THAT WE MIGHT KNOW GOD

"And this is life eternal, that we might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." In this verse is expressed the whole and entire purpose of the Incarnation, that we might know God--not as a mere philosophical concept or mental contruct, but personally. As our Lord said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." Likewise, only he who knows Christ truly knows the Father.

For it is a true and certain saying that the fullness of the Godhead is revealed bodily in the Person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Who is the perfect image of the Father. This is the Gospel preached by the Holy Apostle Paul, the Gospel which "is not after man," but was made known "by the revelation of Jesus Christ."

This is why the veneration of icons upheld by the 7th Ecumenical Council is solemnly celebrated every year as the Sunday of Orthodoxy. Because God took on human flesh and assumed visible form through Jesus Christ, it is not only lawful but indeed essential that we venerate Him through the holy icons.

Indeed, "God is the Lord and has revealed Himself to us:" not in the indistinct shadows and images of the Old Testament, but face to face. As the holy Fathers say, "God became man that men might become gods"--through union with Christ, we become by grace everything that God is by nature.

This is what it means to know God: not by rumor or hearsay but first hand, through personal and intimate experience. This is eternal life and salvation and the reality proclaimed and safeguarded by the holy Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council. This is the true Orthodox Faith and the refutation of all heresies. This is the Faith that has established the universe.

THE GOLDEN RULE

"And as ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also to them likewise." This so-called "Golden Rule" is unique to the Christian Faith. It is true that similar precepts can be found in other religions, but nowhere in this precise form.

For one thing, the context here is love for one's enemies. Now the Golden Rule is perhaps not so hard to follow (up to a point) in regards to one's friends and loved ones--so long as it does not become too inconvenient. Even so, our motives in following the commandment are usually mixed: either we expect the same treatment in return ("I'll rub your back if you rub mine") or else it becomes an occasion of pride and feeling good about ourselves.

However, it goes completely against the grain of our fallen human nature to behave in a loving, kind and compassionate way toward those who hate and abuse us, even if our behavior does not reflect our true feelings. After all, no one wants to be a door mat, and besides, "What's in it for us?"

The fact is, if we desire to succeed and to "get ahead" in this world, the Golden Rule can become a real obstacle. In any case, is any normal person real capable of truly loving one's enemies?

True enough if our Faith is a hoax and we are merely a higher form of animal struggling to get along in this world the best we can until death overtakes us and we cease to exist. But if we truly are beings created in God's image "a little lower than the angels" and destined for eternal life in the glory of God's heavenly Kingdom, it changes everything.

It is indeed this capacity to love even one's enemies that lifts us above the lower creatures and confers dignity and purpose to a life that would otherwise be meaningless and therefore not really worth living. Nor would God ever command us to do anything that we are inherently incapable of doing. Humanly speaking, it really is impossible to fulfill the Golden Rule, but truly all things are possible through the grace of God.

As God told St. Paul when the Apostle asked three times to remove his "thorn," "My grace is sufficient for thee: my power is made perfect in weakness." This grace, however, is not something somehow added on to our fallen human nature. To be fully human means to be united with God and to be filled with His grace, which is the uncreated energy of God Himself.

"Be merciful, even as your heavenly Father is merciful:" this is the true reason for fulfilling the commandment, because we are all in the truest sense the children of God, and God is love. This, then, is the path we must all strive to follow if we desire that peace, joy and fulfillment only God can give--both in this world and the next.

CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST

"Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Here our Lord speaks of what it means to be a true Christian: it is not merely right belief, but practicing the Faith in concrete ways. Indeed, it is easy to believe in Christ as Lord and Savior while living what is essentially a self-centered and worldly life, behaving for all intents and purposes as though He does not exist.

Truly, as St. Paul says, we are saved by faith, but genuine faith requires sacrifice and the willingness and desire to suffer, if need be, all things whatsoever on His behalf. While it is true that Christ died for our sins, His death on the cross does not constitute an automatic guarantee of our salvation. There is no such thing as a free passport to heaven. It is a true saying, as Scripture says, that "the Kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." That is, we must do violence (not against our fellow man, God forbid!) but against our fallen human nature.

Christ's death does not somehow let us off the hook. Rather, He died that we ourselves might be crucified with Him and say with St. Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ livest in me." So long as our ego, with its selfish needs and desires, is the motivating force our our lives, we have not yet even begun to live a Christian life.

Of course we can, if we so choose, opt to pursue what the world considers to be the "good life," casting aside the burden and inconvenience of the cross. Yet even if we somehow succeed in gaining the whole world, there is a cost to be paid: the loss our our immortal soul. Truly, what gain is there in this? Who but a fool would prefer transitory pleasures and earthly treasures to the promise of eternal life in God's heavenly Kingdom?

