The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (8:5-13)

“Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” This is a most unbelievable reaction of Our Lord Jesus Christ in today’s gospel passage. Something surprised and astounded the Lord of glory. And this was passed down to us 2000 years later so that we would have insight into the heart of Our Lord and learn about the ways of the kingdom.

So what was it that surprised and astounded Our Lord Jesus? What happened that caused Him to gush forth with such praise? It was the faith that He witnessed within a man who had no business being faithful at all. Who was this man? We are told that he was a Roman centurion, a high ranking soldier. He was not a Jew, but a pagan gentile. He was not of the seed of Abraham, or of those who followed the God of Abraham. Yet somehow in the midst of his lack of religious training and influence, somehow, the truth shined brightly in his heart and he grabbed hold of it. And this truth wasn’t a source of pride and selfish egotism. The truth actually brought this man to a healthy sense of shame and humility. The truth became to him, a light that revealed his unworthiness to have ever been granted such a blessing.

His faithful humility changed the way that Jesus Christ interacted with him and because he was humble and faithful, he saw the Son of God work a great wonder. There should be no doubt that it changed his life forever.

The centurion asked for the Lord to heal his servant who was lying paralyzed at home. And the Lord generously agreed to come and to heal him. Of course our Lord had no need to do such a thing, especially for one who wasn’t a Jew, yet even here we see the Lord’s overwhelming grace and mercy. He is more than willing to come and to heal the man. And this is precisely when the centurion surprised Him with profound and deep words. The centurion said “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”

“I am not worthy.” Is there any more rare saying in our current age? People go to the streets to protest their “worthiness” of all sorts of things. Modern people live with this perpetual chip on the shoulder as if they are owed everything in life and if something of their choosing is denied to them, it is considered a great travesty, insult and injustice. But we don’t want to follow the example of the modern man. We want to be in rhythm and harmony with those who are well pleasing to God.

How did the centurion receive a great response from the Lord Jesus Christ, and in turn, how can we receive a warm and joyous response from the Lord in our own lives? He started from a point of humility and an overwhelming feeling of unworthiness. He knew that Jesus was special, that some believed Him to be a great prophet and likely that some even thought He was the Messiah, the anointed, holy one of Israel.

And in hearing all of these wonderful things about Christ, the Roman man felt quite unworthy of the Lord. But in his humility, he maintained faith in the ability of Jesus Christ. He believed that Jesus was powerful enough to heal his servant with a mere word. And this man was right! Christ is the word of God and He created the whole of creation by the power of His word! With just a word, the Lord can transform everything. With one word, the Lord made the demons to depart from the possessed man. And with one word the Lord of power commanded His friend Lazarus to rise from the tomb after 4 days. The Lord can do this and will do this for each of us. He will speak a word on our behalf, into our lives, into our hearts and souls. He will do powerful work in the midst of one who is humble and faithful.

This mindset is even apparent in the routine life of the Orthodox Church. For instance you can see it in the prayers of preparation for Holy Communion. In one of the prayers of St. John Chrysostom, a great saint of the fourth century, he wrote these words, “O Lord my God, I know that I am not worthy nor sufficient that thou shouldest enter under my roof into the habitation of my soul.” Here St. John uses the exact words of the Roman centurion in order to “warm” the heart of the Lord towards the one who comes to partake of His holy body and precious blood. This is one of the ways that we prepare our hearts to receive Christ and all of His blessings. We prepare the heart through a humble disposition that is also full of faith.

St. John of Kronstadt tells us what it looks like when we are humble. He says, “To be humble means to consider ourselves deserving, for our sins, of every humiliation, injury, persecution, and even blows; and to be meek means to patiently endure injustice, abuse, etc., and to pray for our enemies.” And my brothers and sisters, this is the way to enter Christ’s heart and the way for Christ to enter into our hearts fully. By God’s grace, I desire this for each of you and for myself. May we learn from the centurion’s attitude and may we cry out to the Lord Jesus, “I am not worthy of you, but only say a word and I will be healed!” AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (6:22-33)

We find ourselves in the middle of the epic sermon on the mount. In this text, St. Luke the Evangelist is casting our Lord Jesus Christ as the new Moses who give the new law to the people of God. And in the midst of this Our Lord Jesus Christ shares with us these words of life… “The Lord said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness.” Often as westerners we read this text a bit too literally and so we reduce this to what our literal eyes are looking at. In fact, the more important meaning is regarding the intentions and desires of the heart. As I have mentioned in the past, when you begin to have your heart set on something you might say, I have my eye on that. Perhaps it is a new car for instance.

Yet, sometimes what we have our eye on is something that is actually sinful. We may have our heart and desires focused on something that is evil. Perhaps it is a desire for fame or power. Perhaps it is a desire to fulfill a perceived unmet need or desire within us. Perhaps it is the desire to embrace a false identity. If we continue on such a path, without changing course and without repentance, this desire will consume us completely. And this is why the Lord continues saying “No one can serve two master; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”

If you focus your glance on the things that you desire, you begin to change your behaviors to obtain those things. Modern marketing and advertising know this and they use it literally to inundate your sense, especially your sight, in order to evoke an emotional response of desire. They stir up the passions. Elder Aimilianos, one of the modern holy elders of Mt. Athos said “The passions bind the mind to material things that we think are harmless, since we tell ourselves, God gave them to us and in them selves they are not sinful.”

