The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (7:11-16)

The sole purpose to pursuing life in the Orthodox Church as an Orthodox Christian is to grow in knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are not here to be part of a club, or part of the antiquities department or part of a medieval museum of faith. Our faith is living and dynamic in everyone who has their hearts and their eyes directed towards Jesus Christ and the things of God. This dynamic faith gives us new life.

The great threat to us in our lives is the ever present threat of death. We are vulnerable. Soldiers go to war and they often return scarred and deeply affected because they have witnessed the horrors of war including the ever present reality of death. During our first intro to Orthodoxy class we mentioned some of the teachings of the one of the great modern theologians of the Church, Fr. John Romanides. Father John spent much of his time writing about the letters of St. Paul and trying to recapture a proper Orthodox framework for understanding St. Paul, not according to western Roman Catholic influence but according to the mind of the Greek speaking early Church fathers who understood St. Paul and the New Testament in their native tongue and with deep spiritual insights. In his dissection of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans regarding the concept of sin, he had this to say,

“If man was created for a life of complete selfless love, whereby his actions would always be directed outward, toward God and neighbor, and never toward himself–whereby he would be the perfect image and likeness of God–then it is obvious that the power of death and corruption has now made it impossible to live such a life of perfection.”

He continues saying, “The power of death in the universe has brought with it the will for self-preservation, fear, and anxiety, which in turn are the root causes of self-assertion, egoism, hatred, envy and the like. Because man is afraid of becoming meaningless, he is constantly endeavoring to prove, to himself and others, that he is worth something….These are the works of the flesh of which St. Paul speaks. Underlying every movement of what the world has come to regard as normal man, is the quest for security and happiness. But such desires are not normal. They are the consequences of perversion by death and corruption, through which the devil pervades all of creation, dividing and destroying. This power is so great that even if man wishes to live according to his original destiny it is impossible because of the sin which is dwelling in the flesh –(quoting St. Paul)”Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” “It is through death and corruption that all of humanity and creation is held captive to the devil and involved in sin, because it is by death that man falls short of his original destiny, which was to love God and neighbor without concern for the self.”

Fr. John concludes with a powerful quote: “Man does not die because he is guilty for the sin of Adam. He becomes a sinner because he is yoked to the power of the devil through death and its consequences.”

So he tells us that in essence, the problem of man is the fear of death. Death lurks and it casts a heavy shadow over us. It affects our being, it affects our ways of thinking and our whole life. Because we are afraid to die, we fall into many sins and we excuse those sins because it seems to us that the most important thing is to avoid death. I can give you the example of the hungry man who steals from another hungry man to feed himself or to feed someone in his family. His fear of death caused him to sin against his neighbor instead of showing love. My fear of death might manifest itself in greediness instead of generosity towards others. It even manifests itself when someone has a midlife crisis.

It seems to us that death is always lurking just around the corner, waiting for us and this anxiety, this life of anxiety pushes us away from doing the things that please God and towards whatever we believe will help us avoid pain or death or will give us the experiences we desire before our death.

This brings us to today’s beautiful gospel account from Luke chapter 7. We witness an encounter between Our Lord Jesus Christ and none other than death. To the one who has ears to hear and who meditates upon this gospel, there is great comfort.

Our Lord did not so much as touch the young man who was lying dead in the bier. He merely touched the bier and Our most compassionate Lord spoke words of life, “Young man, I say to you; arise.” The Lord reversed the very course of nature as we understand it. He who had in the garden, once formed clay and breathed life into it, once again took what was lifeless and reinvigorated it and filled it with His life. But there is a deeper message. This changes things. This changes everything.

We reflected on the words of Fr. Romanides, about how death is the cause of mans attachment to sin. And we understand that we suffer due to our own sins and the damage that has been caused by them in our lives and in our souls. Our greatest form of suffering is the lack of joy and peace and hope that we feel when we are separated from God. This separation is felt deep within our very cells and radiates to our hearts and minds. When we are far from God because of our sins, or our sinful heart, we feel this as an inner crises and great turmoil. We may not know exactly what is wrong, but we know for a fact that nothing is quite right, that we are missing something. That things are not well. The fear of death manipulates us into sinning and sin divides the soul, renders it paralyzed and ultimately this progresses to spiritual death. St. Paul puts it this way, “14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do…. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”-Romans 7

But the encounter of our Lord Jesus Christ with death, changes everything. Our Lord became a man and dwelt among us and by entering into history, He rewrote the story of our lives. He demonstrated that He himself had power over death and lest anyone should doubt this power, He manifested it openly by raising some publicly and manifested again when He rose again from the grave on the third day.

Therefore, the one who no longer fears death but has faith in Jesus Christ, true faith, real faith, no matter what it might cost him in this life, this one will live forever with Christ. That is our teaching. You hear about the great martyrs of the Christian faith. They got it. The love of Christ flipped a switch in their hearts. They understood that their lives were nothing without His life. They understood that through His love, death would be rendered powerless and useless. They understood that death is nothing for the one who communes with the living God. Let us throw aside all of the weights and anxieties that burden us in this life and cling to the One who alone can raise us from the grave and into the kingdom. AMEN

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to St. Titus. (3:8-15)

Today I would like to focus on this epistle as it is given to us for today’s celebration of the 7^th ecumenical council. This council was convened in the year 787ad to discuss and to pray about the issue of iconoclasm and the veneration of holy images or icons within the churches. As you can tell by looking around you, the veneration and use of icons was overwhelmingly upheld and supported by the Church fathers and this practice has continued and been passed down faithfully to the present day. This is seen not merely as nice decoration, but as a necessary aspect of holy and reverent Orthodox Christian worship and prayer life.

Now in today’s epistle we hear the following: “But avoid foolish disputes, and genealogies, and contentions, and controversies about the Law; for they are unprofitable and vain.” The Apostle Paul loved the Church so much that he gave of himself in service to her. He pursued service to the Church although it would cost him everything, even his very life. His dedication to the Church was the logical expression of his love and devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ, who had loved him and redeemed him from out of the pit of darkness. And we see often in the writings of the New Testament that the Church is seen not merely as a gathering of God’s people, but the Church is rather the very body as well as the bride of Christ. They are inseparable for us. For us, one cannot have Christ in fullness unless he also has the Church in it’s fullness.

