…hear His call, follow Him, and do what He commands

Let’s just be honest with ourselves and admit that we never wanted to be saints, if that means to live our earthly lives as though the resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened, and if that further means that we do what He tells us to do.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
Matthew 7:24-29

The crowds were amazed at his teaching, because He taught with an authority that their usual teachers didn’t have. Being amazed is like telling someone who’s trying to follow Jesus and do what He commands, “You have a gift. You can’t expect everyone to want Jesus as much as you do.” Being amazed is a way of excusing yourself from doing likewise. Hence, the Church divides helter-skelter at the voice of Jesus into two camps, the enthusiasts and the run of the mill. The first group can be comfortably hidden from view in monasteries or behind a clerical collar, so as not to embarrass the other half, while it patiently endures its weekly dose of churchianity.

The cult of invoking the saints can be justified by saying that we ask them for their prayers—which they can be expected to be offering anyway—just as we ask other members of the Church to intercede for us. The main difference is the saints are in heaven, and have nothing better to do, whereas our earthly neighbors are, like us, caught in the hustle and bustle for survival, and can’t be depended on to pray even for themselves, let alone for others. That’s why we offer an “I’ll pray for you,” instead of actually standing in prayer with our neighbor right then and there. The saints in heaven will actually pray for us; that’s how they got where they are, we think.

Ensconced and comfortable in the mystery of an ambiguous humility, a devout woman bows and bows before an ikon and kisses it, and leaves a flower. I asked her, what she was asking the Mother of God for, and why. She responded, “Well, I really need God to grant me…” and then added, “I am way too sinful to pray to God myself, but Panagía will ask for me.” This same woman never goes forward to communion either, except once a year, at Pascha. She is a gentle and devout woman, and she even goes and stands outside a locked church on her street to say her prayers, and yet in her day to day life she lives as though the resurrection were nothing more than its ikon decorated with flowers.

Church has got to be one of the most boring things that contemporary Christians have to put up with, and they make no secret of it. Handling the things of faith and of God with such familiarity and for so long, and with the confidence that they are right in all their beliefs and customs, they are like guests who lick the silver platters after dumping the feast off to the side at a banquet without eating a morsel. No one in their right mind would do that, of course, but at the wedding banquet of the Lamb, that’s what most of them do. They don’t partake of the feast of faith themselves, but by their contrivances, they keep others from it by their cry of “the doors! the doors!” I am speaking metaphorically, you understand.

This evening I discovered a webpage of a contemporary Christian—I don’t know what exactly to call him—entertainer, no, that’s not right, but he’s trying to incite people to go back behind what they usually think of as Christianity or church by means of what seems to me to be a form of entertainment. By using what will attract and keep people’s attention, he can then knock them out with his message. The image of his online webpage (below, right) can be enlarged for a closer look, or you can of course go to it yourself and see what he’s all about. Looking past the slogans, “to believe is human; to doubt divine,” and “i believe in the insurrection,” and looking at the rest of his introduction, it seems that he’s trying to get people to realise the resurrection of Christ.

He says, “The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church.” With that line alone, he quickly disposes of a large part of my own life in Christ and my testimony that “we are the early Christians.” Of course, I don’t try to be that by any special method of my own. I just follow Jesus’ instructions to “make My word your home,” and that’s quite enough. He’s not actually saying what he seems to be at first. Rather, I think he’s trying to derail the evangelical strategy of discrediting the historic Church from Constantine on, and restore something better than just fixing symptoms: Let’s get back behind it all, to the resurrection of Jesus. My thought is, if that’s what he’s trying to do, why not just do it? Enough of jargonising and word substitutions.

Clothing the most powerful divine intervention in the history of the universe, Christ’s third-day resurrection and all that follows from it—for that too is the resurrection, not solely the moment when He literally rose from the dead—clothing it with something we think is more attractive and inspiring… “we must call a new army of agitators… dissidents courageous enough… a new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance… through a provocative cocktail of incendiary theology… that will strip everything from us, everything we hold dear and inaugurate a new year zero… belief in the event of Resurrection means nothing less than participation in an insurrection.”

This string of passages, taken out of context not to distort them but merely to reveal their high points, is almost an icon of the extremes to which contemporary Christianity is willing to depart from the language of the holy scriptures, and from the authentic presentation of the Good News and the life of discipleship, in order to recapture them. What? In order to recapture the life in Christ we have to depart from it, wander the battlefield, or perhaps the minefield, of contemporary cultural struggle clothed in its terms, ideologies and even fantasies, and that somehow will let us retake the promised land? We hope to arrive at Christ’s glorious resurrection by convincing ourselves that we are bravely taking part in an insurrection?

Nope! For one thing, it is bad theology, unbiblical theology, no theology at all, really. Sorry, but the only insurrection is that of satan and his angels against the King of kings of kings, blessed be He. The anointed Son of Man, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, descended from the race of David, has trampled death by death and abolished the power of the devil, and His Word is Truth. So, why all this talk of us joining an insurrection? All we need to do is intend to be the saints of Jesus, to do what He commands. We are already enlisted, not as insurrectionary guerillas, but as co-combatants and comrades in the Jesus people army. We’re the police force, not the rebels. We follow the rightful and true King who not only pretends to be alive, but actually is, and for evermore.

Brothers, in case some of you may know this author and artist and like him and his works, don’t think that I am any more critical of him than I am of myself when I see I’m swerving to right or left into the ditch of my own plan of salvation. To err is human, and to forgive divine, and I’m the first (of sinners, as we say but don’t ever really believe). He seems to be heading in the right direction—for there really is only one right direction—to the living God, but he doesn’t seem to know not to “use the Torah as a spade to dig with,” or not to “put the crown to his own use.”

Christ is to be exalted above all our human constructs, His Word to be held pre-eminent above all our human talk. The way to receive Christ, the Resurrection and the Life, is simpler and doesn’t require our help at all, except to hear His call, follow Him, and do what He commands. And the garment we put on is Christ Himself, the Lord our Righteousness.

