Tag: theosis

Posted on

Begging To Be Saved

Ethiopian icon of Jesus healing the blind man.

At that time, as Jesus drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging; and hearing a multitude going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” And he cried, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped, and commanded him to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me receive my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

Luke 18:35-43

In today’s gospel a “multitude” of people are following Jesus through the streets. Being a part of a large movement must have been intoxicating. This whole group of people all agree that Jesus is the one they have been waiting for. Each person might have been thinking, “I get to be a part of the ones who get it!” There must have been a feeling of us, us-ness permeating the group. “We happy few.” Except they were not few. They were gathering steam.

When someone interrupts that moment of joy and wants to do something else, it is really annoying and distracting. It’s like if a young couple are on a date, and really enjoying each other’s company, and then a teacher from their school comes by their table at the restaurant and wants to strike up a conversation. “Oh my gosh! Are you two dating? That’s so cute. What’s good on the menu? What are you having? Brent – make sure to pay. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s always romantic if the guy pays. So what are you doing after dinner? Any plans? My husband and I are celebrating our twentieth wedding anniversary. I remember when I was your age, and we had just met. That seems like yesterday.”

This is a nightmare scenario! The young couple both want to go back to the flow of their conversation. The vibes. Today’s crowd was experiencing something kind of similar. They were in the moment.

Along comes this blind man. That’s not all he was. He was also a beggar, which meant he probably had dirty clothes, probably smelled. He was probably one of those beggars who hassles you every time you walk by. Every time it’s like he thinks you are a bad person when you don’t give him money. It doesn’t matter if you gave him money yesterday. You have probably seen films when a rich person from a more afluent country goes to a poorer country. And all the kids on the street swarm around them asking for money. I know what it is like to be harassed by beggars. It really tears at your heart. We say to ourselves, “I really do care! I promise I do care. But I can’t give you money every day.”

That is the kind of man who wants to talk to Jesus today. This is the guy who doesn’t know or doesn’t care what the vibe is. He is not part of the movement. They assume he doesn’t even care about the movement. He just wants his healing.

Here’s the irony: the very reason there was a crowd surrounding Jesus was that he healed people such as blind beggars. That is what made Jesus famous and beloved. Jesus cared. Jesus had the solution. That is why the crowd was there to begin with. That very crowd, by the way, abandoned Jesus when he was arrested and killed.

Jesus is willing to allow the feeling of us-ness to subside for a moment. Jesus is the one who goes after the lost sheep.

Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me receive my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight;

And then Jesus adds something that no one was thinking about; maybe even the blind man himself was not thinking about this. Jesus says, “your faith has made you well.”

Faith? Who said anything about faith? What did religion have to do with this? Was this pushy begger a man of great spirituality? Maybe someone in the crowd rolled their eyes and thought themselves, “Jesus, I know you want to think the best of people, but let’s move on now so the blind man go back to his lofty contemplation.”

Was Jesus primary mission to cure blind people and leppers? Can you sum up Jesus’ ministry correctly by saying he was a miracle worker? Can you sum up Jesus’ ministry by saying he preached a gospel of compassion for poor people and outcasts? Jesus was empathetic, but is that an adequate and full description of Jesus?

Absolutely not! Jesus Christ is our Lord and God and Saviour! Jesus is the one who created the heavens and the earth so that he could dwell among men. He became man so we could become divine. He who clothes himself with light as with a garment clothed himself with us. He transformed our very nature. He came to give us eternal life and participation in the energies and uncreated light of God’s holiness!

The crowd in today’s gospel is like a group of people who have come to the palace of a king and are sitting around talking and laughing in the lobby. Meanwhile the blind man is being invited into the throne room to meet with the King of Kings.

They resent him from coming into their lobby. They don’t care if they happen to hurt his feelings or offend him. What if he never goes in to the throne room? Do they themselves even realize there isa throne room? They don’t mind if he is left out. It’s better than ruining the vibe they have out in the lobby of the palace of the king.