St. Paul visited many places and started communities all over the Roman empire. Later after visiting and establishing churches, he would write to them to put certain things in order and to correct any deficiencies he had seen or that were brought to his attention by others after he would leave a particular place. And so here he writes to one of his disciples and fellow workers in the mission field, St. Titus with these words: “But avoid foolish disputes, and genealogies, and contentions, and controversies about the Law; for they are unprofitable and vain.”

St. Paul is looking for the peace and the unity of the Church. He tells Titus that the people are to avoid foolish disputes and contentions. I want to say that we see this as a potential issue in every church community and especially in the ones were we spend time together and we break bread together on a regular basis. It is really important for us to take some of these teachings to heart. Each one of us has a part to play in creating a beautiful, holy atmosphere of love that reflects the grace and presence of the Holy Spirit. It is critical that we do some self-reflection to see whether or not we might need to adjust our own behaviors or attitudes in light of these teachings. We want to have a vibrant community and healthy relations with one another and we should be able to speak to one another about many topics but some of the topics and discussions don’t help us much. Arguing about politics and conspiracies and the philosophies of the world won’t help us much. But it definitely can hurt us.

At the very least, we should be aware of how others around us might perceive things or might be offended by something that they overhear. To be clear, you have a God given obligation to your brothers and sisters in Christ not to be a stumbling block or a cause of offense whatsoever. At the very least I ask you to pay attention and to respect your neighbors in this community by keeping your voices down and respecting the space of the others. When some of you are having loud, spirited debates, as innocent as they may be, there is always a chance that someone will take offense or might even misunderstand something they heard or perhaps will take something out of it’s proper context. For this reason, I ask you to have your conversations in a way that is subdued and private not wide-open and potentially obnoxious.

In addition, it should be mentioned that not all topics are profitable for conversation at the Church. On that note, there are some conversations that are absolutely not fitting for the life of the church and those are topics that are against Christian teaching and the beliefs of the Church, which we consider sacred. St. Paul mentions this here in the epistle when he writes, “A man who is a heretic after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that such a one is subverted, and sins, being self-condemned.”

In some of the translations it will read “one who stirs up division” but in fact in the original Greek it is not schismatic but “heretic.” A heretic is one who willingly chooses to divide himself from the community by his acceptance and teaching of false doctrines. These are false teachings firstly about Christ, the Holy Trinity and the Mother of God, but this extends to the teachings of the Church on topics such as morality. Why? Because the moral law has it’s source in God, it is rooted in the Ten Commandments and it exists to protect the soul from harm, from destruction. The moral teaching of the Church is a shield and protection for everyone who desires to know God and to live a godly life. To live immoral lives, to break the ten commandments and the teachings of Christ is to fall into sin, which is separation from God and from others. A Christian is called to live a life reconciled to God and others.

On the day that we are baptized into the Orthodox Church we turn to the west and we spit on Satan. Each one of us must do so whenever someone brings you satanic or heretical teachings. Whether here or outside of the church. You are a child of God, bought at a price. When they say to you, for instance, that “the resurrection of Christ doesn’t matter” you should reject this with your heart and distance yourself from such people who know nothing and yet desire to influence everyone around them with their distorted understandings. The same holds true when they push the idea that all religions are a path to the same God. Or when they push false notions about the human person and sexuality and a multitude of others false points that are in fashion today.

When you entered the Church you accepted the teachings of Scripture, the New Testament and the gospels within the communal understanding of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. We are bound by these teachings and we don’t create our own version of them. Because whatever you create from your own opinion will reflect your distorted image and likeness and not the image and likeness of God. This is not faith, rather it is self-idolatry. Each person has to discern their thoughts and their heart, not in light of their feelings, rather in light of Christ and His Church.

So ours is a living communion with God the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and this living communion flows between everyone who loves God and shares this faith. Let us be determined to be together in our shared love for Christ and His Church and not divisive or worse, steering people away from the arms of Christ. Satan is the father of lies, but Christ is our very life and hope, the One who loves us in and through the Church, now and forever and unto ages of ages AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (5:1-11)

In every gospel reading we encounter Jesus Christ, or rather we are encountered by Jesus Christ. In each and every reading or hearing of the gospel we are invited into a way of life, into a way of thinking, into the truth, into the person of Jesus Christ. This is part of the logical structure of the life of worship, the life of the liturgy. It begins with the liturgy of the word. This part of the liturgy culminates with the reading of the epistle and the gospel and the priest giving the homily on the selected readings. It is, if you will, a first taste, an appetizer before the main course. Or depending on how we receive these words of the epistle and the gospel it may in fact be that they are the first hurdles that we have to clear before we move into the liturgy of the faithful, before we move closer in proximity to our Lord Jesus Christ.

What do I mean by this? We move closer to Jesus Christ during the second half of the liturgy because we are preparing ourselves to receive the precious and holy body and blood of Jesus Christ. There is a natural movement from the outside world and nearer and nearer to the Holy of Holies. We are preparing to partake of Christ in a mystical and spiritual union. We are inviting Christ to come and dwell within us. This is why the Church teaches that one cannot miss the gospel reading and come late and then stroll up to receive Holy Communion. You are not coming to partake of mere bread and wine but Holy Fire. So we see the liturgy as a movement that begins by preparing us and refining us before we partake of this fire so that we may unite with this fire instead of having this fire burn us up.

It is interesting that in today’s gospel that there is a prerequisite to drawing closer to Jesus Christ. That prerequisite is obedience to Him. That is one of the main points of this passage. Our Lord encounters the disciples Peter and Andrew, James and John while they were fishing and after Our Lord spends some time teaching the people who were nearby, He makes a request of the disciples. He tells them to “put out into the deep” and let down their nets for a catch.” We can almost hear the exasperation in the voice of Peter as he says to Christ, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!” I think passages such as this one bring the disciples to life. They were not emotionless stoics. They were real flesh and blood human beings with personalities and weaknesses and they were not perfect. If we were perfect, Our Lord would not have become man and dwelt with us. He came precisely in order to perfect us.