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:9 NIV

כי־גבהו שמים מארץ כן גבהו דרכי מדרכיכם ומחשבתי ממחשבתיכם׃

Holy prophet Ezekiel

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Hebrews 12:1 NIV

Τοιγαρουν και ημεις τοσουτον εχοντες περικειμενον ημιν νεφος μαρτυρων, ογκον αποθεμενοι παντα και την ευπεριστατον αμαρτιαν δι υπομονης, τρεχωμεν τον προκειμενον ημιν αγωνα.

9th Friday after Pentecost
Phocas the Holy Martyr, Bishop of Sinope
Ezekiel the Prophet
Pelagia the Righteous of Tinos
Hannah the Righteous, mother of Samuel the Prophet
Trophimos & Theophilios and the 13 others martyred in Lycia
Anna of Levkadio

Today I remember always the holy prophet Ezekiel, Yechezkél in Hebrew, as he is commemorated on the calendar of the Greek Church, where he is joined by many others, that “great cloud of witnesses” described in the letter to the Hebrews. This morning when I opened my email, there was only one missive, a weekly homily sent to me from a church in Bangalore, India, written by their chief pastor Zac Poonen. He is a remarkable Christian pastor, evangelist and I would say, even a remarkable apostle, and I always look forward to hearing a word from him. Well, this morning his message was taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, and since it is his feast-day, I want to share this word with you…

The New Covenant Life
and The New Covenant Church

by Zac Poonen

There is a beautiful prophecy of new covenant life in Ezekiel 36:25-37. This is a description of how the Christian life, as God intends it to be. He first promises to cleanse us thoroughly, removing all idols from our heart, and then to remove our hard heart and to replace it with a soft one, and then to put His Holy Spirit within us and then to make us walk in His ways and cause us to obey His commandments and thus to save us from all our uncleanness (Ezekiel 36:25-29). But all this can happen only when we pray to God and ask Him to do it for us (Ezekiel 36:37). If we don’t ask for this life, we won’t get it. And when we come into this glorious life, we “will loathe ourselves in our own sight” (Ezekiel 36:31), as we think of our past life. This is one of the primary marks of a Spirit-filled man that he detests himself for all the sin he sees in his flesh and cries out saying, “O wretched man that I am, I am the chief of sinners” (Romans 7:24; 1 Timothy 1:15). A Spirit-filled man does not see any sin in others before he sees the same sin within his own flesh and he loathes himself for it. The closer we get to God, the more aware we become of our own sin.
God took Ezekiel to a valley full of dry bones and told him first of all to prophesy to them (Ezekiel 37). The Word of God went forth and the bones came together and flesh covered them. But they needed something more than just the Word of God – they needed the Holy Spirit’s power as well, just as we see in Genesis 1. There we see that it was the joint operation of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit that brought life out of death. It is the same here and it is the same even today. When the Holy Spirit came upon these dead bodies, they stood up and immediately became a powerful army of soldiers for the Lord. This is a picture of what God wants to do in the church today. Many Christians are initially exactly like those dry bones, stiff and dead, despite the correctness of all their doctrines. As they respond to the Word of God, they begin to gather together as Christians (bone comes together to bone) and they begin to live decent lives (There is a certain amount of beauty when the flesh covers the bones). But there is one more thing
that these Christians need if they are to be a mighty army for God. They need to be endued with the supernatural power of God’s Holy Spirit.

There is also a picture of new covenant life and of the church in Ezekiel 40-48. This is pictorially described as a temple. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) and the church is also the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16). In Ezekiel 43, we read of the glory of God that had left the temple returning to the new temple – the new covenant church that was established from the day of Pentecost onwards. The Lord calls the church “the place of My throne” (Ezekiel 43:7). The law for this new covenant church is described thus: “Its entire area shall be Most Holy” (Ezekiel 43:12). In the old covenant temple, only a small room at its western end was called “Most Holy” – where God dwelt. But in the new covenant church, the entire church (temple) is Most Holy. To build the church as God’s temple today, we must follow this one fundamental law - absolute holiness for every member in it. Sin must not be tolerated in any form in anyone.

The Lord speaks of two types of ministers in His temple – symbolized by the sons of Zadok and the Levites in Ezekiel 44:9-19. The sons of Zadok symbolize the wholehearted disciples of Christ who are permitted “to minister to Him”. The Levites symbolize the compromisers who are permitted only “to minister to the people”. There is a vast difference between these two types of ministries. Jesus never served the people primarily. All His service was done to the Father alone, even when He served people – and that is how we must serve God too. It is when we begin to serve the people that temptations to compromise and to please people enter in. From such a holy temple (Spirit-filled church or Spirit-filled individual) a trickle of water begins to flow out that becomes a river and finally becomes many rivers (Ezekiel 47). This is the passage which Jesus quoted in John 7:37-39, where He spoke of “rivers of living water flowing out” from a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit. This is what began on the day of Pentecost and has been flowing through godly men and women ever since. This life begins as a little trickle before it becomes a big river and many rivers.

The Lord gave Ezekiel a little taste of what it means to live a Spirit-filled life in Ezekiel 47:3-6. He led Ezekiel step by step into this river. After walking in it for about 500 metres, the water reached Ezekiel’s ankles. After another 500 metres, it came up to his knees. After another 500 metres, the water came up to his waist. And after yet another 500 metres, it was so deep that Ezekiel had to lift his feet off the ground and be carried by the current of the river. We can go forward in our walk with God continuously as Ezekiel did. Or we can stop at some point. God will never compel us to go further than we want to. When Elisha followed Elijah (2 Kings 2), he continually tested Elisha to see if he was hungry for more or satisfied with what he already had. Because Elisha was not satisfied until he got God’s best, he got a double portion of the anointing upon his life. We see Ezekiel also being tested here in a similar way. He also wanted to enter into the river more and more until he had entered into “waters to swim in”. You can experience a measure of the Holy Spirit’s workings in your life and still stop at some point less that is less than God’s best. Notice this also: When the water was up to Ezekiel’s ankles, or up to his knees or even up to his waist, his feet were still on the ground. But it is when our feet are taken off from the earth, that we know that we are really filled with the Spirit. At that point, we are “detached from the earth and from earthly interests and from attachment to material things” and we begin to be “led by the Spirit, according to the will of God and not our own will”. The last verse of the book (Ezekiel 48:35) mentions the name of this new covenant church as, “The Lord is there” - Jehovah Shammah. This is the church that you and I are called to build – where people recognize that the Lord is there in our midst in all his glory. But to build it, the Lord needs people like Ezekiel who will obey Him totally.