How dare we ever reduce Jesus to being empathetic; our pal! How dare we ever reduce the true faith to a membership card we keep in the back of our wallet. How dare we ever reduce Jesus to being the one who never makes anyone feel uncomfortable. How dare we ever become so bewitched by the feeling of us-ness that we lose any sense of urgency for sinners into become saints! What are we doing?

Church is where people find the one who created them. In Church, people are freed from the pain, the sins and the passions that would destroy them for all eternity. Church is the place where someone who is stuck in the hopeless and dark night of sin, breaks out of the spiral that leads them into death and hell. This is serious! That is what Church is about. That is what the Christian community is about. It is about the lost sheep not being devoured by the noetic wolf. It’s about life or death!

It amazes me that Christians can pontificate so fervently against the degradation and rot of society around us. We say, “We don’t believe in that. We don’t accept what they would teach our children.”

That is not wrong and yet some of those same people lack a single-minded dedication to the mission of rescuing people from that degraded society!

The disciples were part of the crowd who wanted Jesus to just walk past the blind man. The disciple actually did that several times; shooing away people who they felt had no business bothering Jesus. But those men, the disciples, became the great apostles and pillars of the church. The disciples who were annoyed with our blind man eventually gave their lives for the sake of finding the lost sheep; for proclaiming that message that is the only hope people can ever have. The disciples spent decades in poverty and persecution. They left behind families and friends. They gave up everything for the joy of seeing even one person changed and transformed by uniting their life to Christ.

Nothing can ever be more important than facilitating the journey of a person from spiritual death into the arms of their heavenly Father. Nothing. If you do not know the joy of watching someone grow into the stature of Jesus Christ you have missed out on the joy for which God created the world. You have missed out on a fundamental aspect of what God created you for. Think about the joy of Pascha. The hymns that say, “Shine, shine, oh new Jerusalem, for the glory of the Lord has shone upon thee. Dance and be glad, and rejoice o thou pure virgin at the rising of thy son.” He has trampled down death by death!

You are a Christian when nothing matters more in your life than the lost sheep being saved from the wolf. You are a Christian when that is what makes you tick. May Jesus give you a sense of crisis and desperation that motivates you and pushes you forcefully to go pull the stinky pushy blind man to Jesus as if your life depended on it because it does! May you be the one who finds the sinful woman that you find disgusting and off-putting; the sinful woman you don’t think will ever change. May you be the one who runs over to her, takes her by her hand and leads her to Jesus so that she can find that saving moment of washing his feet with her tears.

Are you that person? Become that person because then you will not just be in the group of Jesus’ followers; you will be a partner with Jesus as he saves the world.

The gospel reading end with this:

And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

Posted on

Longing to Follow Christ

Jesus the good shepherd icon

At that time, a man said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

He said to another man, “Follow me.”

But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”

Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone son of peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town … Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

(Luke 9:57–10:24)

What event was so great that the prophets and kings longed to see it? In Jesus’ day, Jews remembered the glorious ancient Israelite kingdom that existed between about 1050 to 600 BC. In Jesus’ time, people might have said, “If only our nation could be as prosperous as back then! If only our nation still had prophets who heard the voice of God and guided us! If only we had God’s presence in our temple and lived in unity and peace!”

Jesus disagreed. He essentially said, “Back then, they also longed for the same peace and unity you long for. That is because it was something not even they had. What they longed for is happening here and now! They longed for what you see me doing. I am what they longed for. What I am doing now is the real kingdom. The ancient prophets spoke the words of the Holy Spirit. I am the Son of God. You hear the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly than ever when you hear me teach!”

The ancient kings and prophets were not the “good old days,” according to Jesus. But what was happening in Jesus’ day that was so glorious? Jesus said, “I am essentially homeless. I wander around from village to village, teaching, healing; at the mercy of others’ hospitality.”

People began to say they wanted to follow Jesus. They, too, wanted to be utterly dependent on God because they saw something divine and holy in Jesus that they could not explain.

