the work of the Holy Spirit so that there will be synergy between God and His beloved creation.

St. Nikodemos who writes,

“The grace of the Holy Spirit which is given mystically to every Christian when he is baptized acts and is manifested in proportion to our obedience to the commandments of the Lord. That is, if a Christian obeys the commandments of the Lord more, grace acts with him more, while if he obeys them less, grace acts within him less. Just as a spark, when covered in the ashes of fire becomes increasingly manifest as one removes the ashes, and the more fire wood you put the more the fire burns, so the grace that has been given to every Christian through Holy Baptism is hidden in the heart and covered up by the passions and sins, and the more a man acts in accordance with the commandments of Christ, the more he is cleansed of the passions and the more the fire of Divine grace lights in his heart, illumines and deifies him.” + St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, Christian Morality

May the Lord make it so! AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (14:16-24)

Invitations and excuses. That is what this parable is all about. It is about a God who invites us to partake of His great banquet and those who find excuses not to attend. This invitation can be seen on a few different levels.

First it is an invitation to the great banquet of paradise, the kingdom of heaven. Did you know that God has sent His Son to the world so that the whole world might be invited to enter into heaven? It is true. St. John writes, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” (1Jn 4:14) 

God deeply desired salvation to be a possibility for all people. What is salvation? It is the restoration of fellowship between God and man. It is communion between God and man. And as far as God has it within His power to do so, He has restored and healed that relationship from His side. Now since God is a God of love, He does not force His people to engage in this relationship. He doesn’t coerce them. He simply invites them.

He doesn’t take any pleasure in seeing His creation suffer or perish. He takes pleasure in seeing His people grow and be healed and reestablished in His grace and presence. So God works tirelessly to extend grace to us. To invite us over and over and over again. It is an invitation to repentance and to communion with Christ. It is an invitation to leave behind all of our sins and the things that are weighing us down and to turn back to Christ.

He invites us to come to Him. He invites us to taste and see that the Lord is good. He invites us to come and sit with Him and spend time with Him and speak with Him and dine with Him. And this brings us to another layer of meaning in today’s parable. We can see the banquet as a representation of the life of the Church especially the Divine Liturgy. The Liturgy is in fact a continuation of heavenly worship. What we do here is a reflection of what the angels and saints perform in the heavenly places.

One of the reasons why we adorn the church building with icons is to remind us that the saints are present with us because this is an extension of the kingdom of God. This is the most important place on earth, why? Because Christ Himself becomes present in this place through the Holy Spirit. How? In the Liturgy, in the bread and the wine that are transformed into Christ’s body and blood. So this is the most important place on earth because the liturgy is the most important event on earth. We make plans and we daydream about everything that we would like to do in life, yet in the liturgy, everything that we could ever need is here right before our very eyes because Christ is here.

The Serbian bishop and theologian Athanasius Jevtic wrote that “The Liturgy is found at the very center of life, experience and understanding of the Orthodox Catholic Church of God and consequently at the center of Orthodox Theology. For the being and life itself of the Orthodox Church consists of the Liturgy, because the very being of the Church of Christ is liturgical and Her very life eucharistic.”

When newcomers attend the Orthodox Church they often ask us how they should proceed. What should they do to become Orthodox. Those are decent questions. But they are not the best questions. The best question is always, what must I do to be saved? What will help me to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ? What will help me to grow in love? What must I do to be transformed in the image and likeness of God? Where should my focus be? To all of those questions I would humbly say that the answer is found in the Divine Liturgy which is a pinnacle of Christian worship.

St. Sophrony of Essex writes that “The Divine Liturgy is the way we know God and the way God becomes known to us…every Divine Liturgy is a Theophany. The body of Christ appears.”

and St. John of San Francisco said “For a man’s complete sanctification, the body of the servant of the Lord must be united with the Body of Christ, and this is accomplished in the Mystery of Holy Communion.” But he continues by reminding us that something is required of us as well, that it is necessary for us to accept the invitation joyfully and with a firm intention. He says, “But those who partake with piety, love and readiness to serve Him, closely unite themselves with Him and become instruments of His Divine will.”

Now that we have heard all of these beautiful things about the banquet to which we have been invited, does it make sense for us to make excuses and to keep ourselves busy with other matters instead of attending the banquet? You might think that life is out there somewhere, while in fact, life, true life, divine life, the life of God is here in this place where God meets His people in the form of the bread and the wine. You are invited as is the whole world to partake of this feast. And to partake of what this banquet represents, which is God’s invitation for us to be where He is, to sit with Him, to eat with Him, to abide in His holy house, to be His honored guests, to become like Him through grace.