Now Peter is frustrated and there is a lot of work involved with going back out into the deep waters and letting down the nets again. He is exhausted and he’s been up all night. Some of our young mothers may know the feeling. Sometimes we feel like Peter. We feel that God is asking us to do things that frustrate us, things that are difficult. Let there be no doubt that sometimes God will ask us to do things that seem difficult if not impossible. Make peace with that. But let us see how Peter responded.

He said, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at Thy word I will let down the nets.” I am in awe of his humility and his obedience to the Lord. In order to be truly obedient, one has to be humble. In Peter’s mind, Jesus of Nazareth may have been a holy man, but He knew nothing about fishing. Yet Peter was obedient because he understood that Jesus was at the very least, a prophet and he wanted to show respect to him. This sense of respect has sadly been lost in much of this generation. Parents, please teach your children to be respectful. It will serve them well in their lives.

Peter was obedient even though he had no particular reason to be. What he comes to find out is that his small act of obedience will be greatly rewarded. It was his humble obedience that unlocked the very mysteries of the kingdom of God. It was his humble obedience that brought him closer to our Lord. We can see his obedience as an act of faith. Because obedience requires faith and it implies faith. He believed the word of the Lord Jesus without asking for proof of any kind. He did so without arguing.

Throughout the Christian tradition we are often directed to the virtue of obedience in the Christian life.

We are reminded that the fall of Adam and Eve and all of humanity and creation came through the first disobedience. And through that disobedience man fell from a great height and was cast out of paradise and found himself far away, hiding from God. You’ll notice how this is the opposite movement that we described in the liturgy. In the life of sin we start with disobedience and then we begin to distance ourselves from God or whatever is a vehicle of His Godliness. Instead of moving closer to the Holy, we move further and further away until we become non-existent. It is the natural regression because our personhood and our existence is directly connected with our proximity to the God who is I AM, the One who exists, the existing One.

Thankfully we see the exact opposite here in this reading. Obedience was the test and the first reward was to spend the next three years in paradise, every second with the Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Becoming initiated into the divine apostolic life. This was their reward for obedience. And they had to be obedient, not once, not twice, but daily. There were days when they fell away as we remember that Peter denied Our Lord and wept. Yet, he returned quickly to resume the life of obedience, the life of faith or faithfulness. But it all started with small acts of obedience, and this in time became the seeds for great virtue within the apostles and for everyone who follows their example. If we should be obedient in the small things, as St. Peter was that day in the boat, how much more obedient should we be to the commandments of the Lord? My brothers and sisters, let there be no doubt that our obedience to Jesus Christ, to His commandments, and to the teachings of Christ’s very body, the Church, will be an entry point and a foundation to great blessings and treasures for each one of you. God knows what you need more than you know or can comprehend. He will provide for you as a good Father.

Finally, I want to leave you with one of the stories of the desert fathers regarding this practice of obedience. “It was said of Abba John the Dwarf that he withdrew and lived in the desert at Scetis (Egypt) with an old man of Thebes. His abba, taking a piece of dry wood, planted it and said to him, ‘Water it every day with a bottle of water, until it bears fruit.’ Now the source of the water was so far away that he had to leave in the evening and return the following morning. At the end of three years the wood came to life and bore fruit. The old man took some of the fruit and carried it to the church saying to the brethren, ‘Take and eat the fruit of obedience.’ Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Feast of the elevation (exaltation) of the Cross

Today we celebrate one of the twelve great feasts of the Church calendar, the feast of the elevation of the Cross. One of the readings for this feast tells us the following:

“The pagan Roman Emperors tried to obliterate the holy places where our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and rose from the dead, so that they would be forgotten. Emperor Hadrian (117-138) ordered that Golgotha and the Lord’s Sepulchre be buried, and that a temple in honor of the pagan “goddess” Venus and a statue of Jupiter be placed there.”

“In 313 Saint Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, by which Christianity was legalized and persecutions against Christians in the Western half of the Empire were stopped. Although Licinius had signed the Edict of Milan in order to oblige Constantine, he continued his cruel persecutions against Christians. Only after his conclusive defeat did the Edict of Milan extend also to the Eastern part of the Empire.”

“Ardently desiring to find the Cross upon which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, Saint Constantine sent his mother, the pious Empress Helen (May 21), to Jerusalem, providing her with a letter to Saint Makarios, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Saint Helen journeyed to the holy places connected with the earthly life of the Savior, building more than 80 churches, at Bethlehem the birthplace of Christ, and on the Mount of Olives where the Lord ascended to Heaven, and at Gethsemane where the Savior prayed before His sufferings, and where the Mother of God was buried after her Dormition.

Although the holy Empress Helen was no longer young, she set about completing the task with enthusiasm. In her search for the Life-giving Cross, she questioned both Christians and Jews, but for a long time her search remained unsuccessful. Finally, she was directed to a certain elderly Jew named Jude who stated that the Cross was buried beneath the temple of Venus. They demolished the pagan temple and, after praying, they began to excavate the ground. Soon the Lord’s Tomb was uncovered. Not far from it were three crosses, and a board with the inscription ordered by Pilate, and four nails which had pierced the Lord’s Body (March 6).

In order to discover on which of the three crosses the Savior had been crucified, Patriarch Makarios alternately touched the crosses to a corpse. When the Cross of the Lord touched the dead man, he was restored to life. After witnessing the raising of the dead man, everyone was convinced that the Life-giving Cross had been found. Christians came in a huge crowds to venerate the Holy Cross, beseeching Saint Makarios to lift the Cross, so that those far off could see it. Then the Patriarch and other spiritual leaders lifted the Holy Cross, and the people prostrated themselves before the Honorable Wood, saying “Lord have mercy.” This solemn event occurred in the year 326.

During the discovery of the Life-giving Cross another miracle took place: a woman who was close to death was healed by the shadow of the Holy Cross.”