So if the things that we truly desire are wrong or evil, they wind us down an evil path that ends in complete darkness. As a Christian, the impetus for change in our life should be a focus on Christ and the things of Christ. We call Him Lord and Master don’t we? So how can we have a master and then actually allow other things to guide us in a contrary direction? If we go against our true Master we don’t end up without a master, we end up with a different master. Either way we become slaves and servants. As Bob Dylan writes, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord. But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

If we trust our own thoughts, feelings and desires, we are setting ourselves up for failure, destined to choose the wrong master and the wrong path that will eventually mold us into the wrong image. That is a really difficult concept to understand especially in our day and age where feelings have been put up on a pedestal as the single most important aspect of our humanity. Whatever you “feel” you should do! Do whatever makes you “Happy”!

But this sentiment is conspicuously absent from the holy scriptures, the gospels and the new testament not to mention the saints of the Church. It is also completely absent from the teachings of Our Lord and master. Why? Because typically our feelings come from a heart and mind that lacks purity. In lacking purity it rarely reflects the will of God but often reflects our own internal corruptness. We are confused by our passionate desires and they promise us that if we will only follow them and sacrifice everything for them then we will know true peace and fulfillment and we will be happy and find our meaning. In fact, Satan promises us with exactly the opposite of the truth. It is only through the sacrifice of your thoughts and your will to Christ that you can become someone and find meaning and fulfillment because then you enter into truth and light and life which all come from Christ.

So how should we struggle? Elder Aimilianos says, “Whatever it is that you think or believe, whatever it is you think you love, of that your mind has become attached to, you must strike it with a divine passion, with hate, and then your passion will be set aside by divine power, by divine grace, and you will lay the foundation that will enable you eventually to love God.”

This is the start of our repentance. We imagine our heart as a one bedroom apartment with a single bed and there is only room for one honored guest. We will house and provide shelter to the one we love. The other unwanted guest must be hated and removed from our dwelling. If we truly desire God, God’s grace infuses our lives and changes us. Some of the tools the holy elder recommends in order to grow are praying at night, as well as the remembrance of God, he writes “It is essential to remember God, to hold God within memory, for memory fuels desire, and it is by means of desire that God becomes our possession.”

And this same sentiment is reflected in his own words as He said,

“My desire is for Christ; my longing is for Christ. It is for Him that my life is being transformed… my path is one constantly seeking after the Lord.”

May we also constantly seek after Christ our true God until He becomes our obsession, the One who consumes our life. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

Feast of Pentecost

Today is the finale of the feast of Pascha, it is the celebration of Pentecost, the Feast of the descent of our Lord, the Holy Spirit. It may interest you to know that the Jews also celebrated the feast of Pentecost. It was celebrated 50 days after their own pascha which was the first passover, while they dwelt in Egypt. The feast of Pentecost was the day on which it was believed that Moses received the ten commandments on Mt. Sinai, while they people were down below.

For us, it has been 50 days since we celebrated the day of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today we top off this celebration with the final purpose for our Lord’s incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. The Lord Jesus Christ became a man, suffered, died and then was resurrected that He might glorify us and make us acceptable and holy vessels of the Lord, the Holy Spirit. The divine One became human that through Him, the human ones might become divine. God loved us, the pinnacle of His creation to such a degree and to such a depth that He was not content simply to give us wonderful gifts, but to give us Himself, to give us a share and inheritance in His godliness. He has given us to be by grace, what He is by nature.

All of this happens through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is this Holy Spirit that is given to us in holy baptism. And this is a truly wonderful gift, in fact one of the great saints, St. Seraphim of Sarov says that “the true goal of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.” But hold on, what does that mean? I thought that we received the Holy Spirit in baptism. Yes, indeed, we did. What St. Seraphim is speaking of is living a life and becoming Christians who are infused with the Holy Spirit. Not having the Holy Spirit in name only, but in abundance and truth.

For the past few weeks we’ve been reading a fantastic little book called “The Indication of The Way Into The Kingdom of Heaven” by St. Innocent of Alaska. In this wonderful book he touches on many of the basic topics of our Christian faith and life and then he spends a good chapter of the book speaking about the Holy Spirit. Here is what he says

“The true and recognized means of receiving the Holy Spirit, according to the teaching of the Holy Scripture and the experience of great saints, are the following: (1) Purity of heart and chastity, (2) humility, (3) listening to the voice of God, (4) prayer, (5) daily self-denial, (6) reading and listening to Holy Scripture, and (7) the sacraments of the Church, and especially Holy Communion.”

and then St. Innocent continues writing,

“Every faithful soul is filled with the Holy Spirit, if she is cleansed of her sins and not encumbered or closed by self-love and pride. For the Holy Spirit always surrounds us and wishes to fill us, but our evil deeds that surround us like a hard stone wall are like evil guards that do not allow Him to come near us and keep Him away from us. Every sin can keep the Holy Spirit away from us, but bodily impurity and spiritual pride are especially repellant to Him.”

