It is the Lord!

It’s hard to believe that life can go on after the end of something glorious: the death of a beloved child or spouse, the loss of an irreplaceable friendship, or, for the disciples of Jesus, no longer having Him among them, daily walking with Him, eating with Him, sleeping with Him out in the wilds as they journeyed together, hearing His words and seeing His divine acts hidden from the world. ‘Of all men You are the most handsome, Your lips are moist with grace, for God has blessed you forever’ (Psalm 45). The most wonderful Man they had ever known was no longer with them.

Yes, they had not forgotten that the impossible had happened. Not just one impossible, but a whole string of them, all events that never should’ve happened, never could have happened, unless this Man really were who He said He was, who they were beginning to understand, gradually, that He is: How could they have arrested Him, who had never done anything wrong? How could they have stripped and beaten Him, who had healed their sick and filled their hungry with good things, literally feeding multitudes?

How could they have put Him to death, and ignominiously, mocking Him, deriding Him, who had brought the only life worth living among them? How could they have rejected Him, who was so obviously Moshiach, the Savior of Israel who had appeared to tell them that God had not rejected them, but had come to them, in Him, to end their exile from the Father? For the greatest of all impossibles had happened, He had risen from the dead, not as He raised Lazarus His beloved friend, but forever.

The winter and the midnight
Could not hold him,
The fire could not burn him
Nor earth enfold him.
Rise up Lazarus,
Sweet and salty!
Brother soldiers,
Stop your gambling and talk to me.
The thieves were stealers,
But reason condemned him,
And the grave was empty
Where they had laid him.

And how did they know this? Was it just through the ravings of some hysterical women? Some of the brothers had murmured in their hurt and doubt, even against their sisters. But no, not just through their testimony, for Peter and John had run as quick as they could to the tomb: John, the youngest, stopping at its gaping mouth, but Peter, older, braver perhaps, but no wiser, plunging into its depths to see for himself: Yes, the tomb was empty. Now, greater fear than ever: What had happened?

They didn’t have to wait long to find out, but it must have seemed long. They were still hiding out behind locked doors when the Truth came to them: Jesus suddenly stood in their midst, almost as He always had, stood among them and once again told them as He had when He walked on the waters of the turbulent lake: ‘It is I; don’t be afraid.’ Stood among them almost, but not exactly, as He had been with them before. This time it was different. He embraced them with His pierced hands, but His face which came close to theirs in a kiss, was free of blood, grime and pain.

Yes, it was different then, and now. He would come among them, but it was always a surprise, and He didn’t stay with them very long, and He would appear when they were not expecting Him. Why couldn’t it be like it was before? Why couldn’t He stay with them always, so they could walk the roads of the land of Israel again, joyfully doing whatever He asked of them, following Him everywhere? They were never sad, hungry or tired when He was with them. Nothing was too difficult for them. Nothing was impossible. Why? Because Love never tires, and Love was walking with them as a Man.
And they followed Him.

But now, it was different. He hadn’t appeared to them for a long time. How many days had it been? They waited excitedly, anticipating they would meet Him again around the next corner of time, but the Lord didn’t appear. Peter got angry with himself for being so impatient and he crossly said out loud, ‘I’m going fishing!’ Well, yes, a man has to eat, and the disciples had suddenly found themselves sent home, back to their relatives, crabby, selfish, contrary and back-biting as some of them were. They had all reluctantly gone back to their former work. You can’t wait for Jesus forever, can you?

So, some of the brothers, sympathizing with Peter, dropped whatever they were doing and joined him in his old fishing boat on the lake. They fished all night, not talking much, as each of them had a night in his own soul to deal with, an emptiness that could only be filled with Jesus, a darkness that only the Light of the world could dispel. They fished all night but caught nothing. It was already getting light, the sun had even come up and was hanging just above the horizon, shining vermilion between two long banks of slate clouds. A man was walking down to the shore from somewhere.

They were now close enough to see him, but not clearly. Suddenly a voice rang out, ‘Caught anything, friends?’ One of them called back, ‘Nothing!’ The man was probably hoping to buy a few fish from them for his breakfast. He cried out to them, ‘Throw the net out to starboard and you’ll find something!’ Almost before those words had died on the morning breeze, John’s heart leapt, and without thinking, something made him cry out to the others with him in the boat,
‘It is the Lord!’

Peter, quickly tying his wrap around his naked torso, dove into the lake and started swimming for shore. John and the others stayed and followed the man’s instructions, only he and Peter knowing for sure who it was whose words they had believed. Sure enough, the net filled with fish, one for every nation in the known universe, it seemed. Hauling the net in, they too made for shore in the boat. There they found Peter standing a little ways off from the man who spoke the word that saved their night’s efforts.