Open door

We are still the early Christians, at least,
we can be if we want to.

This doesn’t mean trying to set up yet another church denomination to ‘purify’ the Church of all the accumulations of tradition and what not that seems to obscure the Good News. Actually, it isn’t the traditions per se that obscure the Good News. Administered rightly, the traditions do what they were designed to do: amplify the Good News and integrate it into our personal lives.

What obscures the Good News is something so close to us that we can’t often see it. It’s our tendency to want the appearance rather than the reality of anything. The mind awake knows better, knows this tendency and refutes it, saying as C. S. Lewis writes, ‘I want God, not my idea of God.’ This is what the Christian mind awake realizes about God and, this being its starting point, begins to untie the knot of its self-deception.

Acknowledging the holy scriptures formally does nothing to promote our life in Christ. We must with the fear of God, with faith and love draw near to them. We must humbly bow our stiff necks and tender our tough hearts into the faithful care of the Word of God. Studying them in this way, we are drawn to the same life that the holy apostles and early church brothers lived.
Why? Because we realize we want it.

When I read the first letter of holy apostle Paul to his spiritual son Timothy the other day, I didn’t read a daily portion. I couldn’t read any less than the whole book, cover to cover, short as it is. It drew me into itself, not in the imagination, but in the spirit of the life it contains. Reading it this way, I was placed right then and there, living the same church life that they live, with them.
Why? Because it’s still happening.

As I said at first, we are the early Christians, and that’s that, but only if we want to be. Once you discover that through living in the holy scriptures, once you have had a taste of that life, that real Church life, you realize there really isn’t any other kind, everything else seems fake, seems contrived. Fellowship with the saints becomes more than a review of history, and you realize what it means to have an indelible baptism.

Christ is not religion to me, nor are He and His holy apostles and saints too exalted to be my friends, nor is the Holy Spirit an excuse for me to rest in comfortable exile from my heavenly home.

Instead, the Book is the door that was left open in my path, and I walked through it to find that all it says is true, that there is a heavenly country, that paradise still exists, that the Church has never changed, never been divided, and that it’s my Home now, and to the ages of ages.

Behold, I have set before thee an open door,
and no man can shut it.
Revelation 3:8

Ιδου, δεδωκα ενωπιον σου θυραν ανεωγμενην,
και ουδεις δυναται κλεισαι αυτην.

Passions

Εξ ύψους κατήλθες ο εύσπλαγχνος,
ταφήν καταδέξω τριήμερον,
ίνα ημάς ελευθερώσης τών παθών,
Η ζωή καί η Ανάστασις ημών, Κύριε δόξα σοι.

You descended from on high, O merciful Lord,
and accepted the three‑day burial
in order to free us from our passions.
Glory to you, O Lord, our life and our resurrection.
Resurrectional Apolytikion, Tone 8

I don’t know why, but this was the first Greek hymn I ever fell in love with. I sang it constantly for years, and I still do from time to time. Later, after worshipping the Lord in the Anastasis service for many years, and having heard my beloved bishop Anthony (of blessed memory) sing with great gusto the apolytikion of Tone 2, Ote katílthes, ‘When You descended,’ in which occurs a phrase I love more than anything, ti astrapí tis theótitos, ‘by the lightning flash of deity,’ that hymn became my favorite. Now it almost sings itself inside me wherever I go, keeping me always present at the moment when the angel speaks the words, ουκ εστιν ωδε, ηγερθη γαρ καθως ειπεν, ‘He is not here, for He has risen as He said’ (Matthew 28:6).

But, back to the 8th tone hymn, it is the words τών παθών, ton pathón, from the passions, that has kept catching my ear from the first time I ever heard it sung.

The passions? What are they?
Some translations propose ‘from the sufferings.’ The word ‘our’ is implied earlier in the verse where it’s the direct object of the verb ελευθερώσης, eleftherósis, You liberate. Whatever is meant by ‘passions,’ Christ came to free us from them. That’s what we’re singing about.

Yet, in the world today, outside and inside the Church, we hear voices throwing around this word ‘passion’ in relation to good things as well as bad, positive as well as negative. Young Christians intent on serving the Lord often say, “I have a passion for Jesus,” or “I have a passion for ministry,” and what they’re saying is that they have a strong feeling. But is it feelings, if that’s what they mean by ‘passion,’ that will keep them going and strengthen them to follow Jesus, or to serve His people, from beginning to end?

The ‘passion’ that young people have, how many times does it get traded or sold for something less than they bargained for? How many Christians have in middle age the same fervor for Christ that they had when they first decided to follow Him? These people are not hard to spot, if you know what to look for. They are those who, no matter what their age, seem somehow to be always young and fresh, their spirits unaffected by the physical deterioration that comes with age.

Living fulfillments of Psalm 1, planted by water streams, yielding their fruit in season, their leaves never fading. Age they have eluded, as they will also elude death.