“Saint Helen took part of the Life-giving Wood and nails with her to Constantinople. Saint Constantine ordered a majestic and spacious church to built at Jerusalem in honor of the Resurrection of Christ, also including under its roof the Life-giving Tomb of the Lord and Golgotha. The church was built in ten years. Saint Helen did not survive until the dedication of the church, she reposed in the year 327. The church was consecrated on September 13, 335. On the following day, September 14, the festal celebration of the Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross was established.” -Oca.org

Our Christian faith is centered and focused on the cross as the weapon and the vehicle of our salvation. It is no wonder then that the wood of the cross should be honored by the universal Church for it is worthy of honor because of what Our Lord Jesus Christ accomplished through the suffering and pains of the cross. And by looking to the cross we as Christians can receive strength and courage to bear the many crosses and the trials that we’ve been given in our lives. In fact a life without suffering and without crosses, for a Christian, is no life at all. It is rather, a slow death.

St. John Chrysostom preaching about the cross said, “For the Cross is the salvation of the Church, the Cross is the praise of those who hope on it. The Cross has released us from the evil that possessed us and is the beginning of the blessings received by us. The Cross is the reconcilement of His enemies with God, the promise of sinners to Christ. For by the Cross we were freed from enmity and through the Cross we have become amiable to God. The Cross delivered us from the authority of the devil, the Cross saved us from death and destruction. The Cross changed human nature to the angelic, having released it from all that is corruptible, and have found lives worthy of immortality.”

He continues saying, “How great is the power of the Cross! How great is the change made by it in the human race! How from the deep darkness it has led us to the boundless light, from death it has restored us to eternal life, from corruption it has transferred us to incorruption. What good is not accomplished for us by means of the Cross? Through the Cross we learned piety and learned the properties of the Divine essence. Through the Cross we learn the truth about God, through the Cross we who were far from Him are united to Christ, and we become worthy of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Through the Cross we learn the power of love and we are taught to die for others.”

Finally he tells us, “What is more precious than the Cross and what is more saving for the soul? The Cross is the triumph over demons, the armor against sin and the sword with which the Lord has struck the snake. The Cross is the will of the Father, the glory of the Only-begotten, the joy of the Holy Spirit, the ornament of angels, the protection of the Church, the praise of St. Paul, the protection of the Saints, the lamp of all the world.”

May your life be marked constantly by the sign of the cross and may all the darkness of the world and in your life be blinded by the light of it’s power. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (4:16-22)

Today’s reading is given to us for the Feast of Indiction, the church new year. “The term Indiction comes from a Latin word meaning, “to impose.” It was originally applied to the imposition of taxes in Egypt. The first worldwide Indiction was in 312 when the Emperor Constantine (May 21) saw a miraculous vision of the Cross in the sky.”-oca.org

The Church tradition tells us that Jesus entered into the synagogue and read the text from the Prophet Isaiah on this day. On that day Our Lord read these words in the midst of the people in the synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor and to heal the broken hearted. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

As our Lord finishes reading and moves back to His seat among the congregation, He then says to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Wow. It is hard to imagine how one might have felt if they were there that day and happened to see these events unfolding before their very eyes. These events also coincided with the very beginning of the Lord’s earthly ministry according to St. Luke. It is as if Our Lord was giving us a primer, preparing us for what He was about to do, preparing us for His ministry. Narrating the coming years.

What is our Lord’s life all about, what is the point of it? This: “to preach good news to the poor and to heal the broken hearted. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

He speaks of healing the broken hearted and releasing the captives and giving sight to the blind and granting liberty to the oppressed and when we read these things we might be tempted to read them superficially, a surface level reading. But in fact, it goes so much deeper than that. Our Lord is speaking of spiritual realities that dictate and steer the whole of creation and mankind, the pinnacle of God’s creation. He is speaking of healing all of humanity and it’s brokenness. He is speaking of freeing humanity from enslavement. He is speaking of releasing us from oppression. He is speaking of granting us sight, and relief from our blindness. He is giving good news to those who are poor in spirit.

We became poor in spirit because of sin. We became broken hearted due to our failings and the failings of Adam and Eve because we along with them, have been exiled from paradise, from life in the presence of God. We became prisoners, due to our life of rebellion, choosing sin instead of righteousness. We became blind when we turned our eyes away from the Creator and turned instead to the multitude of idols we had allowed to take our focus. We saw and we worshipped the creation and not the Creator. We became oppressed when we fell into the same habitual sins over and over in a vicious cycle. When we wanted to do good, but instead did evil. St. Paul speaks about this in the letter to the Romans when he writes in chapter 7,

“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

That is the conundrum that humanity has dealt with. It is our imprisonment and oppression. It is the enemy that leads to our spiritual death. These are the inclinations of the heart, our passions, as they are called by the holy fathers. Through these passions we became like dead people.

Yet the Lord gives each of us this good news. He has come to redeem your life. He has come that you might know Him intimately and truly. He has come that you might not wallow in the mud of sins but bask in the light of His glory. He has come to breathe new life into each of us through baptism, Chrismation, Eucharist and all of the rest of the Church’s mysteries. In short, He has come to allow us to participate in the Holy Spirit.

And St. Paul continues on this line of thinking in chapter 8 of Romans as he writes,

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

So in addition to understanding the words of our Lord in a very straightforward and direct way, we see this deeper and much more profound meaning at work. The Lord has healed us, freed us and empowered us to really become His children, to live in His presence, to dwell in the light, to know the truth. More than this, He has give us the ability to become partakers of the divine nature. The opportunity to take hold of our potential, to become like Him. The obstacles are removed if only we will turn our eyes and our heart back to Christ. Nothing will stop you from becoming holy. Nothing will stop you from becoming a saint. Nothing will stop you if this is truly your hearts desire because it is also His desire for each of you. As we now celebrate the beginning of the Church new year, to proclaim the year of the Lord, let us pursue Him with all our minds, souls, hearts and strength that Christ alone would become our hearts only desire.