Some who followed Jesus lost heart and quit, but some continued. Jesus sent seventy faithful followers out to wander around from village to village. Like Jesus, they were to teach and heal. They did what they had seen Jesus do.

Off they went. They taught and healed people with divine power. Like Jesus, they paid a price for it. Just like in the case of Jesus, some people reject the message of the seventy and run them out of town. These disciples made that sacrifice. They answered that call. They trusted God so completely that they put themselves in a position of dependence on God to provide for them in unusual ways.

Suddenly, strangers would welcome them into their homes. God would miraculously orchestrate events such that the disciples received everything they needed. The disciples would tell people, “The Kingdom of God has come near this place.” The Kingdom of God that they were referring to was their own faith in God. The Kingdom of God is their way of living for God. What people hope and long for, peace, hope and salvation, can be found when you leave everything behind to serve God’s people. That is what the kings and prophets longed for. They longed to see people living fully – by giving fully.”

When they disciples met up with Jesus again, he said, “Satan has fallen.” That is to say, the one who entices us into sin, the one who brings death and sickness and hatred, has no power over you now. Jesus’ new way of living, this new path of trusting God, is the salvation of humanity. Sin is being defeated.

Jesus says, “Nothing can hurt you. Not even snakes and scorpions can hurt you because you have my life and follow my way.”

And then!

“At that time, Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Jesus says that the full truth of God is only accessible to humans when they do what these disciples did, which is what Jesus had done first. Because earlier, when he was going to send them out, he said, “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

If people reject Jesus when he says, “You must leave everything for the service of God,” they have rejected God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. If they reject the teaching of Jesus to “love your enemies,” they have rejected God himself. If they reject Jesus when he says, “You must have greater righteousness than the most religious people (the Pharisees),” then they have rejected the God who appointed the ancient kings and spoke through the ancient prophets.

The apostles’ preaching is the voice of God. We live in the Kingdom of Heaven when we do what they teach. They teach us to become one with Jesus by leaving everything else behind.

Posted on

Orthodox Christian life is liturgy.

An Orthodox Christian is responsible for saving the world. We do this by joining our lives to the life of the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ. We are part of the body of Christ who is always saving the world.

In order to save the world, Orthodox Christians provide their community with life-giving worship. We provide a holy space, liturgical services and a community life. We keep a flame burning at the end of the candle.

We hire a priest. We bear the expenses of owning the building. We offer our time and our work. We cultivate the life of Jesus in our hearts and homes through prayer, fasting, giving and learning. All of this brings about worship here in our city. That will save the world. We listen to the words of St. Saraphim of Sarov (a Russian monk who lived in the 1800’s) who said, “acquire the spirit of peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.”

We call our worship and our work liturgy. The word liturgy is Greek, and means the “work of the people” or the “work on behalf of the people.” In ancient Greece, a leading citizen of a city who was the head of a large family would be called upon to fund a new public amenity. This was a “liturgy.” Or perhaps he was obligated to pay for one week’s cycle of sacrifices to the gods on behalf of the city in order to ensure the gods’ protection. That was also a “liturgy.” It was his duty as a citizen of means to provide that which benefited the whole city.

We, of course, believe in one God. Our God who saves us in order to enable us to become worshippers in spirit and in truth. Our God invites us to his Liturgy. When Jesus died, he was offering his life and his death as a liturgy. When Orthodox Christians meet together to pray to our God, we are adding our lives to the Divine Liturgy.

Today, when we use the word liturgy, we are usually talking about the Sunday service that culminates in communion. Technically, funerals and weddings are also liturgies, but normally we mean the eucharist. We offer bread and wine as a sacrifice to God along with all the work we do to make the liturgy happen. In return, Jesus gives us that which he sacrificed: his body and blood. Every time we add our offerings to the timeless offering of Christ, this benefits everyone in the whole world, especially the people who receive the communion directly.