So this path is clearly laid out for each of us by the Bible and the fathers and saints of the Church. It is not enough that we celebrate the potential of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. It is better that we recommit ourselves to making this the true aim of our lives. We do this by addressing what we ought to address and by working positively to make our souls open and fertile ground for the Lord, the Holy Spirit to enter and to bless our lives. St. Innocent says that if we do not want to lose the grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit then we are to follow the path laid out for us by the Church and observe the following practices of Purity, Humility, Attentiveness, Prayer, Fasting, Scripture, and Sacraments.

Imagine that someone offered you the most precious and valuable treasure on the planet. And then imagine that this same person then offered you a map with the exact coordinates to find this treasure. Now you understand what the Lord has offered to each of us through the Church. Not only a treasure but a way and a map to the treasure and He offers this treasure not for a moment or for a day or two. He promises that we can have this treasure within us and that we can keep it forever, even after our bodies fall asleep in the Lord. This inheritance of the Holy Spirit can never be taken away from those who are faithful and full of love for God and their neighbors. It can also be replenished and recharged by the grace of God, whenever we have fallen and are depleted of this gift. Let’s conclude by again hearing St. Seraphim who says,

In spite of our sinfulness, in spite of the darkness surrounding our souls, the Grace of the Holy Spirit, conferred by baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, still shines in our hearts with the inextinguishable light of Christ . . . and when the sinner turns to the way of repentance, the light smooths away every trace of the sins committed, clothing the former sinner in the garments of incorruption, spun of the Grace of the Holy Spirit. It is this acquisition of the Holy Spirit about which I have been speaking . . .” (Saint Seraphim of Sarov, Conversation with Motovilov).

May we be vigilant to run this race and seek this treasure by the grace of Our Lord, the Holy Spirit, together with the Father and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

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

God has created the world out of His overflowing love. The pinnacle of the created world according to the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church is the human being. God created us out of His love. He wanted us to exist, to experience, to live and He wanted to know us and be known by us. As we hear today’s gospel reading it can really be easy to overlook what a profound and amazing story we are hearing. It is the lengthiest one on one dialogue between Our Lord Jesus Christ and any other person in the entirety of the 4 gospels. He doesn’t save this for the high priest or Pontius Pilate or even one of His very own disciples. He shares this honor and privilege with a sinful and struggling woman. This is a much bigger deal than we probably realize. According to some historians, it was not even permitted that women should speak with men outside of their homes unless those men were either their husbands or their close family members such as brothers or uncles. Yet we see that the Lord does not refrain from speaking with her. He knows the social rules and conventions but He is more interested in the person that is right across from Him. Today is the day that He will open her heart and bring her to living faith.

This poor woman had come to the well in the middle of the day because she was thirsty and looking for fresh water to drink, but the Lord revealed that in truth she was thirsty for something much deeper. She had been married 5 times and now she even spent time with a man to whom she wasn’t married. In all of her actions she loudly screams that she is lonely and desperate for a deep sense of love that has never quite been fulfilled. One after the other, this poor woman chased after the next opportunity, the next promise, the next chance, but one after the other, each of them failed. She was left still thirsty for more. The water here is a symbol of what this woman desires and chases after. She drinks and finds herself thirsty again. She starts a new relationship, thinking it will solve all of her problems and she is left still feeling lonely, misunderstood, and ultimately unloved.

The Lord Jesus never does anything by chance. It seems quite likely that He came to the well at that very moment and on that very day because He had a purpose. His purpose was to see this woman’s life redeemed. But in order to redeem her life He must first take it apart and correct her thinking. In the Christian life, you can’t simultaneously follow Jesus and do your own thing. You can’t have both, at least not in a serious way. Either you choose Christ or you choose your own way. When I say this I don’t mean merely mentioning that we follow Jesus Christ, I also mean actually following His teachings and the teachings of His living body, the Church. The saints demonstrate that we are forced to choose between our way(the way of the world) and Christ’s way (the way of the Church).

Our Lord does what would be considered rude in our times because when the Samaritan woman begins to talk about worship He insists that the woman doesn’t really have a clue what she’s talking about. He says to her “You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know.” But He knew that she could handle that and in fact would benefit from it. He goes even further saying “We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” In our day and age it is inconceivable that one would speak this way in such definitive and absolute terms. Yet this is precisely the way that the Lord Jesus addresses her and reveals to her the truth. The truth can be perceived as abrasive, yet nothing can substitute for truth, so we try to speak the truth in love as much as it is humanly possible. Our Lord is saying that not all paths lead to salvation because salvation is a living relationship with the true and living God. In the days of old, one was merely concerned about religion and philosophy, but now it is claimed that there are other ways to lay hold of salvation. Gender ideology and sexual identity are among the new paths offered for the one who is hungry and thirsty and lacks peace within themselves. Of course we know that this is not a path to living water, and not a path to God. The path doesn’t lead to peace or salvation because it starts with a lie as it’s foundation. True worship of God starts from a place of truth. Truth about who God is and truth about who we are. The Lord says “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” So when the Lord says that salvation is from the Jews, that means that salvation proceeds from a narrowly defined path. It is by no means universal, except in the sense in which it is available universally, to all people who repent and direct their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ.