I want to leave you with these lovely words that we heard during Matins this morning,

“O Word of the Father from before the ages, Who, being in the form of God, broughtest creation into being out of nothing; Thou Who hast put the times and seasons in Thine own power: Bless the crown of the year with Thy goodness; give peace unto Thy churches, victory unto Thy faithful hierarchs, fruitfulness unto the earth, and Great Mercy unto us.” + Matins of the Ecclesiastical New Year, Tone 3 AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (18:23-35)

It is a wondrous and simultaneously a dreadful thing to hear the word of God. It cuts like a two-edged sword. It opens up new realities to us and convicts us at the same time. It is wondrous to us that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, the incarnate Son of the living God comes to us and teaches us the secrets of the kingdom of God. Step back and contemplate this for a moment. Nothing essential is hidden from us! Nothing that is necessary for this life or the next has been held back. Out of Christ’s extreme love for us, He has shared it with us and invites us to enter into this kingdom and to even taste of this kingdom here and now.

In today’s reading the Lord gives a parable and says “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with His servants.” We often gloss over this but it is truly a special thing that God teaches us about the kingdom of heaven. He teaches us what the kingdom is like. He prepares us for the kingdom, to dwell in the house of His Father. But my brothers and sisters this isn’t simply a wondrous thing. It is also a dreadful matter! “How so?” you might ask. Because to whom much is given, much is required. The Lord gives us and woe to us if we don’t take what He has given to us seriously.

In this particular case, Our Lord Jesus gives us the teaching regarding forgiveness. He tells us that forgiveness is an integral part of the kingdom of heaven, and therefore an integral part of the life of a Christian. Forgiveness is everything for a Christian because our whole life in Christ depends on God’s forgiveness of our many sins and failings.

In today’s parable sin is compared with debts that cannot be repaid. This is in fact true since there is no way to repay God or undo our sins. The sins can only be wiped out through complete forgiveness by the Lord. He makes it as if the sins, and the estrangement from God are gone completely. Like a man who couldn’t pay his debts and yet his master was merciful and forgave the debts that the man owed. This is the way that God deal with each of you. He doesn’t hold the sins that you repent of and confess, against you. He wipes them away. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Now the problem in the parable is that the servant who was forgiven a large amount of debt by the King, goes out and finds one of his own servants. This servant happens to owe him a small amount of money and this same servant who was just forgiven a great deal of debt by the King, decides to be harsh, brutal and unmerciful with his own servant who owed him far, far less. When word of this comes to the King, he is indignant, He is angry. His once kind and merciful countenance had turned against his servant because his servant showed himself to be unmerciful in the depths of his heart.

My friends, this is a story about us. It is a story about how much each of us has been forgiven by God. The answer is VERY MUCH. God has been far more merciful to us than we deserve or can ever imagine. In light of this mercy and forgiveness, how do we treat others who may have wronged us? How do we think about them? Do we love them? Are we merciful to them? Have we really, truly forgiven them or deep in our hearts do we still harbor bad feelings towards them? Do we hold resentment towards them? Do we hate them?

St. Silouan of Mt. Athos writes, “We have such a law: If you forgive, it means that God has forgiven you; but if you do not forgive your brother, it means that your sin remains with you.” -Writings, VII.9

Or perhaps they haven’t wronged us at all but they have done some wrong in their lives, or perhaps they are living wrongly. Perhaps they have had lapses in their judgment or succumbed to temptations. But how do we see them? Do we condemn them? Do we judge them as being unworthy of love?

This is what the parable of Christ seeks to examine within the heart of each believer. Have we embraced forgiveness of others truly? Have we embraced it in the same way that Christ has embraced each of us? Have we even started to reflect on just how much God has forgiven each of us? Have we reflected on how far away we once were and how far down God has descended to lift us out of the hell that we had created for ourselves?

Someone once said that the keys to hell are locked from the inside. It is the one who is in hell who alone can turn the key and open the doorway to the kingdom. God doesn’t have the power to unlock that door. He has already opened wide the door to the kingdom! The other door is kept shut by us. It can only be opened through genuine, radical, complete forgiveness, from the depths of our hearts because it is the door of the heart that needs to be opened. This is the passport that will grant us safe passage to the gates of heaven. It is the passport of unconditional love.

Give up these resentments and these hurts, if not for others, then for yourselves. Give them up because they are like fools gold. They are worthless. Even worse than worthless, they once again bring us back into slavery and debt, after we had already been freed.

St. Tikhon of Zadonsk writes,“Do we refuse to forgive? God, too, will refuse to forgive us. As we treat our neighbours, so also does God treat us. The forgiveness or unforgiveness of your sins, then, and hence also your salvation or destruction, depend on you yourself. For without forgiveness of sins there is no salvation. You can see for yourself how serious it is.”  –Journey to Heaven: Counsels on the Particular Duties of Every Christian

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (17:14-23)

In today’s gospel our Lord Jesus Christ encounters a boy with a terrible form of epilepsy. This disease causes seizures, which are sometimes violent and can occur at any time, unexpectedly. Now in the case of this particular form of epilepsy, there cause of the illness was not simply physical. The issue was deeper. We are told that it was demonic. Modern writers will try to understand these passages through a secular or material worldview that is dictated above all by the rational mind and “scientific” reasoning. So they will dismiss the idea of demonic possession by saying that the gospel writers were unsophisticated men who did not have a proper understanding of medicine and the human body et cetera. But my brothers and sisters this is false. The Lord Jesus Christ had a better understanding of reality than ours. He sees beyond the physical into the spiritual depths. His understanding and comprehension of “what is really going on” is far above anyone else’s either ancient or modern.

The evangelist St. Matthew tells us that Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him. This led to a brief exchange with the disciples. The disciples came in private and asked “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus said to them, “Because you have no faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” The Lord gave a very matter of fact assessment of the situation. The reason why they could not heal the boy was because they lacked the faith necessary to make it a reality. But then the Lord goes on to say something rather curious. He tells the disciples that “ This kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting.” It is a statement that gives us pause, it makes us curious. These two statements are connected, the statement about their lack of faith and the statement about prayer and fasting. They are connected because according to the Lord when we pray and fast our faith increases, or this allows our faith the ability to increase. Is it any wonder then that in the life of the Orthodox Church we fast more than 200 days of the year? The Church is faithful to her Lord and she desires her children to grow in faith through such tools. Many of you have heard me speak about fasting but I thought it might be nice to share some words about the practice of fasting from our rich and holy Orthodox Christian tradition.