In Liturgy we offer God:

Our minds
When we encounter each new situation in life, we encounter it with our minds. So our minds must be healed from the corruption of sin. By praying the words of the Church we start to think like the Church. By reading the Bible we start to think like the Bible. We start to think like Jesus. We act more like Jesus. We live like Jesus and we die like Jesus. By reading the lives of the saints, we start to have the attitude of the saints. A life of prayer and worship moulds our minds and makes us holy, so that our actions in every new situation may be holy.

Our time
We attend church as often as possible. Church is the gas station where we fill up our tank. You do not know when you may be called upon, as a fellow sojourner in the next seat. Perhaps you will be the one whose kindness and listening are needed. Perhaps you have the words that need to be spoken in that moment. You might make all the difference just by being there and being available. But you are not available if you are not there.

Our money
No one pays the church’s bills except us the members. Giving to God is an act of great faith, and it helps the giver to become bold in prayer.

Our conscience
We offer our conscience to God. We ask for forgiveness constantly. We confess our sins (to a priest) as often as possible. We find hope in learning more about our own shortcomings because then we can cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit which heals us and changes our attitudes and our habits. As a result, we cause others less pain and sorrow.

Our hearts
By investing our energy in prayer, confession, worship and work, we grow to be emotionally invested in the Kingdom of God. We begin to long for other people to find the same hope. We feel this longing deeply. We become like family with the other people in the church. In the Divine Liturgy, the priest says, “let us lift up our hearts.” And we answer, “we lift them up unto the Lord.”

The one who loves is taking a great risk. We take the risk of being grieved when those we love are hurt. That is the cost of loving in a corrupted world. Jesus paid the cost of his infinite love for us who are dying, by entering the grave with us. He calls us to the same work. We weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15).

We offer our heart’s hope. The more we come to church, the more we find that we have become dependent the Divine Liturgy for our peace of mind and wellbeing. We deliberately foster a dependence on God. God becomes our only hope. And many of the things we used to hope in are of no use to us now. We are no longer trying to love two masters (Matthew 6:25), but love the one master who said, “abide in me.” (John 15:4)

Orthodox Christian life is a gift of love which we give to God. We pray, “thine own of thine own we offer unto thee in behalf of all and for all.” We do this not because God needs it from us, but because this is the only way truly to be alive. Life that is truly human, fulfilling, healthy and joyful is the life of a person who offers this sacrifice to God together with the rest of the church.

Posted on

Salvation is not supernatural: it is the restoration of our nature

During the first week of Lent we had readings that spoke of urgency in our lives. It is fitting, since Great Lent is a season of sober assessment of our characters and our lifestyle. The readings said such things as, “watch and pray,” “do not be weighed down with drunkenness,” “when you fast and when you give alms, do not show off,” “Have faith to move mountains” and, “seek and you will find.” Today we will read from the gospel which we read on Friday of the first week of Lent, during the Akathist.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:1–7)

We were always created for a life in Jesus Christ from the beginning. From the beginning, we were always going to do what we do now, just a much more perfect version of it. We were created to work. We were created to have families. We were always going to have the joy of nurturing and sharing a home. We were always going to have community. It was always part of God’s plan.

We were created to remain in Christ as we read today. We do the deeds of Jesus. We remain in those deeds. We are united to his actions. The Fathers call these actions his energies. We do what Jesus does: love, teach, pray. Our prayers spread Jesus’ healing. We do not fear death, as Jesus did not fear death. And so we are heroes who lay our lives down out of love for our families and our community and our world.

We were always going to sacrifice; it was God’s intention from the beginning. We were always going to offer our work to God. We were always going to make our world holy through prayer. That is human existence by default. It would be strange to describe it as supernatural. It is our nature. It is not just what we do now that Jesus has risen. Sacrifice is the beating heart of the energies of God as he reveals them to us. Jesus sacrifices so that we can sacrifice with him. We remain in the life of Jesus Christ.

This, by the way, is what is meant when the psalm says, “blessed art thou, o God, teach me thy statutes.” Or, “He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. (1 Chronicles 16:14) or “Mount Zion rejoices, the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments.” (Psalm 48:11) The judgments and statutes of the Lord are an expression of the energies of God that we are invited to participate in.