Εγω ειμι η αναστασις και η ζωη. Ο πιστευων εις εμε καν αποθανη ζησεται… Πιστευεις τουτο? ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life. If anyone believes in Me, even though he dies, he will live… Do you believe this?’ (John 11:25-26)

We sing of Christ that He ‘accepted the three‑day burial in order to free us from our passions.’ Perhaps following Him even there, to the rich man’s virgin tomb, in the darkness of death we will shed our passions as the souls in Hades shed their shadows. He emptied the graves once. He will do it again. And that, very soon.

For the time is close.

Absolute

Remember the Good News that I carry, ‘Jesus Christ risen from the dead, sprung from the race of David’.
2 Timothy 2:8 Jerusalem Bible

Μνημονευε Ιησουν Χριστον εγηγερμενον εκ νεκρων εκ σπερματος Δαυιδ κατα το ευαγγελιον μου

“Truth is so absolute, so real, so personal…”

We have grown so accustomed to be told that what we believe or know to be true is just our opinion, that we have retreated into a subservience, into a state of submission, to the prevailing culture, where there are no absolutes in anything.

Yet, most of the facts of our everyday existence, as well as the findings of hard science and the immutable laws of mathematics, are absolute truths. We fail to notice this, or else are forced to think that these are ‘objective’ while everything else is ‘subjective.’

The world wants us to believe that there are no either/ors in the world of truth, only a continuum of opinions, infinite at both extremes, and as long as we’re willing to be located at some point on that continuum, smiling in both directions, they are happy.

Yet, if we are Christians, it is not because we belong to a ‘faith tradition’ but because we have come to know a Person, and we have evidence that He has come to know us, and not only come to know us, but has changed us in a very absolute way.

Something called ‘the Good News’ really exists. It has an ‘objective’ reality. It is not something we made up, nothing we could have invented, any more than we could have invented the flow of history or the principles of mathematics. It’s real ‘all on its own.’

Yet, some Christians think that it’s their private possession, a kind of consolation prize for having to put up with living in such a contrary and sinful world. Owning it justifies them in feeling superior, or embattled, foxes unable to eat the wild grapes.

This Good News is absolute, is real, and is personal, no matter how you look at it. Jesus Christ risen from the dead, sprung from the race of David. Either it’s true, absolutely true, real and personal, or it’s simply false, a personal opinion, an assertion.

If it is true, why are we not shouting it from the housetops? If it’s true, why are we not living as if it really happened? If it is true, why do we let people tell us, ‘it’s your opinion, it’s just a story, like every thing else that’s too good to be true’?

No, brothers. There is absolute Truth. You can’t own it. He owns you. It’s not a spade to dig with, unless you dig your own grave. It’s not a crown for you to wear, but one for you to cast at His feet. Never surrender to the lie, not even by being nice.

There is absolute Truth. He is there, always, and He is with those who accept Him. He has made them the children of God. There is also the lie, and the father of lies, and however he dresses it up, the lie is still what it is, a denial of Him who is.

As holy apostle John writes,
‘Children, be on your guard against false gods.’

Certainty

A Christian brother left this comment on my post Tampering…

"I'm wondering how we distinguish between counter-productive tinkering and the passion for constant improvement that has been a chief strength of such companies as 3M and Walmart."

His thought brought forth in me this immediate response, which I have tried to put into words…

We don't have to wonder how to distinguish them. Not in advance, not in general. We distinguish them as they come, availing ourselves of the discernment given us by the Holy Spirit.

It's not as if we were judging others, or even the world system, by some predetermined and exclusive philosophical viewpoint. That would make Christianity into an -ism or a religion, like all the others that follow dead gods.

We have the gift of discernment through the Holy Spirit, so there’s no need to wonder about anything. This gift is a “point of use” article of our spiritual armament. It’s meant to be used at the right time, in the right place, and in the right way.

That gift isn't so lofty or otherworldly that we should only use it on formally ‘spiritual’ matters. The gift of discernment is given exactly to use in the situations I am describing. This is where our Christianity leaves the coffee social after the service and the delightful bible study fellowship and strikes terror like a divine lightning flash into the guts of demons who amuse themselves by small, incremental unimprovements to their patients (for they are doctors, only of a very different sort from the great Physician).

Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the one who was dead but is now alive, and lives for evermore. Their gods, whatever they call them, were never alive, are dead now, and dead for evermore.

Holy prophet Isaiah keeps reminding us of this over and over again, yet we still can’t seem to keep our feet on the Rock and our eyes on Jesus. But when we are able to stand firm on the Rock of His written word, the divine scriptures, the Bible, discernment is given us when, where, and how we need it, and not for our own glory. We don’t use it, as much as by means of it, He uses us, to testify again and again to the Truth.

Truth is so absolute, so real, so personal, so powerful, so able to conquer through apparent defeat, so able to live even though it is constantly put to death, that when we simply live in the Truth, absolute certainty is granted to us. Again, not the false certainty of triumphalism and religion, but the certainty of the Kingdom of God, in which we knowingly live as first-born sons and citizens of heaven.

That certainty replaces all guesswork, all anxiousness, all doubt.
It comes to those who use the gift of discernment,
and do not just talk about it.

Let love be genuine

Let love be genuine;

hate what is evil,

hold fast to what is good;

love one another with brotherly affection;

outdo one another in showing honor.

Never flag in zeal,

be aglow with the Spirit,

serve the Lord.

Rejoice in your hope,

be patient in tribulation,

be constant in prayer.

Contribute to the needs of the saints,

practice hospitality.

Romans 12:9-13 RSV

Tampering

The Americans have this saying, “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” Spell checker, I don’t care if you don’t like ‘ain’t’, ‘cause that’s just how we talk, so get over it!

I’m sure every nation under heaven has a saying that means the same as this one. If something is working as it was intended to, just leave it alone, and let it do its work.

Although gradual, incremental change is good, in fact, is the way of nature itself, the hallmark of the current age is to tinker with something until it finally falls apart.

Modernism, in my mind, is the idea that we think of the world in the Greek manner, examining things scientifically, brushing aside unnecessary accretions, to find the best.