St. Theophan the recluse writes, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” [Matthew 17:14-23] If this kind goes out by the prayer and fasting of another person, then it is even less able to enter one who fasts and prays. What protection! Although there are a slew of demons and all the air is packed with them, they cannot do anything to one who is protected by prayer and fasting. Fasting is universal temperance, prayer is universal communication with God; the former defends from the outside, whereas the latter from within directs a fiery weapon against the enemies. The demons can sense a faster and man of prayer from a distance, and they run far away from him so as avoid a painful blow.”

+ St. Theophan the Recluse

And St. Gregory Palamas who was bishop in the 14th century taught about fasting in relation to Adam as well as to the new adam, who is Jesus Christ when he wrote,

“… Adam chose the treason of the serpent, the originator of evil, in preference to God’s commandment and counsel, and broke the decreed fast. Instead of eternal life he received death and instead of the place of unsullied joy he received this sinful place full of passions and misfortunes, or rather, he was sentenced to Hades and nether darkness. Our nature would have stayed in the infernal regions below the lurking places of the serpent who initially beguiled it, had not Christ come. He started off by fasting (cf. Mk. 1:13) and in the end abolished the serpent’s tyranny, set us free and brought us back to life.” — St. Gregory Palamas, The Homilies Vol. II

St. Gregory goes so far as to say that the salvation of the human race was linked with Our Lord Jesus Christ’s fasting in the wilderness before His earthly ministry. We get the sense from this that fasting was considered a very serious aspect of spiritual life and not something to be discarded or cast aside lightly.

One of the great defenders of the faith, St. Athanasius of Alexandria writing in the 4th century said, “Devils take great delight in fullness, and drunkenness and bodily comfort. Fasting possesses great power and it works glorious things. To fast is to banquet with angels.”+ St. Athanasius the Great

But in all of this we are also frequently given reminders from the Fathers that fasting alone, is not enough. It is a tool to be wielded with a humble and good heart. St. Maximos the confessor writes,

“Many human activities, good in themselves, are not good because of the motive for which they are done. For example, fasting and vigils, prayer and psalmody, acts of charity and hospitality are by nature good, but when performed for the sake of self-esteem they are not good.” -Four Hundred Texts on Love 2.35, The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Vol. 2)

I share these words with you as an encouragement for those of you who wonder why we undertake such practices in Holy Orthodoxy. Prayerful fasting is one aspect of the grace filled and life giving practices or we might say, therapies of the Church. These all work together by the grace of God to offer us healing and renewal in Christ. May the Lord heal and renew each of us as the lover of mankind. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (14:22-34)
Our Lord Jesus Christ was praying late one night while up on a mountain. He had just finished with the overwhelming crowds. He was with them all day, teaching, preaching, healing, feeding. He was definitely exhausted since we know that He shares in our human nature, and yet our Lord tells us something about Himself and about prayer through this passage. He did not run to find a place to sleep and rest. Our Lord Jesus took His rest with God His Father. It required Him to climb the mountain of prayer, to make an effort. To choose between extra sleep and extra time with the Father. To speak to God His Father was worth the effort, worth the sacrifices, and worth the climb up the mountain.

When we see this image of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are reminded that in order to pray one has to go with some effort towards God. It will often feel like an uphill battle, like a climb. Prayer is not just words into the air, but real communication with the living God. One goes uphill not only in their efforts but spiritually. Prayer is an ascent towards the heavenly. When we are in prayer, really in prayer, we are high above the rest of the world. We have laid aside all earthly cares in order to focus out hearts and minds on God. This is so precious and special that real work is required of us. Sometimes prayer comes very easily and other times, most times, it takes a real effort. St. Barsanuphius of Optina said “In the struggle of prayer, it is absolutely necessary to force oneself and compel oneself to pray.” It is difficult, but it is worth the effort and it is very much the goal of a Christian to learn to climb towards Christ in our prayers and in our lives.

In the midst of the Lord’s prayers on the mountain, we are told that the disciples traveled by boat and where caught in rough waves and strong winds. The Lord waited for this moment and came to the disciples, in the middle of the night, walking upon the surface of the sea. This sight terrified the disciples. No one could imagine such an event. Even though the disciples had seen many miracles, still they did not comprehend what their eyes were seeing in that very moment. The Lord cried out to them, “take heart, it is I, have no fear.” I find this to be a beautiful and comforting image. How often we have storms in our life and we feel the waters of life surging and the winds swirling around us? Yet the Lord is with us just as the Lord was with them. He cries out to us also, “Take heart, it is I, have no fear.”

It turns out that one of the disciples, who was known in the gospels to be rather impulsive in some of his actions, responds impulsively but with great faith in the Lord. “Lord if it is you, bid me to come to you on the water?” The Lord did not even hesitate for a moment. He replied “Come.” Peter responded to this right away and he climbed out of the boat and walked upon the sea. He walked to the Lord on the water! As long as his eyes were fixed on the Lord, he was able to do a great things. He was doing what the Lord Himself did, with His help. But like all of us mere humans, he allowed his eyes to drift away from the Lord. He began to think rationally once more. He heard the swirling winds and remembered that he was walking on the water, which defies all understanding. Immediately, the one called “the rock”, began to sink like a stone.

In this moment he did what any of us would have done. He cried out with his whole heart “Lord save me!” This is one of our common phrases in Orthodox prayer life. “Lord help me! Lord save me!” In that very moment Peter was calling upon the name of the Lord with a singular focus, like his very life depended on it (and it did). My brothers and sisters, this is the type of focus and energy we should bring to our prayers. One of our people sent me a wonderful quote by St. Joseph the Hesychast this week. In it he says “You must keep crying out like a lunatic, “Save me, my dear Jesus!” These are the words of a man who lived and breathed the struggle for prayer for much of his life. As our Lord quickly reached out His hand to save Peter, we are assured that the Lord will also reach out to us to help us. Of course we should also do our part not to fall into sins carelessly or willingly. It is counterproductive to both fly towards the net of sin and then cry out to be freed from the net. We are required to make an effort with our whole being, rather than to be “lukewarm” as our Lord has said. Perhaps it will not be a perfect effort and yet the Lord can and will bless our imperfect efforts and He will, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, magnify the work we have undertaken. He wants this work to be successful in Him. He wants us to really grow to know Him intimately.