The good news is that right at this moment, you are physically present here. May your hearts and minds also be fully present during this banquet which is just a foretaste of the great banquet to which we all have been called. “Many are called but few are chosen.” May we be numbered among the few through the prayers of the saints. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (13:10-17)

In today’s gospel reading we hear of Our Lord Jesus Christ entering into a synagogue on the Sabbath day. This was the common practice among the Jewish people, in much the same way as the Christians go to the church and pray on Sundays. We are told that on this particular Sabbath day that a very sick woman entered the synagogue. The evangelist St. Luke tells us that she had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years. This spirit of infirmity or sickness manifested itself in this way, she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. This is a terrible and painful illness. One that I have seen first hand. Those who have back issues tend to suffer greatly and those who are always bent over and unable to stand upright suffer even more.

Man was not made or designed to live and to walk and to exist in a state of being bent over and bowed down. When one has this type of illness it also becomes impossible to look up. The most one can do is to look straight ahead. In this poor woman’s sickness we see a symbol of humanity, which was bowed down and bent over with a spirit of infirmity. Each and every one of us was subject to the bondage of slavery and sin. Sin made us bow low. Sin made it difficult for us to straighten ourselves and our way of life. Sin like this spirit of infirmity, made it impossible for us to look up to God and to see Him clearly.

As Our Lord Jesus Christ did for that woman two thousand years ago, on that Sabbath day, freeing her from her bondage to sickness, so He did for all of humanity through His death and resurrection. He declares boldly and without reservation, “you are freed from your infirmity.” While doing this He laid His blessed hands full of healing, upon the woman and we are told that “immediately she was made straight, and she praised God.”

Like this woman suffered for a long time, it is common for us to suffer in this life. One person suffers from disease or sickness like cancer or pneumonia, another suffers from depression and anxiety. Yet others suffer from their addictions such as marijuana, alcohol and pornography. There are numerous issues that we have. Some of the ways we suffer are caused by others or by our environment and circumstances, yet others are caused by our own negligence and sinfulness. As I mentioned to the teens yesterday, some of our suffering is self-inflicted. Yet no matter how long we’ve been suffering, we are comforted to see in today’s passage that Our Lord Jesus Christ is able to heal. He is able to heal any and all who come to Him, even someone who has been ill for 18 years or perhaps longer.

What does the Lord use to heal us? He uses many ways but primarily the vehicle of God’s healing in the world is through the life of the Church and her sacraments. The main purpose is the healing of the condition of the soul. St. Macarius of Optina writes “The soul is greater than the body: the body becomes sick, and with that it is finished. But a spiritual sickness extends into eternity. Deliver us, O lord, from such illness, and grant us healing.” As we’ve often noted, God may allow a condition to persist for a long while in order to help heal our souls. And indeed, God often uses physical illness as a path for true healing of our souls.

As I say this I want you to know that God actively and regularly heals both our spiritual and oftentimes our physical ailments through the life of the Church. Ask around and you may be surprised by the ways in which God has worked miraculously in people’s lives to offer them mercy and renewal.

I tell you all of this to remind you that if you are feeling weak and helpless and at the end of your rope, you are not alone. God sees. God is with you. God knows. Don’t lose hope. Continue to come to the Church, to the house of God, and to Christ Himself and God will sort out the details of your situation and your life. He will give each of us precisely what we need at the perfect time. This poor woman suffered for 18 years! Try to live in her condition for 18 minutes. You might not be able to do it. Yet she did not complain and grumble. She didn’t use it as an excuse to neglect the synagogue and communal worship. She never even had to say a word to the Lord. He knew her heart. She was ready for Him to work in her life. At the appointed time, the perfect time, the work was done to heal her.

God is able to help you, but not on your time, on His. St. John of Kronstadt even writes,

“When you see your body wasted away through sickness, do not murmur against God, but say, The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord (Job 1:21). You are accustomed to look upon your body as upon your own inalienable property, but that is quite wrong, because your body is God’s edifice.” God claims rights over you. Your body belongs to God because He created and He gives the gift of life. How much more is this true when we are baptized and dedicate ourselves to Christ? It becomes doubly true! Thank God. That means God will never abandon you. You are His.

I want to encourage you and I believe that you should be encouraged through this passage. I know that sometimes you struggle. Keep coming and struggling together as this faithful, humble woman did, because this is God’s hospital and we are all patients here together, looking for the healing that only God can provide. Persist in fighting the good fight. To be sure, you’ll stumble, you’ll probably fail now and again. But look up and seek the face of Christ over and over again. Desire Him above everything else, because He can and He will heal our infirmities. We are called to direct our minds to Christ and learn to give thanks in every circumstance because God has allowed all of this to rightly order our lives and to heal and save us. This is why He entered the synagogue that day and this is why He has entered into the world. To Christ alone be glory together with His Father and the Holy Spirit AMEN.

Source: Sermons