Post-modernism, what we have today, is the idea that we think ourselves so far superior to all that came before, that we can rule, disorder, vivisect and undo, to find our pleasure.

The company I work for was humming along just fine. It was small but we didn’t need much, because our product was unique, had no competitors, sold itself on its merits. Our customer service was entirely personalized and also drew additional business, just from our attitude of “do as you would be done by.” We did business on a handshake. The natural growth of the company was well underway, without losing any essential characteristics, but then, the owner, who had not had a university education and was feeling “out of league” with other “world class” companies, went to Harvard Business School. When he returned, he was a changed man.

All at once, everything was thrown into a frenzy of irresponsible tampering and tinkering. Actually those two words are really inadequate to describe what happened. The first step was bringing in outsiders well-versed in the new managerial mysticism and armed with a new selection of games for us to play. Magic words were thrown around, ISO certified, lean manufacturing, Five S, kaizen and poka-yoke.

Lots of big posters were hurriedly designed, printed and plastered all over the walls. We were forced through a sieve of mental manipulation that made some of us think of the brainwashing techniques used by the enemy in the cold war.
A template was forced on us that didn’t fit. In the end, it ruined the company which, even without the current economic conditions, is now a vague shadow of what it was, depleted completely of the good will and enthusiasm that it once had.

Why are we even still around?
Because the owner, unrepentant but quietly burying the history of the past five years, fired all of the managers that he hired to tamper, just as the economic collapse started. We have about a third of the people we had before and our output is a fifth. How do I know? Because I used to be the General Manager and I’ve kept all my weekly production records. Used to be? Yes, because I was morally incapable of joining in the fun of managerial devolution, I was demoted overnight to the status of an entry level worker, and allowed to do menial clerical tasks. I got over it, but not without a struggle. I still work there because the owner has some traditional notions in him that he couldn’t kick, even with all his “education” — the feudal lord’s responsibility to his faithful serf.

“If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”

After having that very personal experience of the effects of the spirit of tampering, actually during that experience, my eyes were opened to what was happening around me in the world at large.

Being a historian by nature and education, I am surprised I didn’t notice this from my studies. History has a way of being written by the victors, who never tell you about the devious means they used to achieve their ends. When you actually live history and look at it with open eyes, you see something that you rarely find in history books.

We are, the human race is, a species that is currently under vicious and pre-meditated attack by spirits who want to take us apart piece by piece and reassemble us to serve their ends, not what we were created and designed for. Sound familiar? Well, yes. That’s because it is the same old war we’ve known about since we were placed at enmity with the serpent. It’s not just a myth, you know. It’s for real.

From scientists taking apart and reassembling DNA to engineer what is not in nature, to sociologists taking apart and reassembling society to engineer what is not human, to economists taking apart and reassembling markets to engineer what is not just, to religionists taking apart and reassembling the Bible to engineer what is not holy, the pattern is all around us. It needs no brains at all to see it, and it’s not a conspiracy theory. Perhaps it’s so pervasive that we tend to accept it as normal, as an abused spouse accepts a bad marriage as normal.

Is engineering just another name for tampering? Well, yes and no. Everything in creation can be used as it was intended, or abused, including engineering, which is part of the Greek mind, of modernism. What has happened is that it is often hijacked by the spirit of tampering, of post-modernism, of devolution. It’s just a word. Abuse of engineering is also an abuse of the name.

When and where has the spirit of tampering affected you lately? In a vital or a peripheral area? Or, are you one of those who is doing it, or contributing to it? Sometimes we’re forced to, because our livelihood depends on it. In fact, that is possibly true of most of us.

Where we can make a difference is to stand our ground on what really matters.

If you are a Christian, believe your Bible as it is, be the Church wherever you are, don’t let religious professionals tamper with your life, don't let economic gurus dicker with your values, don’t let social engineers tinker with what you know is right. In your social and employment network, stand for what is right, new or old, again, keeping your eyes on Jesus, doing what He does, saying what He says, thinking what He thinks.

Have you noticed that when you do this, you’re actually more in the driver’s seat of your own life than when you follow the cosmic managers with their tinkering schemes?

That’s because what the Bible says is true, and you can depend on it.

When Christ freed us, He meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1 Jerusalem Bible

τη ελευθερια ουν η χριστος ημας ηλευθερωσεν, στηκετε και μη παλιν ζυγω δουλειας ενεχεσθε

In the bosom of the Father

No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

John 1:18 King James Version

θεον ουδεις εωρακεν πωποτε ο μονογενης υιος ο ων εις τον κολπον του πατρος εκεινος εξηγησατο

This post is about an ikon.

Ikons are painted, two-dimensional images which have been used by the Church for centuries. They say that the first ikons were painted by holy evangelist Luke, using the encaustic method which was contemporarily used to paint images of the dead on their coffin lids in Hellenistic Egypt. This is certainly a possibility. Others like to point at the images painted on the walls of the catacombs and say that those were the first ikons.

If it were a matter of simply painting a picture of Christ, or a saint, the catacomb art might be considered ikons, but they also painted mere symbols there as well. What ikons are considered today is something different. It is said they are written, not painted. They are supposed to depict only what is historically true, though they can mix elements anachronistically in the same ikon. They are meant to be "windows into heaven," and a graphic equivalent of the Bible, which is why they must adhere to very strict rules.

The ikon of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Triad of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is supposed to be depicted only from what is explicitly or implicitly revealed in the Bible. As such, the two most common ikons of the Trinity are (1) the hospitality of Abraham, and (2) the baptism of Christ. In the first, the Triad of angels that visited Abram and Sarai at the oak of Mamre are the Trinity in a mystery. In the second, the baptism of Christ depicts the Triad as the Voice (the Father, sometimes shown by His hand), the Dove (the Spirit) and Christ Himself.