Sometimes in our life we feel like we are drowning. Drowning in trials, drowning in sins, drowning in temptations, drowning in negative emotions, drowning in our perceived failures. When in our life we feel that we are drowning like Peter and the waters have risen all around us and begun to overtake us and to cover us completely, why do we become overwhelmed by fear? Do we not call God “our Father”? We are assured that God is there with us, in the very midst of our storms. In the worst possible place and situation that we can think of, God has not left us. He is the Lord over all of creation. He is the lover of mankind. He is indeed the One who saves and that there is no other. We often feel like God is absent and that is also a sign that we have been negligent in our prayers. Negligent to grow in faith. We aren’t going to God daily or diligently or with heartfelt prayers, but perhaps we are approaching God ritualistically and with coldness. So as we begin to pray in a more concerted and heartfelt way, we also feel God’s presence in a different way.

St. Theophan the recluse writes that we should bring God into our mind often during the day. He says “Why is it, you ask, that one can pray for so many years with a prayer book, and still not have prayer in his heart? I think the reason is that people only spend a little time lifting themselves up to God when they complete their prayer rule, and in other times, they do not remember God.” “…during the course of the day, cry out to God more often, even if only with a few words, according to need and the work of the day. Beginning anything, for example, say ‘Bless, O Lord!’ When you finish something, say, ‘Glory to Thee, O Lord’ … If passions arise, say, ‘Save me, O Lord, I am perishing.’ If the darkness of disturbing thoughts comes up, cry out: ‘Lead my soul out of prison.’… Do this in every circumstance, or simply say often, ‘Lord, have mercy’, ‘Most Holy Theotokos save us”…. Say such prayers as often as possible, always making the effort for them come from your heart, as if squeezed out of it. When we do this, we will frequently ascend to God in our hearts, making frequent petitions and prayers. Such increased frequency will bring about the habit of mental conversation with God.” — St. Theophan the Recluse, On prayer, Homily 2

The Lord does not desire that we drown in the trials of this world or of ourselves. May we climb this mountain of prayer together with the help of God. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (14:14-22)

In today’s reading we hear that a great crowd of people was waiting for Jesus as He came ashore from the boat in which He had been traveling. It can be hard for us to imagine the life of Our Lord and the many ways in which He was stretched thin and suffered during His earthly ministry. He rarely knew a moments rest. Someone was always following Him, questioning Him, wanting something from Him. He rarely turned people away, instead we are told that “He had compassion on them..”

In this passage we are told that due to the Lord’s overwhelming compassion, He spent the whole day healing their sick, until it was evening. As the sun was setting the disciples came to Jesus with a reasonable idea. They said “This is a lonely (desolate) place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” It’s a reasonable request, right? Perhaps not as reasonable as it might seem at first glance. It was reasonable or rational from our earthly, and human perspective. But this request did not account for all of the data properly. Within this request is an underlying lack of faith and understanding into the true nature of Jesus Christ, the man whom they had been following all over. They knew Him to be a great teacher and a great wonder worker and a great man. They might have seen him as a great prophet or even as the Messiah, the Christ. But they had not fully understood the situation even at this point.

What they had failed to see and to understand was the most important aspect of all. They failed to see that Jesus Christ was more than prophet and more than just the awaited Messiah and anointed one. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Son of God. One of the attributes of God is the ability to create from nothing. Our Lord could have fed the multitudes from nothing. It is nothing for God to do that. It is so very simple. Yet He chooses not to go that route. He chooses something better. He chooses to involve us in the process. He wants us to be coworkers with Him in the ministry. He also desires to see our faith. He desires to work in synergy with His people and in doing so, He prepares them to become the foundation of His Church. This theme is seen clearly as the Lord has the disciples break and organize the large group of people into more manageable groups so that they can properly receive ministry from the disciples who in turn receive blessings from the Lord.

When the disciples ask to send the crowds away the Lord replies “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” This is more than a statement regarding this particular situation on this particular day. It is a statement about the role of the Church in the lives of it’s people. The Lord is preparing His disciples hearts and minds for the role He has planned for them since before they were born. This is the deeper meaning: He wants His disciples, the pillars of His Church, to serve and feed and provide for His people. He wants them to know that there is no where for His people to go, to be fed and to be satisfied apart from the Church, apart from His presence. But they don’t yet understand. They call the place where the Son of God is present and in their midst, a desolate or lonely place! Imagine!

Some of us aren’t too different from the disciples in this passage. We come to the house of God, to the place where God Himself if present yet we still complain. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk writes, “In going to church, think that thou art going to the house of the King of Heaven, where with fear and joy one ought to stand as in heaven before the King of Heaven.”

The problem wasn’t that the place where the disciples had been was desolate. The problem was that they did not have a proper understanding and faith in Christ who stood before them. They were present physically but the eyes of their hearts were still not purified, not open to fully see and understand reality in light of their Master Jesus Christ.

My friends, if God is with us, why are we worried about hunger and thirst and loneliness? Does God not provide for all of our needs? Does God not desire to feed and to clothe us? Does God not love us? In fact, when we step back we see God’s hand and His presence in everything in our lives. He is constantly our provider and the giver of good things.

We see that God uses His Church to provide for our most important needs. The Church which was founded by Our Lord and established by the Apostles gives us spiritual nourishment. The Church gives us spiritual fellowship with one another, and with God and His saints. We gain a new identity and sense of belonging as part of the family and household of God. We receive great grace and yes, we also receive love and mercy and forgiveness in abundance.