The Lord pointed to this woman’s sinful life through her multiple marriages and divorces and her current relationship. He then corrected her understanding of religious practices and worship. And when she accepted these things humbly, without arguing or being offended, He then revealed Himself to her as the long-awaited Messiah, the anointed one of Israel.

Our path to salvation begins similarly. First we have to have our way of thinking and our way of life corrected. We have to see our failings, acknowledge them and choose to turn away from that path. Next we go to Christ and allow Him to teach us and lead us in the right way since He is the way, the truth and the life. We receive the living water of the Holy Spirit in baptism and Chrismation and continually as we struggle to live a holy life in the Church. This refreshes us and gives us life, much as it did for the Samaritan woman named Photeini. She met and was challenged by Jesus Christ and He forever changed her life, because He desired her and loved her even before she was born. Do we dare to allow Christ to encounter us in the depths of our hearts and to likewise change our lives? I want to leave you with a few words from St. Nikolai of Zicha. He writes,

“God does not desire that any man be lost. He did not create man for death, but for salvation. Is there a gardener who sows vegetables, yet desires that his vegetables dry out and perish? God is wiser and more compassionate than all men. God has only one desire: that all men repent and turn away from evil. How the husbandman rejoices when a withered vine comes back to life, becomes green again, and brings forth fruit! How much more then, is the joy of God and His angels when the souls of men, withered from sin, turn to Him and become young again with tears of repentance, and bring forth the fruit of repentance!” St. Nikolai Velomirovic- Prologue from Ochrid

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (5:1-15)

The resurrection is not a past event. It is true that the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has already happened, but for us, the resurrection, our resurrection, is a future event. Each and every encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ throughout our lives, is a chance to take part in the resurrection that Christ has promised us. How is this so? What do I mean?

The resurrection is not merely a physical miracle. The point of the resurrection is a complete and total resurrection. God is concerned with our physical health but even more with the health of the soul. When we are baptized, life is given to the soul. The soul is restored from a place of death and decay and renewed with life. We say that when someone is baptized he is reborn. As he chooses to dwell with Christ and to reach out and touch Christ daily in his life, he is not only reborn but refashioned, remade according to the image and likeness of God.

Today’s gospel reading from St. John is a reminder that true and complete healing and resurrection of the human person is found in Jesus Christ. We are told that a miracle happened in Jerusalem, at the pool called Bethesda. Occasionally, an angel of the Lord would trouble the waters and we are told that whoever stepped in first would be healed of his physical disease or infirmity. We see that among those who are waiting for the water to be stirred is a man who has been ill for 38 years. 38 years! Sometimes when I have the sniffles or a cold for two days I’m ready to throw in the towel, but this man was really seriously ill for a long time. He was paralyzed, perhaps from the waist down, we aren’t quite sure.

To add to his troubles, since he was paralyzed, he was quite unable to move quickly if the water happened to be stirred by the angel. So he put all of his hope in the kindness of some unknown person who would help him to get into the pool with perfect timing. Perhaps he had waited there by the miraculous pool for a long time, we don’t know. But either way, his situation was nearly impossible.

Life is quite difficult at times. Sometimes it feels impossible. And sometimes in the midst of our hardest times in life we have ideas and thoughts about what will make everything better for us. Just like this sick man who thought that having someone help him into the pool was his solution. So we say to ourselves, if only I had more money, things would be better. If only I had more health, things would be better. If only I had better friends, things would be better. We come with a multitude of man-made solutions to our most difficult problems in life, but the words of the gospel bring our attention to only one holistic solution. Most often this solution is right in front of our faces but we don’t have the spiritual eyes and the faith to see it. The solution to all of the impossible difficulties of life is not to find a better human answer but to turn your eyes to the One who does what is beyond comprehension, to the master Jesus Christ. He will offer you something far greater than you can imagine.

How do we turn to Christ? As Christians, we turn by repenting and acknowledging our faults and sins. Like the paralytic, we often look for others to blame when our situation doesn’t get better, but the real issue was something so close to him that he couldn’t see it. His paralysis itself was the problem. His limitations and his sickness defined him. When we repent and acknowledge our sins, we are no longer defined by them, instead of shouldering the oppressive weight of these sins, we give them over to Christ who gladly carries them and then He defines us by His definition, as children of the Most High, according to His grace and love for us, His children.

We can also turn to Him when we open the pages of Holy Scripture and especially the gospels. In those blessed pages we hear directly from the Lord Himself. How many of us are starving for the word of God in our lives? We gorge ourselves on the world, but we starve without the Lord. We fill ourselves with entertainment and fiction and stories and news/propaganda, but all of this is a distortion of reality because Christ alone is truth. That is why the gospel sits alone on the altar covered in gold (plating).