Truly our soul's salvation is the one thing needful, the pearl of great price. This salvation, however, is neither an entitlement nor a right: it is the fruit of sacrificial suffering and an ongoing struggle to subdue the passions and to cleanse our hearts of sinful thoughts and desires.
This is the spiritual warfare to which we have all been called by virtue of our Baptism. It is never easy to follow this straight and narrow path, but the only alternative is eternal separation from God in a hell of our own making.

THE WEDDING FEAST

In this parable, a king arranges a marriage feast for his son. The king, of course, is God the Father and the son is Jesus Christ our Lord, while the feast signifies eternal life in God's heavenly Kingdom. Those who are initially invited to this feast are the Jews, God's chosen people. Most of them, however, do not take the invitation seriously. Instead, they make light of it, while some go so far as to persecute and even to kill the prophets. For these ungrateful people, it was "business as usual:" the status quo must be preserved at any cost.

So it was that God called the Gentiles, both the good and the bad. The truth is, being "good" is no guaranteed passport to heaven. The Pharisees were "good," after all, following the Jewish Law to the letter. Merely being "good" is never enough. Salvation is granted unto those who strive with violence to be made worthly (by God's grace) of the Kingdom.

So the magnificant feast commences, but lo and behold, the king enters the banquet hall and finds there a guest who is not wearing a wedding garment. He is therefore unworthy: but why? Because in those day, the guests were not expected to bring their own garments. These were provided at the door to all who entered. Therefore, this guest is unworthy because he rejected that which was so graciously provided, free of charge. That is, he rejected the grace of God, which alone can make us worthy of the Kingdom.

This parable was spoken to the Jews, but just as surely it can be applied to so-called Christians of this day and age. Many there are who make light of their salvation, being totally focussed on worldly goals. Others do not even bother striving to acquire the grace of God (which is, according to St. Seraphim of Sarov, the whole purpose of the Christian life) because they feel they are already "good enough."

So it is that "few are chosen:" not because God does not desire our salvation, but because we ourselves reject this gracious gift either through indifference or laziness. It is we ourselves who choose either life or death, but this is not a one time choice. Rather, we make many choices, every day of our lives. Every time to choose to put anything whatsoever before our commitment to God, or we place worldly comforts and pleasures before concern for our salvation, we are choosing death over life.

It is, in fact, the sum total of our choices throughout our earthly life that determines our eternal destiny, and the more often we choose death over life, the more difficult it is to break the pattern. However, that which is impossible to man is possible to God. No matter how far we may have gone astray, it is always possible through a single decisive choice combined with sincere, heartfelt repentance to be restored to the path of salvation.

The most vital thing to remember, however, is that today (this very moment) is the day of salvation. Tomorrow it may be too late, and the doors to the wedding feast may be closed forever.

BEHEADING OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

"For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and a holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly." This was the same Herod who was the scion of an evil root, the son of that other Herod who ordered the murder of the Holy Innocents. Yet this Herod was, in fact, a sincerely religious man. His piety was genuine, though, as it turns out, it was only skin deep. All of this religiosity did not stop him from committing acts of debauchery and murder.

History is replete with cruel men and criminals who were likewise religious and professed a moral code. Consider Ivan the Terrible, who would attend Vespers with his court and later retire to a downstairs room to torture his enemies (both real and imagined). Whenever it suits such a person, they can easily compartmentalize their faith and do as they want, feeling no concern for the pain and suffering of others.

This is so because they are essentially self-centered, "narcissists" in modern psychological parlance. All that really matters to them in the end is the fulfillment of their own needs and desires. Thus Herod took for himself his brother Philip's wife, though he knew full well that this was wrong. St. John, in sharp contrast, was willing to decrease in order that Christ might increase. He was but a voice crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord!" His whole purpose in life was not to draw attention to himself, but to point the way to Christ.

And so he was willing to suffer and to die for the sake of the Truth, without any compromise or self-serving motives whatsoever. He bore witness at all times to that same Christ Who proclaimed, "I am the way, the truth and the life."

Paradoxically, those like Herod who look out only for themselves, for "number one," sooner or later end up losing everything, while those willing to bear witness to Christ whatever the cost will eventually inherit eternal life in God's heavenly Kingdom. It is not enough, you see, to be religious and to profess moral ideals. A saving faith demands an absolute and conditional commitment to the Truth and a willingness to sacrifice everything we are and have for the sake of the Kingdom. Such a faith is the antithesis of a lying, conniving and deceitful life dedicated to the acquisition of personal power, wealth and prestige.