The way that God works in this passage is the way that we see God work through the Church and in our own lives as well. Our Lord asks the disciples to bring whatever they have, their small sacrifices to Him and He takes these small offerings and makes them truly special. He multiplies them and sanctifies them and they become infinitely more precious and life-giving. Let’s not forget that the disciples took up 12 baskets full of the leftovers! They ended up with more than they had when they began the distribution of food. Everyone who was present was fed and filled to the brim. In the Church we each bring our small offerings and God blesses them and multiplies them to be a great blessing to all of us and to many others who have not even stepped foot in this church yet.

Our Lord Jesus Christ will do the same in each of our lives if only we will bring our little offerings and leave them at His feet. But are we willing to do this? It requires a certain amount of trust and faith in God. It requires that we give up our desire for complete control of our situations and our lives. As the saying goes, it requires “letting go and letting God.” First and foremost we are asked to sacrifice our own wills in order to live according to the will of God for our lives. I think that if we are honest, many of us are failing to live with that as our goal and ultimate consideration.

We often start our conversations with “I think” or “I believe” or “I feel” or “I want”. It is not to say that you are not important. You are very important. What you desire and want and feel and believe are important. But is God’s desire for your life not infinitely more important? You might desire things that are destructive or sinful, yet God loves you so much that He desires only good things for you. Brothers and sisters, this is God’s desire. To provide for us, to nurture us, to feed us, to grant us true fulfillment. He is able, if we are willing. He wants to give us life. He wants to redeem our lives from corruption and falsehood. He wants us to know and live within the truth of His teaching. He wants us to inherit His life, to be where He is and where the saints are. So let us be with Christ, in the Church, in our prayers, in love for our neighbors. This is our small offering, may God receive it and multiply it!

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Epistle of St. James. (5:10-20)

Today’s epistle was written by St. James the brother of the Lord and the first bishop of Jerusalem. As with all of the daily readings, it is given to us today by the Church with the purpose of bringing something to light. In this case it is to focus on the prophet Elijah (who is known in Greek and Arabic as Elias) since today is the day when he is commemorated on the Church calendar.

St. James writes, “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. Elias was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.” He tells us that Elias was like us. A mere man. Yet his great faith made him extraordinary, rather it made his prayers extraordinary. His deep faith opened up a powerful line of communication between himself and the Lord. This faith is possible for any one of us sitting here together. In fact, God desires this for us. To know us, to speak with us, to commune with us. But our lack of faith and purity of heart and our love of the world and for sin, all stand as obstacles to this deep and true relationship. The life in Christ, the life of the Church is an antidote, a remedy and a therapeutic path towards healing and towards a right relationship with God. Some of these aspects of healing are the focus of this same epistle passage we heard today. Namely the sacraments of anointing of the sick as well as confession. In fact these two have a close connection to one another.

St. James writes, “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

Some of you know that we pray the service of anointing or Holy Unction on Great and Holy Wednesday evening. We also pray this service and anoint those who are really sick whenever it is necessary. As you hear in the words of St. James, the elders of the church come and pray over the one who is sick and anoint him with the oil in the name of the Lord. In Greek the word elder that is mentioned here is “presbyteros” or presbyter, which is another term for the english word priest. So it was definitely not the case that St. James is referring to elders as merely old members of the church but rather the priests who are the “stewards of the mysteries of God.”

This rite as it is in the service books calls for 7 priests to come together to read 7 prayers with 7 epistle and 7 gospel readings. Red wine is mixed with olive oil and we pray over this oil asking the Lord the Holy Spirit to bless it for healing. This mixture of oil and wine brings our minds to the story of the good samaritan who put wine and oil on the wounds of the man who was injured. In the context of these prayers is the request that God would heal not only our bodies but heal our souls. There is a close connection between the forgiveness of sins and the physical healing for which we pray. We remember that Our Lord Jesus in the gospels would heal someone and might say “Go your way, your sins are forgiven you.”

This healing connected to the forgiveness of sins is also reflected here in the passage when St. James writes, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Interestingly this was exactly the early practice in the life of the Church according to our best sources. The sacrament of confession was not used so much for minor sins but was typically used in the case of serious sins, what some would call “mortal sins” although that is not really the language that is used in the Orthodox Church. These are sins that would immediately cut you off from the life of Christ and His Church. Those sins would include murder, adultery, fornication including homosexual activity, idol worship, and denial of Christ among others. When someone had fallen into such a way of life it was prescribed that they come to the church assembly and make a public confession of their sins before they would receive absolution from the Lord through the prayers of His priests. In this way they showed their true humility and repentance of heart and they acknowledged that their sins, although done in private, have an effect on the whole Christian community as this is the true nature of sin.

But something changed around the 4^th century regarding this practice of public confession. As you know Our Lord Jesus Christ gave the apostles the keys to the Church and He told them that whatever they bound and loosed on earth would be bound in heaven. Meaning that they and those who followed them, were given the authority to order and structure the life of the Church. So it should not disturb us that we see some minor developments in the practical or liturgical life of the Church because the Church is not static but dynamic, filled with the Holy Spirit.

By the time of St. John Chrysostom, who was patriarch of Constantinople, it seems that public confession was a cause of scandals and other practical difficulties that made it preferable for the confession to become private, one on one, with the priest standing as both the representative of the whole community and the representative of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to hear the confession. Confession also became more regular in practice. Our archbishop, His Eminence Metropolitan SABA has mentioned that we should confess and receive absolution 2-4 times a year at a minimum. This is not a rule but a point of guidance for our benefit.

The benefits of confession are many. St. Isaac the Syrian writes, “The sick one who is acquainted with his sickness is easily to be cured; and he who confesses his pain is near to health.” but he adds, “Many are the pains of the hard heart; and when the sick one resists the physician, his torments will be augmented.” And St. Isaac continues saying, “There is no sin which cannot be pardoned except that one which lacks repentance…” + St. Isaac the Syrian, “Six Treatises on the Behaviour of Excellence”

The gift that we receive from confession is the absolution, the wiping away of the sins that we confess. We receive cleansing and healing of soul and body. We receive an injection of the grace of the Holy Spirit and we are given power to once again struggle to live good and holy lives in purity, to be full of God’s grace, just like the prophet Elijah whom we celebrate today. He had a nature like ours. May we, through faith, be like him and like all of the saints. AMEN.

Source: Sermons