We turn to the Lord when we put God first in our lives. When we start our week with the joyous celebration of the liturgy. Every week this is a choice we must make for the rest of our lives. Do we set aside the greater for the lesser? Do we set aside what is most important for what is less important? Well that is precisely what would happen if we got lazy or found ways to start our week that didn’t involve attending the liturgy. But as children of God we offer the first portion of the week, of our time and energy and resources to the Lord and we ask Him to take this small offering of ours and to bless and multiply it according to His will.

We turn to Him when we receive His blessed body and pure blood in holy communion. He literally feeds us His body and blood. He promises us that when we partake of Him, He will raise us up at the last day, and in fact, we often experience internal resurrection of our hearts and minds when we come and partake of the eucharist.

We turn to Him when we study the saints and emulate their lives and we emulate their lives when we make it our duty to live the commandments and be molded by them, especially the commandments to love God and love our neighbors.

My dear ones, for the man or woman or child who wants to be completely healed and resurrected, the path is open and the Lord sees us. Only choose carefully how you will answer His question, “Do you want to be healed?” Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (12:1-18)

Yesterday we celebrated the raising of Lazarus from the dead after 4 days. As we have previously mentioned, this miracle is directly related to the feast that we are celebrating today, Palm Sunday, our Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem. St. John the evangelist tells us that the reason why the people clamored to Jesus was because He had just done this startling sign and wonder. So the people flocked in droves to see this man who might be the messiah, the anointed holy one, and to see Lazarus who was raised from the dead.

The Lord Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. The One who can ride upon the chariots of fire and be carried by a multitude of Angels, rides on a humble and lowly donkey. When an emperor or king would enter a city after a great battle, they would come either on horse drawn chariots or on a beautiful and majestic horse. But the Lord who will indeed be victorious reminds us that His victory will not be through military might and power. It will be the victory through humility. We are constantly reminded that in the Christian life, the only way up…is down. We rise, or rather, are raised to honor and glory through our willingness to put ourselves beneath others and submit ourselves to others. It is a sentiment that is in utter contradiction to the messages of the world around us.

The Lord entered into Jerusalem and He heard the cries of the people, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!” Hosanna means “Save me, I pray” or “I pray that you will save me.” And this exactly what the people cried to Him. But we know that He was not swept up in their celebrations. He heard them cry “Hosanna!” but He knew that in a few days many of the same people would cry out, “Crucify Him!”

He heard that the people cried out to be saved, but He alone understood what that would mean for Him.

He saw that the people pushed to try and catch a glimpse of Him, and perhaps He knew that some of the same people would line the streets as He walked to Golgotha on Holy Friday.

He was carried into Jerusalem by a Donkey, He who would carry the weight of our sins upon His very shoulders.

He entered the city with His disciples by His side, but not one would remain when the guards came to arrest Him later in the week.

The people flocked to see Lazarus, the man who had died but later they would flock to see the God-Man, as He was led to His death.

The One who heard the people cry “Hosanna!” carried this cry deep in His heart as He also heard mockers crying out “Save yourself and come down from the cross!”

We are awestruck by the depth of His mercy and love for mankind.

I want to leave you with a quote from St. Andrew of Crete from one of his Palm Sunday homilies,

“So let us spread before his feet, not garments or soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves, clothed in his grace, or rather, clothed completely in him.

We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before him. Now that the crimson stains of our sins have been washed away in the saving waters of baptism and we have become white as pure wool, let us present the conqueror of death, not with mere branches of palms but with the real rewards of his victory.

Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches as we join today in the children’s holy song:

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel.”

AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (10:32-45)

Today is the fifth and final Sunday of Great and Holy Lent. Tomorrow we begin the sixth and final week of this fast. I pray that it has been profitable for each of us. And if for some reason we believe that it has not been, I pray that God will give us courage to push ahead regardless as we aim for the imperishable crown of victory with Christ and His saints. The promises of God are true. Every last one of them. God has promised us everything, only endure to the end.

During this last Sunday of Lent the Church draws our attentions to the future, to what is to come. We are told that Our Lord Jesus Christ “took his twelve disciples, and began to tell them what was to happen to Him, saying “Behold we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him, and spit upon Him, and kill Him; and after three days He will rise.”

Sometimes when we are in the middle of Holy Week and we hear all of the amazing readings about all that Our Lord Jesus suffered, and we hear the reactions of the disciples, we might forget that in fact the Lord Himself told the disciples what was to happen. This was from His very lips. Yet somehow they still did not understand and did not believe. In fact we see that two of His disciples come to Him with a request. Our Lord is ever so gracious and He gladly allows them to request their hearts desire. We thank God that He also allows us to request our hearts desire. He said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the sons of thunder, the brothers James and John said to Him, “Grant us to sit, one at thy right hand and one at thy left, in thy glory.”