God does not demand righteousness from us. God invites us because righteousness is what he wants for us. We can become united to God. This is called theosis in the Orthodox Church. The word theosis comes from theos which means God. We become divine by grace; gods by grace. The energies of God are part of God himself. We can perceive his energies. We see what God does and has done. What Jesus does express the energies of God and when we remain in Him we are journeying the path to theosis. This was always the point of creation. Theosis is what we were created for.

We were created dignified. We were created to be a royal priesthood. We were created to live in a worthy manner, to shine with the uncreated light, the Glory of God., We are icons of God – the image and likeness of God. We have that royal dignity and honour inside us. But sin corrupted the world. Sin made our work difficult and exhausting. The corruption of sin means our work may not succeed. Without Jesus Christ our work is futile. And we die in corruption. We were going to have the joy of working and building and creating, but in the sinful world we can destroy. We voluntarily stop acting in a worthy and dignified manner. We stop being kings and queens. Instead, we becomes slaves. We become slaves to our impulses, slaves to selfishness, slaves to despair and giving up before we have even tried.

Sin also corrupted our homes and the community. Sin made the home a place where we hurt people; a place where we resent people. We have the power to destroy this too, when we could be nurturing instead.And we do destroy them.

We are born into a community that does evil as well as good. Our families and our community have taught us what is right, but they also taught us by their bad example. Then we become the ones who set our bad example for children. We were hurt and we cause pain to others. We share in the corruption and death of everything. We are dying and we are killing through negligence, by contributing to the corruption and death of everything.

What will God do? When God looks at us in our misery he sees the real person he created. Imagine this analogy: Someone has an elderly relative with dementia. And they think to themselves, “I knew my mother back when she was healthy. She was smart and funny and loved everyone. I know who the real person was. She still is that person, but old age has clouded over that person.” Or when we see sickness causing someone’s body to wither away. We think, “I know what that person looked like before.” God sees us in our slavery and our clouded judgment, but he still sees the person he created. He sees the kings and queens who are capable of dignity and virtue, capable of true worship. But what will he do?

Saint Athanasius writes:

For the word [Jesus], realized that the corruption of human beings could not be undone in any other way except, by him dying. But he is immortal and the Son of the Father, the Word, was not able to die. For this reason he takes to himself a body capable of death in order … [to] be able to die on behalf of all. [i.e. he could lead us by offering his life and death to God as a gift, so that we can do the same thing with our lives and our deaths.] And through the Word who dwells in us, we can remain incorruptible, and so henceforth everyone may be free from the power of corruption by the grace of the resurrection [the resurrection proves to us that it works]. Because he “lead his own body to the slaughter” [like a lamb being sacrificed] as an offering [which is] holy and free from all blemish [requirements for animals which are sacrificed – the best of the best, giving generously with pure intention], he immediately abolished death from all like him, by the offering of a like. [He made it possible for anyone to escape from the control that death had over people, since they can do the same thing with their lives and their bodies as he did with his life and his body]. The corruption of death no longer controls humans because of the indwelling of the word.

[Jesus] being with all [of us] through the body that is like ours, since he is the incorruptible Son of God [he is immune from corruption], consequently [made it possible for all people to be] clothed … with incorruptibility in the promise concerning the resurrection [i.e. we are free from the fear of death because we know that God can give us life]. And now the very corruption of death [the power of suffering to control us] no longer [controls] human beings because of the Word who lives in us, in the one body [the Church]. As when a great king has entered some large city and made his dwelling in one of the houses in it, such a city is certainly made worthy of high honor, and no longer does any enemy or bandit descend upon it, but it is rather reckoned worthy of all care because of the king’s having taken residence in one of its houses; so also does it happen with the King of all. Coming himself into our realm, and dwelling in a body like the others, every [plot or attack] of the enemy against human beings is completely powerless [to make us do what it wants], and the corruption of death, which had prevailed formerly against them, is defeated.