The man had bread, and there were already some fish roasting over a charcoal camp fire, but the man said to Peter, smiling, ‘Looks like we’ll need some of your fish if we’re going to feed this crew!’ Nobody dared to speak, while Peter ran to where the boat was beached and dragged the whole haul to them. They started counting and sorting the fish, but the man said, ‘Come now and have breakfast! We can start with the ones I brought, and have some more later if we’re still hungry.’ This is how it always was, and is, for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, not just in those significant forty days, but for always. With Him the impossible always happens, and by this we can know for sure, that ‘it is the Lord.’

Peter turned and saw the disciple Jesus loved following them… Seeing him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘What about him, Lord?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I want him to stay behind till I come, what does it matter to you? You are to follow Me.’
John 21:20-22 Jerusalem Bible

Quid pro quo

The Church as it has existed at least from the times of the late Roman Empire under Constantine has manifested on earth both as
“a mystery with structure”
and a “structure with mystery.”
She seems to fluctuate between these two poles, which are inversions of each other.

A mystery with structure—that is, a mystery (the presence of God among us and all that it produces) with structure (visible activity, real estate, hierarchy, dogmatic decrees)—this is the pole that reflects the Lord’s teaching, “Set your hearts on God’s kingdom first and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added as well.” (Matthew 6:33, paraphrased)

A structure with mystery—that is, a structure (professionalism and legalism among us and all that it produces) with mystery (clergy privilege, laity subjection, sanctimonious activity and false religion)—this is the pole that reflects the Lord’s warning, “I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.” (John 10:1 NIV, see also the rest of the passage, John 10:1-10)

Here is an excellent quotation from a Church father, one who knows what he is talking about, and this is what prompted my thoughts above.

A man who takes pride in natural abilities—
I mean cleverness, the ability to learn, skill in reading, good diction, quick grasp, and all such skills as we possess without having to work for them—this man, I say, will never receive blessings in heaven, since the man who is unfaithful in little is unfaithful and vainglorious in much.

And there are men who wear out their bodies to no purpose in the pursuit of total dispassion, heavenly treasures, miracle working, and prophetic ability, and the poor fools do not realize that humility, not hard work, is the mother of such things. The man who seeks a quid pro quo from God builds on uncertainty, whereas the man who considers himself a debtor will receive sudden and unexpected riches.

—John Klímakos

I think that what John of the Ladder (Klímakos) is talking about applies particularly to those who seek to serve Christ in the Church as ordained ministers. It goes without saying that the same observations apply to all of us, but in the case of the clergy, it has far more critical significance. His first paragraph reminds me of some Orthodox clergy, and his second paragraph reminds me of the faith healer type Pentecostals you see on television. The first group are so often carried away by the eloquence and seeming relevance of their own words, that they imagine themselves “lords of the whole world.” The second group reaches the same conclusion about themselves, based on the efficacy of their miracle-working powers.

Those who are called to serve the people of God as shepherds must have only one purpose, to follow their Lord and Master Jesus Christ, and to tend His flock as they see Him tending it. Or, as John of the Ladder so aptly put it in a biblical metaphor, “the man who considers himself a debtor will receive sudden and unexpected riches,” that is, he not only plants the seed of salvation in the hearts of the people, but he is thereby assured of his own salvation as well.

A man ought to be very solicitous as to his salvation, for if the whole world were full of men even up to the clouds, if that were possible, and among all these none was to be saved but only one, yet each should follow up his grace so that he might be that one, for to lose heaven is not to lose a shoestring. But woe to us! There is one who giveth and there is none who receiveth.

—Brother Giles of Assisi

Manna

They asked him, ‘What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘always give us this bread.’

Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.’

John 6:30-40

Whenever I turn to the Holy Bible, I am always refreshed. No matter what I am thinking about, or what I am doing, whether I am happy or sad, full of motivation or simply bored, whether I am feeling well or sick, whenever I turn to the Word of God, I am always refreshed: Thought yields to wonder, sadness dissolves and joy crowns mere happiness, boredom evaporates and motivation is purified, sickness and health are shown to be left and right hands of Divine providence. God is good. He speaks our language. Without leaving heaven, His presence fills the earth, renewing all who receive Him.