Today, as I was hunting for an ikon of Mark the Evangelist to use in my Greek New Testament blog Η Καινή Διαθήκη, I ran across a Chinese website that had a large selection of ikons, some of which are very unique. Though I did not find the ikon I was searching for, I did find two others that I saved, and I added the site to the Christian Art link list in the side bar, as 正教圣像 Orthodox Ikons. If you go to this site to view the ikons, at the bottom of the page, clicking on a small flower image will take you to the main page with additional links. Everything is in Chinese!

Back to the topic, a certain ikon, in fact, the ikon at the top of this post.

The name of this ikon at the website is Paternitas, which is Latin for Fatherhood, I think. This is actually an ikon of the Holy Triad, but not in the traditional, scriptural form. It really impressed me, nonetheless, and then the word came to me, "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father." This unusual ikon really is a depiction in visual form of this bible verse, John 1:18. The Dove for the Holy Spirit is borrowed, of course, from the baptism ikon, and the surrounding of seraphim, from the ikon of the vision of holy prophet Isaiah, but everything is still biblical.

One other ikon from the site is a massively detailed ikon of the Resurrection of Christ and His Descent into Hades. It is an excellent example of how an ikon can depict a theological panorama (> Greek, pan = everything, orama = view), provoking questions and suggesting answers, drawing our attention always to the scriptures, and through them by the Holy Spirit's leading, to the living Christ, thus completing the cycle of illumination. An ikon never causes us to stop and stare. A true ikon drives us into the wilderness to seek the Truth.

Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness,

paths in the wilds.

The wild beasts will honour Me,

jackals and ostriches,

because I am putting water in the wilderness,

rivers in the wild,

to give My chosen people drink.

The people I have formed for myself

will sing my praises.

Isaiah 43:19b-21 Jerusalem Bible

The beginning of the Good News

The beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ,
the Son of God.

Mark 1:1 Jerusalem Bible

This is how the gospel according to Mark begins—the beginning of the Good News. But notice that this beginning is actually the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Good News, spoken long before by the Holy Spirit of God through the prophets, especially through Isaiah.

John the evangelist says, "A man came, sent by God. His name was John" (John 1:6).

Mark says that this man "appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4).

The beginning of the Good News, though, could be said to have started with the prophesying of Isaiah, centuries before its fulfillment. John the honorable Forerunner and Baptist "appeared in the wilderness."

He had fed upon the prophetic Word of God and was full of it.

"He came as a witness," says John the evangelist, "as a witness to speak for the Light" (John 1:7). What Light? "The Word," says John, "was the true Light that enlightens all men, and He was coming into the world" (John 1:9). As for the man, "sent by God whose name was John," he knew the Light was coming, because he was a man full of the Word. He didn't have to read the scroll of Isaiah. He had eaten it. "The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light" (Isaiah 9:1) reverberated in his spirit and even in his flesh. That's what made him jump even in his mother's womb when the mother of the Light came near. "As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb" (Luke 1:41).

John's word did not depart from the Word, but faithfully recounted all that he heard by the Spirit Holy that lived in him. Did he know or understand how he was the book of the consolation of Israel in human form? His every word and action was that Word set into movement to fulfillment. Isaiah prophesied. John enacted.

"Console My people, console them,

speak to the heart of Jerusalem

and call to her

that her time of service is ended,

that her sin is atoned for,

that she has received from the hand of Yahweh

double punishment for all her crimes."

(Isaiah 40:1-2)

"A voice cries, 'Prepare in the wilderness

a way for Yahweh.

Make a straight highway for our God

across the desert.

Let every valley be filled in,

every mountain and hill laid low,

let every cliff become a plain,

and the ridges a valley;

then the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed

and all mankind shall see it;

for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.'"

(Isaiah 40:3-5)

"A Voice commands, 'Cry!'

and I answered, 'What shall I cry?'

—'All flesh is grass

and its beauty like the wild flower's.

The grass withers, the flower fades

when the breath of Yahweh blows on them,

but the Word of our God remains forever.'"

(Isaiah 40:6-8)

God spoke through Isaiah, enacted through John,
and fulfilled, in a mystery, through his Only Son.

"Shout without fear,

say to the towns of Judah,

'Here is your God.'"

(Isaiah 40:9b)

"Look, there is the Lamb of God

that takes away the sin of the world."

(John 1:29b)

"Here is the Lord Yahweh coming with power,

His arm subduing all things to Him.

The prize of His victory is with Him,

His trophies all go before Him.

He is like a Shepherd feeding His flock,

gathering lambs in His arms,

holding them against His breast

and leading to their rest the mother ewes."

(Isaiah 40:10-11)

John cried, echoing the prophet Isaiah who was alive in him,

"Did you not know?

Had you not heard?

Was it not told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood how the earth was founded?"

(Isaiah 40:21)

He announced with every particle of his being,

having fed on the sweetness of the Word,

"Here is My Servant whom I uphold,

My Chosen One in whom My soul delights.

I have endowed Him with My Spirit

that He may bring true justice to the nations.

He does not cry out or shout aloud,

or make His voice heard in the streets.

He does not break the crushed reed,

nor quench the wavering flame.

Faithfully He brings true justice;

He will neither waver, nor be crushed

until true justice is established on earth,

for the islands are waiting for His Law."

(Isaiah 42:1-4)

This is the Word which nourished the flesh and spirit of prophets

through endless ages leading forward not to the end

but to the true beginning of all things,

which is the Good News

of Jesus Christ,

"I, Yahweh, have called you to serve the cause of right;

I have taken you by the hand and formed you;

I have appointed you as covenant of the people

and light of the nations,

to open the eyes of the blind,

to free captives from prison,

and those who live in darkness from the dungeon.

My name is Yahweh,

I will not yield My glory to another,

nor my honor to idols.

See how former predictions have come true.

Fresh things I now foretell;

before they appear I tell you of them."

(Isaiah 42:6-9)

The beginning of the Good News—when is this beginning? When did it happen? Was it in the days of the prophets who, moved by the Holy Spirit, prophesied what was to come?