When we say, “Where, O Death is your sting,” we mean that death can no longer terrorize us into causing others death. We mean that our own sickness and shame, our own grieving, our own trauma, our own past failures can no longer force us to contribute to the cycle of death because Jesus not only forgives us, he also grants us remission of sins. Remission means that we are being healed of our propensity towards sin. We are can stop.

Jesus gives us a church to worship in. Jesus gives us a new perspective in which all the people in our life provide us with relationships as the context in which we can do what we were always created to do, which is to work with Jesus. These relationships are the context in which we love those people together with Jesus. We become one with his energies; one with God.

Posted on

Take up your cross

ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE GALATIANS 2:16-20

Brethren, knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified. But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we ourselves were found to be sinners, is Christ then an agent of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I prove myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

MARK 8:34-38; 9:1

The Lord said: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.

We are reaching the end of the feast of the elevation of the cross. Great feasts in the Orthodox Church have a forefeast and an afterfeast. The forefeast in most cases is one day, and the afterfeast can be four, six or eight days, or in the case of Pascha 38 days.

The last day of the feast is called the apodosis, the summing up, Apodosis almost means the “saying goodbye” to the feast. Since the elevation of the cross was on Monday, tomorrow is the leavetaking and today is still the afterfeast.

All of this past week if we had been celebrating liturgies every day we would have heard gospel readings and epistle readings referring to the cross because of the feast of the elevation of the cross. “Take up your cross and follow me.” “We are crucified with Christ.” “The cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.” And so on, and so forth.

Sometimes I think we are desensitized to the meaning of the cross because we have so many beautiful and ornate crosses in our churches. It is perfectly fine and good to make a cross beautiful but we should not lose sight of the paradox that is involved when we do that. The cross was about as elegant as a hangman’s noose or a guillotine. The cross was an instrument of death and torture. And talking about death offends many modern people today. At the very least it makes them feel uncomfortable. Even many Christian are very uncomfortable with talking frankly about death.

One of the reasons we do not like to think about suffering and death is that we see our life as the period of time during which I get to experience as much as possible. Life is the time for me to find my true self-expression, to explore all the mystery of ME. Self-realization, fulfillment, the specialness of ME. Our society thinks that meaning in life comes from experiences. It’s like coloring in a picture. The more different experiences you have, the more the picture is coloured in.

Did you get to play on the sports team in school? Did you have a nice birthday party? Did you get to have a wedding? Was it amazing? Was it your dream wedding? Did you get to have kids? Did you get to go to college? Did you graduate? Did you get to see your grandchildren go to college? Did you travel? Did you own a house? Did you have a hobby? Did you achieve some fame and recognition in your career? Will they talk about you after you die? Did you keep fit as a fiddle at age 90, and swim thirty laps a day, and walk five miles a day until the day you died? Were you doing crossword puzzles on your 95th birthday? Were you amazing and noteworthy and special? Would someone tell your story on Facebook ten years after you died? Would you get more than fifty likes?

This way of viewing life takes the emptiness we feel, the sense of meaninglessness the lack of purpose, and it makes them the engine and the governing principle behind how we live at the expense of all other considerations. Life is seen as the time during which I must be allowed to fill my empty existence with everything I can possibly get my hands on.

But some people don’t get a lot of these experiences and good things. Some people never get to travel. Some people never get to go to university. Some people don’t even have a place to live.

So the me-centred way of viewing the world, the view in which my emptiness is king, says that either those people deserve to suffer because they haven’t worked hard enough. Or else the me-centred worldview says that poor suffering people wouldn’t have known how to enjoy the good things even if they had them. People whose lives are not filled with riches

and luxury and success and noteworthiness, ordinary people, suffering people, people who need a bit of extra help: these people are just seen as losers. What was the point of their existence? It would have been better if they had never been born. That is the logical conclusion of a worldview in which my emptiness is the guiding principle for all my choices.

I know one young man who has special needs which mean that he will probably never have a job or get married. He is fortunate to be able to live on his own, but he requires a lot of assistance even to make that happen.