Now this is truly fascinating on many levels. First we recall that in one of the gospels it is written that it was the mother of James and John who made this request. Nevertheless, this is how it is reported to us according to St. Mark. What is so fascinating is that at the time when the Lord Jesus Christ was the most vulnerable and most honest about the trials and tribulations that He was about to face, His disciples were glossing over that and only thinking about glory and honor. After the disciples had spent nearly three continuous years sitting at the feet of the Lord and learning from Him, soaking in every word and every miraculous moment, yet they did not understand at all.

I think that often we are exactly like the disciples. We might follow the Lord for years but we can’t seem to understand what it means that the Lord really suffered. We can’t understand that the Lord endured humiliation. And we can go a step further, we can’t seem to understand that we must also suffer tremendously in this life. This is why the Lord replied to the brothers, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink…”?

So often we want to have the glory of following Christ, we want holiness, we want a good reputation, we want paradise, we want to sit and eat with the saints. But Christ calls us to first live like the saints and suffer with the saints before we can begin to enter rest with the saints and with the Lord. No matter what type of life you attempt to engineer for yourself, you have to face trials and temptations and suffering of one form or another. As we heard on Wednesday night while listening to St. Innocent of Alaska, he taught the people that we as Christians suffer both external and internal crosses, and it’s not acceptable to run away from those crosses. Christ our Lord knew that He would suffer and instead of running away from it, He embraced it with God as His only helper. Courage is necessary my brothers and sisters. We see this courage in the lives of the martyrs. Had they been cowards, we would barely even remember that they had ever existed. And we tell ourselves and others that we would like to be like the martyrs and suffer and die for our faith, yet the smallest life circumstances and troubles come our way and we begin to think of new ways to betray Christ and run away from our duties and obligations. Face up to your crosses, your trials and difficulties, with the help of God.

We try to face up to our crosses and bear them with courage because in doing so, we save not only ourselves but we also serve others. When we lack courage, we can’t help anyone. When we think only about ourselves and how we can best have what we desire in life then no one is edified or sanctified and no one is helped at all. We often want to be like James and John and sit in glory, but the Lord reminds them and us saying “whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be servant of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

This is given to us for our sakes. As a reminder and a call to take courage as your friend and companion, not only during this fasting season but during every part of Christian life. The Lord desires with all of His heart to give us the joy and the power of the resurrection. But there is an order, just as there was an order in the life of our Lord and anytime we try to have things out of place and without the proper order then our life won’t reflect the love of Christ, it will just look like chaos. Hear these difficult words from St. Mark the Ascetic,

“Unless a man gives himself entirely to the Cross, in a spirit of humility and self-abasement; unless he casts himself down to be trampled underfoot by all and despised, accepting injustice, contempt and mockery; unless he undergoes all these things with joy for the sake of the Lord, not claiming any kind of human reward whatsoever – glory or honor or earthly pleasures – he cannot become a true Christian.” -“Letter to Nicolas the Solitary”, The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Vol. 1)

We become true Christians through our embrace and love for the cross of Christ which is demonstrated perfectly in our embrace of our own crosses. And when we do this joyfully, then we become not only true Christians but true human beings made in the image and likeness of God. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews. (6:13-20) and The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (9:16-30)

These readings are given to us for the fourth Sunday of great and holy lent. We are more than halfway through the contest. But it still seems that the end is a long ways off. We begin to feel exhausted by the extra services and because we have fasted. Little things might frustrate us or make us feel anxious. Things that didn’t tempt us in the first few weeks of the fast may have worn us down and now we find ourselves feeling a bit defeated. Perhaps our passions have gotten the best of us. Perhaps our poor habits are trying to overwhelm us.

Now is precisely when the Church reminds us of why we fast. We see this clearly in the gospel reading. A young boy was demon possessed and his father brought him to the disciples to cure him. The disciples had done this many many times over the years. Our Lord Jesus gave them the power to do this. Yet in this particular case, it was all to no avail. The father of the young man was so desperate for a cure for his son and in his desperation he uttered beautiful words from the depths of his heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!”

Perhaps at this point of the fast each of us has had a moment or two where we feel the depth of this despair and where we want to cry out with the father, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” The Lord does not like to see us suffer, but we know that the Lord loves it when we understand our situation and turn to Him as our only hope. In truth we don’t have the power to solve our problems or fix our brokenness, but God does have this power. So we are given the opportunity to become like the man and cry, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” To this cry, the Lord responded swiftly with His cleansing words and healing touch and he healed the young man.

Later, after the crowds dispersed we are told that the disciples were surprised and wondered why they couldn’t cast out the demon and heal the young man. What the Lord Jesus tells them is an important thing for us to remember today. He said “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” He is acknowledging a spiritual reality that we cannot see with our physical eyes. Not all problems are the same. Not all spiritual issues are of the same strength or intensity. Some issues are far more stubborn than others and in order to counteract such stubborn demonic issues, our faith must be really strong, fully charged and ready for the warfare.

It is no surprise to us that the Lord tells us that the path to strong prayers and strong faith is through bringing our prayers together with fasting. God desires to give us control over our spiritual lives and to make great progress. Fasting is part of the path to spiritual victory. This is one of the reasons why fasting is a staple of Orthodox Christian living. We fast for over 200 days of the year. The Church is reminding us that while we are alive and in the flesh, we are at war and we have to be ready for the assaults of the enemy.