Was it in the days of the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ whose life-giving death and glorious resurrection and ascension, were a single act of victory, granting the world great mercy?

Yes, but there is more. The beginning of the Good News is that moment when a human soul entrusts itself utterly to the providence of God, believing the Word without reserve, receiving, accepting Christ the Word as He is, as He is revealed, for "to all who did accept Him He gave power to become the children of God, to all who believe in the Name of Him who was born not out of human stock, or urge of the flesh, or will of man, but of God Himself" (John 1:12-13).

To receive power to become a child of God is no small thing. Therefore, let us "throw off everything that hinders us, especially the sin that clings so easily," and "let us not lose sight of Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection" (Hebrews 12:1b-2a).

The beginning of the Good News is, was, and is to come.

And the Good News is Jesus Christ.

Truth Funnies

Here is a poster I have had for almost 30 years, or so it seems. I've posted a couple of the cartoon panels to illustrate my posts in the past, but I don't believe I've ever actually posted the entire poster, which I am doing now. Neither the poster nor I intend to offend anyone, but simply to testify to the Truth that is Who not What. This poster illustrates my saying, "In this world it should be what you know, not who, that gets you ahead, but it's usually the other way round. In the world to come, it's the opposite, it's not what you know, but Who, that gets you into heaven." That's the truth of Christianity "in a nutshell." It's not about religion; it's about a Person. And here's a poster for you that is "comparative religions in a nutshell."

Click on the image to enlarge it to full size, and then you can download it, and print yourself a copy…

Tenderly care for Jesus

Never have I heard it said this way, and now that I have, I know something about the ikon of Vladimir that I could feel sometimes but not understand. In Orthodox ikons, Mary the mother of Jesus, is almost never portrayed alone but, as we commonly see, is always shown with her divine Son. Why? Because it is He who makes her what she is.

In a blog that I sometimes read, Mystagogy, there is a wonderful post about Kievan Russia quoted from a Protestant author, and I want to quote a passage that gave me this new insight about ikons of Mary with the child Jesus.

God dwelling among men—here, I believe, we see the fundamental faith and reality of Christian blessedness motivating Kievan Russia. The emphasis in communal worship lay on making God's person and Real presence visible and touchable. "The same desire to see spiritual truth in tangible form" is embodied in Kievan Russia's icons or paintings of Christ, His blessed mother, and the saints. Protestant Christians rightly fear and proscribe the idolatry incipient in man-made images of holy things and human "saints." Yet among a people converted but recently from serving pagan "nature gods," as were eleventh-century Kievans, their Christian art including icons probably did an indispensable service of Christian nurture. We must remember that "there were no complete versions of the Bible, let alone independent theological syntheses, produced in early Russia." Some early Kievan art nurtures and even converts human hearts and minds in our own time.

What Christian, what student of the Bible can look at the early twelfth-century icon of the Virgin of Vladimir and not be touched by Mary's tenderness toward her Holy Child Jesus? Is not the lesson at hand — that we, too, should thus tenderly care for Jesus conceived and growing in our hearts after we have been visited by the Holy Ghost and overshadowed by the power of the Highest (Luke 1:35)?

As I was reading the post, and appreciating it in detail, my mind kept leading me back to the Word of God for another illumination, to Psalm 131, which also somehow relates to the ikons of Mary holding her infant Son. This time, it is the image of the tenderness with which our good and loving God cradles us, cradles me.

Yahweh, my heart has no lofty ambitions,
my eyes do not look too high.
I am not concerned with great affairs
or marvels beyond my scope.
Enough for me to keep my soul tranquil and quiet
like a child in its mother's arms,
as content as a child that has been weaned.
Israel, rely on Yahweh,
now and for always!
Psalm 131

To the Word, co-eternal

To the Word, co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit,
born of the Virgin for our salvation,
let us, the faithful, give praise and worship.
For he willed to be lifted up on the cross in the flesh,
to suffer death and raise the dead
by his glorious resurrection.

—Ton Synanarchon Logon,
Resurrectional Apolytikion, Tone 5

First of all, the bible is not technically God’s Word.
Christ, the Divine Logos, is God’s Word.
That’s what Logos means, as everyone knows.

Second, the bible is the written icon (or image) of the Word of God.
It no more fell out of the sky from God’s lips than did Jesus.
Jesus had to be born into the human world
as a man through a woman’s body.
The bible had to enter the human mind
as a body of literature written by a multitude of seers.
You already know this too.
I’m just organizing the thoughts.

Third, every limitation voluntarily accepted by the Christ
when He incarnated as a man is applicable
in its own frame of reference
to the written icon of the Word of God.
Both suffer a diminution or reduction in the process
of being translated from heaven to earth.
In neither case does this veiling of glory
diminish or dilute the absolute Truth of the Word of God in any way.

Fourth, the bible is infallible in its unity and infallible in its parts,
but the application of this infallibility always depends
on the intervention of the Holy Spirit,
who alone knows how, when and where to apply it.
Without the intervention of the Holy Spirit,
the bible cannot be known as infallible,
indeed cannot be known at all for what it is.

A medicine may be infallibly effective,
but if it is not applied or ingested in the right way,
at the right time, and in the right place,
it can have even the opposite effect, possibly becoming lethal.
Only the physician knows how to apply it in every case.

The Holy Spirit lives in the Church,
and the Church lives in the Word of God.

And what of the use of proof texts and the like,
which can be applied in sometimes disastrous ways
by persons who have not ingested the whole of scripture
by constantly and daily feeding upon it without mixing it,
but who rather begin to teach their partial understandings
(some of which may be wholly true, others wholly false)
without being first built upon the sure foundation of faith?

It is not how educated and learned one is
that qualifies one for understanding and interpreting
the written icon of the Word, nor is chronological age a criterion.

Spiritual maturity rather than chronological age,
practical application, even incarnation, of the scripture’s tenets
rather than academic prowess or a prodigious memory,
these are what put a man in the place where the Word of God
can employ him as an agent of divine Truth.