His mother and father, people who have bought into the notion that the meaning of life is to consume and experience, these are people who think that your worth in life is how much you earn, they actually told him that if they had known how he would turn out they would have aborted him. That is the insidiousness of the materialistic view of life. It is hurtful and evil.

I read an article by a woman who is wheelchair bound. When she became pregnant the doctors just assumed that she didn’t want to keep the baby. “What if the baby turns out like you?” That was what the doctors were basically saying, even if they were somewhat subtler than that. They just assumed that her life wasn’t worth living. Actually, they assumed that her existence was worthless, was nothing but a tragedy and a mistake, because she could not experience the kinds of things they could, like running a marathon or skiing down a mountain. Because her life had challenges and pain therefore they saw it as worthless, something to be avoided at all costs. They completely discounted her as a person with a valuable perspective. They completely discounted her experience of life and her perspective as valuable because of the materialist view of the world.

When the empty person gets to the end of his empty life and all his attempts to fill it with experiences and things have failed to make it any less empty, when our bodies and minds give out and we can no longer try to fill our empty lives with things and pleasure we try to fill our existence with days and hours and minutes. The guiding principle changes from getting as many experiences and pleasures and things as possible to being a guiding principle of the fear of pain and fear of death.

This is a person who thinks that any pain is inhumane and unthinkable. “I have the right not to feel pain! Even though I have lived my whole life completely indifferent to other people’s pain.” This is a person tells himself that death can be avoided, or if not outright avoided, then at least postponed and postponed, and then clinically swept away out of sight and out of mind.

He says, “I have the right to a long life. It is perfectly reasonable for me to expect a long life without pain. I have the right to get pumped full of medicines so that I can breathe for six more months. I have the right not to be uncomfortable. And anyone who does not serve me is evil. The doctors and the nurses are evil if they fail to prolong my life by a few more minutes and hours.”

People begin to take the moral high ground, for the first time, about the sanctity of life, about human dignity, about the tragedy of human suffering when they themselves are in the hospital bed. But we know that the correct time to care about human suffering is when you see others suffer.

The price of seeing our lives as a portion of time that we should fill with as many experiences as possible is that our existence is still empty and we are bitter and disappointed. The price is that we have only made the world around us more empty by taking and not giving. The price of this way of looking at life is that there can be no meaning after death. If the meaning of life is pleasure, what meaning can I have when I am not alive to enjoy pleasure?

Jesus says today, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself

and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

The meaning of Jesus’ life was to give. The meaning of Jesus’ life was to give sacrificially, to shine with the love of God. To enact a worldview of thanksgiving and worship and trust in the sufficiency of God.

The meaning of Jesus’ life is to invite everyone to share the joy of knowing the Father. How can that apply to you and me?

I want to imagine what it might mean to “take up one’s cross.” Obviously, Jesus did not mean that we would be carrying around big huge piece of wood every day. Obviously it is a figurative statement. So what does it mean? I am going to offer some parallel and complementary ways of seeing this lifestyle of taking up one’s cross.

To take up your cross is to carry around an awareness of your inevitable death.You are going to die. I am going to die. There is no way around it. Death is going to happen. Everyone you love is going to die. How are you going to deal with it?

The materialist way is not to deal with it. Our materialist world makes death clinical and sterile. The orderly whisks the body away before it has even cooled. And many people don’t even have a funeral with the casket or the body of the deceased. Sickness and death are hidden behind a clean white sheet and we pretend they don’t exist.

When I was in seminary there was a deacon who worked at the bookstore and he died suddenly, pretty young. And the day after he died, the priests and deacons of the seminary (including my fellow students) went to the morgue, washed the body of the departed deacon and dressed him in a deacon’s vestments. The touched him and held him. And they showed that his calling is eternal. At his memorial everyone came forward and kissed his hand as he lay in the casket. We looked death square in the face. Deacon Gregory had died. We cried. We sang. We prayed. We did not try to bracket out the “death” aspect of the end of his life.

The people who did that processed and grieved much more fully and in much more of a healthy manner than most people in our society do when death is neatly swept under the rug.