St. Theophan the Recluse writes, “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.”

My brothers and sisters, it is God’s good pleasure to help you and to heal you of all your spiritual infirmities. In fact this is exactly the message of today’s epistle to the Hebrews. It tells us that “when God made a promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely I will bless and multiply you.”” and it continues saying,

“So that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul…”

All of this is shared with us today to give us encouragement and boldness. God has promised to bless us, His children, as He promised to bless Abraham. Now is not the time to wilt like an old unwatered flower. Now is the time for us as Orthodox Christians to seek Christ even more boldly and to grow strong and courageous in this battle. If God is for us, who can be against us? The battle of Lent has lingered on but it will not go on forever. We will be victorious over our sins, our passions, our spiritual infirmities and weaknesses not because we are strong. Far from it. Because HE is strong. We will even defeat our final enemy, the final boss, who is death, because He has defeated death. Have faith. Be firm. Be ready to follow Christ now on the path that He has given us, with prayer and fasting. The struggle is worth it because Christ is worth everything in our lives. To Him alone be the glory with His Father and the Holy Spirit AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (8:34-9:1)

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” That is the powerful question that is posed to the disciples and to us today. And it is such a fitting question for us because we are people who can engineer our lives to have almost anything and everything that we desire. If I can’t afford something, I can even buy it with a credit card. Yet we know that at some point down the road, we will have to pay back what we owe. Yet this is much more true regarding our souls. Our soul is given to us as a gift from God. A gift that we can choose to nurture and grow or that we can choose to neglect and disregard or even abuse. Either way, at the end, we will be responsible to answer for how we have treated our souls, what have we done with them and whether or not we still possess them.

Of all of the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, this is among the most important in the daily life of one who wants to follow the way of Christ, of one who wants to be called by the name of Christian. Our Lord Jesus Christ loves us, my dear brothers and sisters. He loves us. He cannot stand to see us far from Him and far from His Father. His desire is to have us present with Him at all times and especially in His kingdom. This makes sense doesn’t it? When we love people and enjoy their company we find that we want to be in their presence, to share time and space and life with one another. And the Lord Jesus desires to share all of this with us. But He tells us that the way won’t be easy and it definitely won’t be for everyone. The key to following the path laid out by the Lord Jesus Christ is to deny yourself.

We can imagine it in this way. All of life is a series of choices, a series of forks in the road. At each and every fork we are given an important choice, to turn to the left and follow the desires of our hearts whatever they may be, or to deny ourselves and turn to the right and follow after the Lord Jesus Christ. We are given this choice, to do what feels right, or to do what is right. And how often we find ourselves in the middle of this struggle! Perhaps for seasons of our life it feels like we are in this type of struggle daily. That we constantly have to reflect on where we are and what we are seeking in life. We are called to do this, with sobriety of heart and mind. We are called to remind ourselves of this question posed by the Lord Jesus “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” It’s not that the world is not offered to you. It is offered to you. Satan offered the whole world to the Lord Jesus Christ if only He would bow to him. It is offered to you. You can have it. But you can’t keep it and you definitely can’t have it and have your soul left intact. Sacrifices must be made either way. Either it is a sacrifice of our souls in order to gain our wants and desires. Or else it is a sacrifice of our wants and desires in order to gain our souls renewed in Christ.

Every single day Christians have to choose the way of denial, the way of the cross. Whether you are husbands or wives or parents or friends, whatever stage of life you are in, every day is another opportunity to see just how far we can go in setting aside our wants (even though they are sometimes powerful and feel like needs) and we try to see just how far we can go to carry our burdens and serve one another. Humanly speaking this is absolutely impossible. So how can we possibly do it? We can do it because Our Lord Jesus Christ first carried His cross for us. He has opened for us the way of the cross through His extreme humility and love for mankind.

St. Augustine says, “For, when I noticed that you were being slowed down in your divine purpose by your preoccupation with domestic cares, I felt that you were being carried and dragged along by your cross rather than that you were carrying it. What else does the cross mean than the mortality of this flesh? This is our very own cross which the Lord commands us to carry that we may be as well armed as possible in following him. We suffer momentarily until death is swallowed up in victory. [Isa 25:8; Hos 13:14; 1Co 15:54-55.] Then this cross itself will be crucified… There is no other way for you to follow the Lord except by carrying it, for how can you follow him if you are not his?”

My friends, this way was opened to us by the Lord to give us a way to life, by allowing us to follow Him and to enter into His life. What’s more, we are told that unless we follow this way, we don’t really belong to Him. So the clear and powerful sign of our life belonging to Jesus Christ is that we submit ourselves and our desires and our very lives to Christ on a daily basis. We learn through failing and repentance and renewed struggle, to offer everything back to Christ. We learn to say to Christ “My Lord and My God, I know that my life is a gift from you, that it belongs to you, help me to use this life to follow you, to glorify you and to be well-pleasing to you for you alone are my hope and my joy. I desire only you.”