Remember who the Word of God is,
and do not trifle with the arguing spirits.
Rather apply yourself to knowing and living the Word,
who is alive and active,
and in so doing demonstrate on the battlefield of your own body
the victory of Christ, who is Truth come unto His own in you,
and by thus receiving Him,
receive also the power to become
the son or daughter of the Most High.

Originally posted June 3, 2009.

Again and again…

…because the truth never changes.

All praise for every good thing belongs to God alone, because it is Only He that prepares us for every good work and gives us the means to do the work.

If my actions and love for anyone can teach any lesson, it should be this: The Kingdom of God has already begun, even here on earth while we are alive and waiting for Jesus to come in glory.

The proof that we are the Church, His Body, is that He is among us even now, as the Risen Christ, and if we believe this, we will see Him walking among us and hear His voice speaking. Then, all we have to do is follow Him every day, and do the work we see Him doing, and speak the words we hear Him speak.

This seems like a mystery, but really, it is also quite practical.
Holy apostle Paul says that the mystery is Christ among us, that gives us the strength to do every good work.
We are still the Early Christians, and we can keep living as they lived, even now.

Love one another as I have loved you, says the Lord Jesus, and no greater love is there but for a man to lay down his life for his friends. Jesus is not asking us to lay down our lives and die for Him, not yet anyway, but we can at least be kind to one another, and help each other whenever we can.

If God provides the means, we do the work. If He withdraws the means, then we stop working, and wait for Him to move again, and wherever He goes, we follow.

No worry, no anxiety.

Why? Because it is not we who are working, giving, suffering, loving, being patient, being generous, being helpful, no, it is not us, but Christ in us.

Again, as holy apostle Paul calls it, the mystery of Christ among you. So, it is not I, but Christ living in me.

You are called to this very same kind of life, but it is not your job to try to make yourself into what you think God wants. All you have to do is follow closely behind Him, and you will begin to change into His image, as you do what you see Him doing. It is the easiest thing in the world to do.

That's why Jesus says, "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 was your good pleasure. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:25-26, 28-30 NIV)

For those who missed it, this is a reprise, originally post on May 14, 2009 under the same title.

Something important

At the end of the first part of their walk to Emmaus, two of the disciples experienced something that I and my best friend Brock have also experienced when we used to work together. Every day without exception, we would get together in some out-of-the-way place, and pray, mornings before work, evenings after work. And every day without exception we would eat lunch together, usually going out and purchasing our daily bread at a local restaurant or lunch counter.

Every time we had lunch together in sincere fellowship, calling on the name of our God, even at a lunch counter, we experienced a non-ritualized version of the same Presence of Jesus with us that can be experienced in the Holy Communion service. That's why even if there were two bread rolls and two of us, we still broke each roll in half and shared it, the same with the cheese, the grapes, the olives, whatever we were eating—if it could be divided and shared, we did it. That's because the sharing was better food than the eating.

In the context of worship, communion takes on a glorious and supernatural aspect. At the humble dinner table of love's bread, Christ comes among us in no less real a manner, just humbly, intimately. It's there that we can really touch Him in touching each other, love Him in loving each other, and share His generosity in the literal breaking of bread.

"When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him…"
Luke 24:30-31 NIV

The reminiscence above is taken from an old post on this blog, Thinking of Communion. It's one of my very favorites and I've adapted it only a little by adding more biographical detail, such as revealing that it was with my best friend and co-laborer that I shared these kairós moments. What made me think of it, is some astonishing things I just read in Fr Stephen's blog, at his post The Sacrament of the Present Moment. Let me conclude with the passages in his post that really spoke to me, sharing them with you.

It has been a common observation that when various reformers set about to reform the Church, they declared “all days to be holy days,” and thus rid the calendar of any particular holy day. The unintended result was that before long not only were all days not holy days, no day was a holy day.

In the same way, the decrees concerning the “priesthood of all believers” rather than making every individual a priest, became a meaningless phrase, for without the sacramental priesthood, the phrase lost its reference of meaning. No one had seen or dealt with a priest so to be told that they had some kind of “priesthood” from Christ was meaningless.

The same has been true of the more recent democratizations of the liturgy where the “people” gather around the altar and God is in our midst. Somehow, God becomes lost. All boundary between myself and the holy disappear and I can no longer know the holy.

Strangely, most of these reforms were not misguided. They were rooted in Scriptural truth and embodied a certain amount of truth. But invariably they were reforms that were lost in the “law of unintended consequences.” The general principle triumphed over the particular instance and the result was the abolition of something important.

But God is indeed “everywhere present and filling all things.” One of the clearest examples of this in Scripture is to be found in the resurrected Christ’s encounter with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They conversed and the disciples did not recognized Him. Indeed, their hearts “burned” within them as they walked along and He instructed them in Scripture concerning the Christ. But things became clear – they recognized the risen Lord when He stopped with them for the evening meal. There He “took bread, blessed, broke and gave it to them,” and we are told, “their eyes were opened.” Those four verbs, “take, bless, break, and give,” are always used in Eucharistic encounters in Scripture. They are keys for our understanding. Nonetheless, the Scriptures do not say that there was a “formal” liturgy or even a clearly demarcated sacred meal. Only that Christ was present, and that He “took bread, blessed, broke and gave it too them.” And He was made known to them.

The Eucharist reveals Christ to us. But as Fr. Alexander Schmemann always noted, the Eucharist not only reveals Christ to us, it also reveals the true nature of creation to us. Bread can no longer be the same if Christ has taken it and made it His body.

It is always possible, indeed it has already happened, that we build a fence around that sacred moment and confine it to the liturgy itself. Outside the service, everything returns to “normal and ordinary,” and the Orthodox become as secular as every Christian around them. This is a denial of the Orthodox faith.

You are right, Father Stephen, you are right!

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Indeed, it mustn't!