Carrying our cross means asking Jesus to help us to approach our powerlessness with humility and patience and love.

Jesus let the time and place in which I am powerless and weak and afraid be a time when I show other people your love. Let the time of my weakness be a time when you save other people. Let my life be a witness to the fact that you are the meaning of life. You, Jesus, are the only thing that can give life meaning since you are the giver of life and the creator of the world.

Let the time between now and when I die be a time when I do not pretend that I can make my life any more special by taking. Let the time between now and when I die be a time when I give and bless and comfort as many as possible. Let me live another day so that I can show your love to another person.

Carrying our cross means knowing that many of the things that enrage us are petty and unimportant. Why should I fight with my neighbour about the fence? I am going to die soon. I am losing my opportunity to love my neighbour. And I am losing the only thing that matters. I am losing the better portion, the one thing needful.

I don’t think there is a single person who would have been more at peace on their deathbed if that gosh-darn waitress had brought them their dinner a bit more quickly.

A person who carries his cross is resigned to the truth of his own insignificance. I am as significant as one who is already not only dead not only buried but forgotten. I am already dirt.

By this I do not mean that we are worthless or unloved. Each person has infinite worth and is loved infinitely by God. But I am not the center of the universe. He must increase and I must decrease.

It will therefore not enrage me when someone disrespects me or dares to question me. Jesus must increase and I must decrease.

We carry our cross when we can say “What does it matter that they don’t appreciate me? What does it matter that they think I am wrong. Jesus, bless them. All I need is Jesus and no one take him from me. I carry the cross of Christ to remind myself that all I ever need in life is the humility to let go. All I ever need in life is the ability not to fight back, the ability not to get embroiled in hatred. All I ever need in life is to be able to love others as Jesus loved me. My ego is irrelevant. Father forgive them.

That is how we carry our cross. Carrying our cross gives us a perspective on life which fosters gratitude, graciousness, generosity. Carrying our cross means doing whatever we can to be reconciled, now. Before it’s too late. Carrying our cross means letting the people we love know how much we love them. Now.

Death is close by. I am carrying the instrument of my death.I know that there might not be enough time later.

The cross is where Jesus ministers salvation to us. The cross is the place from which he shows us his love. The cross is the place where he gathers his community. From the cross, Jesus tells the disciple he loves, “behold, your mother.” He says, “mother, behold your son.”

Carrying our cross means looking at our church not as the place that serves me what I was expecting in the way I expected it, but instead seeing church as the place where I serve. When I carry my cross I ask myself who is it that needs someone to talk to in church? And I go talk to them. Who can I bless at coffee hour by listening? Which child needs an adult in their life to look up to; omeone who cares about them, who has time, who is happy that they came? Which person here is lonely and needs a friend? Is there someone who is visiting our church and needs to be made to feel welcome and wanted? My life is a time of serving others.

Maybe you think to yourself well, that’s fine as long as I am the one who is helping others. But don’t sit down and talk to me out of pity just because you think I don’t have any friends. Thanks a lot! Carrying our cross may mean accepting that we are the recipients of other people’s love. As Jesus committed his life into his Father’s hands and trusted his Father and waited for his Father to raise him up. Carrying our cross might mean accepting the help of others.

When we search for meaning in life by giving and serving and praying and blessing, death cannot be the end. Because the people we have blessed continue to bless others. The gifts that we give are multiplied thirty, sixty and a hundredfold even when we are sown like seeds in the ground. We keep giving. The saints are with God in heaven and keep giving by their prayers. Our gifts and our giving and our love and our blessing of others are a participation in the eternal service of Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father. Our lives have a divine meaning. One more day of living is one more day to pray and to give thanks and to love.

As we come up to communion, consider that Jesus said “this is my body which is broken” and, “this is my blood that is shed.” We are eating and drinking his death, his willingness to die, his acceptance of God’s will. We are taking into ourselves the view of life which says, “my life has meaning when I lose it, when I am crucified with Christ. Receive the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.