St. Isaac the Syrian once said, “Behold, for years and generations, the way of God has been leveled by the cross and by death. How is this with you, that you see the afflictions of the way as if they were out of the way? Do you not wish to follow the steps of the saints? Or do you wish to go a way which is special for you, without suffering? the way to God is a daily cross. No one can ascend to heaven with comfort, we know where the way of comfort leads.”

Today we celebrate the veneration of the Cross in order to give us renewed hope and strength and inspiration to keep going through the discomfort of Lent and to keep going in our Christian struggles with zeal and courage and hope. “Through the cross is joy come into all the world.” The cross of the Lord brought humanity to the resurrection. And when you faithfully carry the crosses that you have been given, God will use them to bring joy to you and to your world and will ultimately lift you to the culmination of all joy, to share in Christ’s resurrection. May this alone be our hope and our inheritance. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

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

Today we are met face to face with a reality that is beautiful for some and quite brutal for others. Today we hear the words of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ about the last judgment. And we are once again in awe and astonishment that the Lord, the king of heaven and earth should reveal such a mystery to us. He welcomes us into His kingdom to understand what is required of us and how we will be tested on the great and last day.

If we pay close attention to this teaching about the last judgment we are surprised both by what is contained and by things that are not mentioned at all. For instance, there is no assumption of being perfect. The Son of man doesn’t separate the people based on whether or not they are perfect. He doesn’t separate them based on whether or not they have ever sinned or done wrong in their lives. He doesn’t separate them based on how long their prayers are or how diligently they fast. He doesn’t separate them based on how piously they cross themselves or make their bows. He doesn’t separate them based on how many icons they can hang on one wall of their house. These are all external in some sense. The Lord judges the heart and more specifically, the way our heart manifests itself in acts of love and mercy and kindness for others.

At the last judgment, the criterion is love. Love in action. But there is a catch! It is not love of those who are easy to love, like our friends and our families and people who are nice to us, or even towards animals who are furry and cute. No. It is love to those who are typically ignored or even despised within our society. Love for those that are often most difficult to love. Love even for those who seem unloveable. To love the poor and those who are hungry. To love the strangers, who have no family and friends. To love the sick who are stuck at home or in hospitals, or even the prisoners who are serving time for their crimes. In a way, we are encouraged to bend down and to go to their level because this is precisely what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us by becoming man. He becomes like us.

So we know all of the criteria for the final exam. There are no surprises. You are judged on how you treat your fellow men who are created in the image and likeness of God. And the more those people are hidden or silent and easy to ignore, the more important it becomes that we love them and that we sacrifice to serve them. That is what it means to be a son or a daughter of God. It’s not just a title that we are given. It is a role that becomes part of our identity.

And we are reminded that there are very real and lasting repercussions to our faithful action or our faithless negligence. The results are permanent either way because once we die, there is no more hope of change and repentance. We are judged by the real and true divine Judge. Instead of seeing this as a threat to our lives and our existence, we should instead see it as a great wake-up call and opportunity to do good to others with the full assurance that we won’t be wasting our lives, we in fact be gaining our lives through our sacrifices for others.

I will end with an extended meditation from St. Nikolai Velimirovich, who writes,

“Brethren, what is our last awaiting? In the night we await the day and in the day we await the night and again the day and again the night. But this awaiting is not our last awaiting. Brethren, what is our last awaiting? In joy we tremble waiting for sorrow and in sorrow we wait with hope for joy and again sorrow, and again joy. But not even these awaitings are our last awaitings. Brethren, our last awaiting is the awaiting of the Judgment of God. When the judgment of God comes, the Dreadful Day “which burns like a furnace” (Malachi 4:1), then we welcome all that we deserve; a day for some, without change into night, and night for others, without change into day; joy for some without change to sorrow and sorrow for others without change to joy. Brethren, that is the last awaiting of the human race, whether he knows it or does not know it, whether he thinks about it or does not think about it. But, you faithful should know this and you should think about this. Let this knowledge be the zenith of all your knowledge and let this thought direct all your other thoughts. In the knowledge and contemplation of this, include that which is even most important, include your diligence “that you may be found of Him in peace without spot and blameless” (or still more correctly translated: pure and blameless).

Be diligent to be pure in mind and in heart, correct in your conscience and in peace with God. Only in that way will the last awaiting not frighten you with unexpectancy, nor will it hurl you into the night without day or into sorrow without joy. As everything else in the life of the Lord Jesus was a surprise for man, thus will be His Second Coming unexpected, in power and in glory. Unexpected was His birth by the All-holy Virgin, unexpected was His poverty, unexpected also was His miracle-working and every word and humiliation and voluntary death, the resurrection, the ascension, the Church and the spreading of His Faith. Unexpected will be His Second Coming, unexpectation more frightful than all other unexpectations. O Lord, O righteous Judge, how will we meet You, unclad in purity and blameless even in peace? Help us, help us that however much as possible we may prepare for the dreadful encounter with You. To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.” (The Prologue of Ochrid, July 31^st)

Source: Sermons