The written Word of God, the Holy and Divine Scriptures, partake of the Divine Nature of the Only-Begotten Son and Word of God, He who is also called the Holy One of Israel, who lives amidst our praises, who alone is the Savior of the human race. The Bible is manna. It falls freshly upon us every day and must be gathered freshly each morning. When it is only gathered occasionally and saved ‘for future use’ it only ‘breeds worms and stinks.’ Yes, the Bible gathered once and hoarded (or hidden) breeds worms and stinks, literally, becoming death for them who disobey the command.

What command?

When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’ The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed. Then Moses said to them, ‘No one is to keep any of it until morning.’ However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

Exodus 16:15-20

It was to fulfill the will of God that Jesus Christ came and pitched His tent among us, revealing the secret hidden from the world, that the manna that rained down on the people of Israel in the wilderness was still only a type and a prophecy of the Manna that was to come. Christ is Himself that Manna, that Bread of Heaven, as He taught the incredulous Jews. Though many doubted, yet some believed. Now that we know that the Christ, the Messiah of Israel, is not only the Son but also the Word of God, uniting in Himself the Divine and the human natures, it is easy for us to believe His words, ‘I am the bread of life.’ It wasn't so easy for His first hearers. And yet, knowing this, do we really believe?

Pick up and read. Go, gather the manna early and eat it before it spoils. He has rained Himself down on us from the beginning and continues to rain down on us, drenching our dry, crusty furrows with His truth. His mercy has been revealed in the Holy and Divine Scriptures till the end of time.

Pick up and feed. He is the Bread that comes down from heaven. He is the Manna that conforms to the taste of each one—not that our desires change Him, but that He changes our desires, purifying us as He is pure, uniting our wills to the will of His Father in heaven.

As His Word unfolds He brings light, and the simple understand. Pick up and read. Remember His promise, ‘The amount you measure out is the amount you will be given…’

Yes, the Word of God is Manna,
now and always, unto the ages of ages.

Neither shall they say

But abstain from foolish debates, from tales of genealogies, from contentions and from the contests of The Scribes, for there is no profit in them and such things are worthless.

— Titus 3:9, Aramaic Bible in Plain English

One of the devil’s chief delights is trapping Christian believers into illogical loops of flawed reasoning through the misapplication of blind faith. So there are believers who imagine it their duty to defend God and His written word, the Holy Bible, from the assaults of modern scientific investigation. They call themselves ‘creationists’ and waste a great deal of time, money and energy debunking scientific ‘myths’ and promoting biblical myth as ‘fact.’ They follow exactly the satanic protocol for self-defeat. Instead of faith in Christ the Word of God which is instruction, they promote the very rebellion of the fallen angels which is destruction. For what is, is God’s making.

A Christian illuminated by the Spirit of God can ‘rightly divide the word of truth,’ which is what the Holy Bible is. He can know what is of first importance, and what is incidental, in the written scriptures. He knows that the Bible is not a ‘word for word transcription’ from the lips of God on high as the Qur’an claims to be, but the literature God chooses to reveal and diffuse the truth of faith, hope, and love to humanity. He knows that our knowledge of God and man grows according to the measure of our faith and our honesty. If he is a faithful and honest scientist, his investigation into nature will magnify, not diminish, the glory of God for him, and for others.

The Holy Bible tells us far more about man than it tells us about God. It is for this reason alone that it is avoided by everyone who wants to live as they wish. They fear being under the rule of the Other. They deny that Someone made them. They cannot endure a condition of dependence. They refuse to hear that what they think, say, and do is usually not what is best for them. They resent acknowledging their sins, and in fact, disbelieve in sin. They are willing to put up with their failures, as long as they can call them mistakes, and promise to fix their problems with any new self-help stratagem that comes their way. If they believe in God at all, it’s a formality.

To be Christian is to not tangle oneself up with human speculations and controversies about science and revelation, or to wage war on the world where it is least vulnerable—in others, but to heed what the Holy Bible tells about human nature, and bravely and in quietness apply to oneself the remedies therein provided. For God so loved the world, that He gave us not only the sacrificial death of His only-begotten Son for our salvation, but His sacrificial life as well. ‘He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life,’ says Jesus (John 8:12). Believe what the book of the Bible tells us about man, and God reveals Himself in the book of ourselves.

‘Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them,’ says Jesus (John 8:31). It is by sheer inexperience of God’s nature within, through rebellion and disobedience, that Christians fall under the power of the evil one, who else has no power, because Christ has defeated and bound him. Trusting not in God, they trust in their vain interpretations of the Holy Bible, which cannot be understood outside the walls of Holy Church, urged on to spiritual ruin by the same devils that cause them to despise their fellow men, instead of bringing the word of salvation.