May the life of the Baptist inspire us all to be faithful to God at all times and in all places, striving to live a life of holiness, purity and devotion to the Truth. May the love of God ever dwell in our hearts, banishing every trace of pride, self-centeredness and lust for power.

THE ONE GOOD THING

"What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" the rich man asks our Lord. Now wouldn't it be grand if there were such a thing that we could do, and having done it, we would be assured of eternal salvation? Jesus, though, provides no such easy answer, but He simply states the obvious: keep the commandments. This, the rich man assures Him, he has been doing since his youth (at least externally). This is certainly not the answer he was hoping for, and no doubt he is feeling somewhat impatient. He feels deep down that something is missing, despite his outwardly pious life as an observing Jew. Truly, as St. Augustine said, "Our hearts are ever restless till they find their rest in Thee."

When the man persists, demanding to know the one good thing he still lacks, Jesus throws him a loop: he tells the man to do the one thing he is not prepared to do, the one thing that ever remains an obstacle in his quest for eternal life. He must sell all that he has, give the proceeds to the poor, and then come follow Christ. Thus it is that the rich man shakes his head sadly and turns away.

The truth is, salvation isn't a pleasant bonus we receive as a reward for living a "good life" here on earth--it is rather the whole point of our existense, the reason God called us out of nothingness into being. It is not a part time venture--it is the sole purpose of everything we say, do and think. There simply is no free passport to heaven--nothing less than a total commitment to God is required if we desire eternal life.

Of course we all fall far short of the perfection the Gospel demands--"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect"--so what then? Shall we, like the rich man, turn sadly away? God forbid! Salvation is not something we achieve in a moment, by doing a certain one good thing. It is, rather, a lifelong process. Speaking realistically, we shall never achieve complete perfection in this fallen world--but it is and ever remains a goal we must strive for until we take our dying breath. And though we will surely miss the mark time and again, genuine and heartfelt repentance is all that's required to restore us to God's grace.

THE UNGRATEFUL SERVANT

A culture of entitlement has arisen in contemporary America. Many feel that they are entitled, by the mere fact of their existense, to whatever they can get. Their only concern is that their own egotistical needs and desires be fulfilled, sooner rather than later. Our schools encourage this attitude by striving to bolster the student's self-esteem without reference to any actual accomplishment or success.

In the Gospel parable, a servant owes his master an incredible sum of money (somewhere in the neighborhood of 52 million dollars). When the master demands the money and threatens to sell the servant and his family into slavery, the servant falls at his feet and beseeches him to give him more time (though it's obvious there's no way he could ever pay back so great a debt). Then the master has compassion on his servant and forgives him everything.

Now one would think that having been forgiven so much and recued from sure and certain ruin, the servant would be overwhelmed by gratitude toward his master and a burning desire to show a similar compassion toward others. Such, however, is not the case. Having taken leave of his master, he immediately encounters a fellow servant who owes him a paltry sum (perhaps $44) and grasps him by the neck, demanding the money. No doubt he feels entitled to the master's compassion, but he feels no obligation whatsoever to "pass it on." When the fellow servant begs him for more time, he hardens his heart and has the poor wretch thrown into prison.

When expressed in such simple and obvious terms, it is easy for us to judge and condemn the wicked servant for his ingratitude and lack of compassion. How could he have forgotten so quickly how he himself had been shown mercy and saved from the most dire circumstances? But the fact is, we ourselves have been forgiven so much more than a mere temporal debt. Through our Lord's voluntary death on the Cross, we have been forgiven the crushing burden of our sins and saved (if we so choose) from an eternal hell of our own making. Nor is this all: Christ offers us the gift of eternal life in His heavenly Kingdom.

Like the servant in the parable, however, we're quick to forget (or never really reflect upon) all that the Master has done for us. How often do we become angry and make harsh judgments against our neighbor, take offence at the slightest provocation, harden our hearts and refuse forgiveness toward those who have grieved us in any way? And this happens because we so very self-centered and consider our own needs and desires to be more important than those of others. We lack that genuine humility without which it is impossible to be saved. Nor do we feel truly grateful for God's great gift of salvation, because deep down we feel entitled to it. Of course we pay lip service to our own sins and imperfections, but in our hearts we feel we're nearly perfect, or if not, we darn well should be.

This is why it is so hard to forgive: true forgiveness requires a humble heart that regards our neighbor (even our worst enemy) as more deserving than we are. If we can indeed say with St. Paul that we are the "chief of sinners" while fully realizing that Christ nevertheless suffered and died for our salvation, how can we not forgive from the bottom of our hearts all those who have in any way offended us?