Brethren, be bold in your faith, taking by storm the strongholds of the evil one as they appear, taking no captives but delivering all to the ban, that you may live in peace and safety in the promised land. To every man and woman is assigned their gracious portion, which shall be theirs now and to the ages of ages. And where are these strongholds found to be uprooted, if not in one’s own heart? And where is this gracious portion, if not also there? ‘Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke 17:21).

Now, and to the ages of ages

The ancient fathers gained notoriety by their following of Christ to the uttermost in thought, word and deed, and having slain the old man and put on the New, met bodily death with dispassion. The modern Church is notorious for being an institution for happy, successful, well-adjusted people. It seems to be for folks who must nit-pick their behavior with almost obsessive scrutiny just to come up something viable to bring to the mystery of confession. ‘Straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel,’ is how Christ describes this malady.

It’s small wonder, then, that when people with problems—the unhappy, the failures at everyday living, those that can barely put bread on the table or stay out of trouble with the law—when these show up at church—and show up they must, for they know they are sick—their initial lot is instant pariahship. If they keep coming back, that status can become permanent. That is, until something or someone drives them out. And where do they go then? Need drives them right into the arms of sectarians, Christ-believers with hand-picked agendas and blind spots who, like the men of Sodom, never find the door.

But whether we’re affluent or living hand-to-mouth, whether well-adjusted or plagued with a checkered history of bad choices and ill luck, the reason we go to church is not to see the saints, but to be one. Though we rationally expect other Christians to be dependably loving, welcoming, generous and non-judgmental, what we often find when we start going to church can be very different. At first their welcome seems genuine, but if we cling to our imaginations of ‘what should be,’ the ones we at first thought spiritual and holy start to lose their halos. It doesn’t occur to us that the problem might be our spectacles, and we prove the saying of Jesus true, but in an opposite sense, ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’ We look for trouble, and trouble we find, with fellow Christians, with clergy, with the Church, but certainly, never with ourselves.

If we read our bible, we might have been forewarned. Wheat was sown by day, but weeds by night. Both must be left as they are to mature until the day of the harvest and, unless we are angels, it isn’t our place to either dig them out now—we might dig out some wheat by mistake because we see only through a glass, darkly—or when the day finally arrives.

Holy Church may be the living ikon of the heavenly Kingdom—and in worship more than an ikon—red with the blood of martyrs dying daily to the world with Christ like a ripe pomegranate red with seeds, but until we crack it open, we cannot taste its unquenchable sweetness. How do we crack it open? By letting ourselves be broken, by trusting ourselves to Him who alone loves us and can be trusted, by saying to the Physician, ‘Yes, heal me, for I have sinned against You,’ and by letting the same hands that have broken bread with us bandage our wounds.

As scripture says, speaking of the Church and what to expect, ‘What you have come to is nothing known to the senses.’ Let us go forward, then, looking neither to left nor right, but keeping our eyes on Jesus, follow Him through the Gate Beautiful of the heavenly Jerusalem where we can live with the Holy Triad now, and to the ages of ages.

Messengers of redemption

Evangelical Orthodox—that is what the original ‘big bunch’ of ‘converts’ from Evangelical Protestantism used to call themselves, and were called by others, and I wonder how each of them meant it.

Well, I consider myself, when I think of being something more definite than ‘just’ a follower of Jesus, an evangelical Orthodox. Yes, I was chrismated into Holy Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism via Anglicanism, and even considered myself ‘orthodox’ from the beginning of my adult Christian life, but I have never thought of my joining the Orthodox Church as a conversion, just as the logical and inevitable conclusion to a pilgrimage ‘home.’ Now that I am here, I have concluded that this place is also ‘home’ to every other mere follower of Jesus, and I act accordingly. This is what I understand it to mean when I say that I am an evangelical Orthodox Christian, not that I am in any way a ‘Protestant’ but that the motivation for my activity in the Body of Christ is ‘evangelismós’—to publish the good news—and to whom? Who else but to whomever I am sent to, or whoever is sent to me, Christian or not.

Christian or not? Well, yes, because everyone has need of the good news of Jesus Christ, not to be stuffed into their ears or shoved down their throats forcibly. Yes, faith comes by hearing, and yes, you are what you eat (although Christ would have a problem with the second saying), but the good news is not merely a verbal proclamation, but an organic demonstration. Anyone can proclaim the gospel or any version of it they like, but few can demonstrate it, and when they do, myself especially, it is only by cooperating with the grace of God which He bestows on everyone, though not all are willing to receive it—some because they don’t know what it is though they feel it, and so fear it enough to not want it, and then ‘those others’ whom the disciples complained to Jesus about, ‘They’re not one of us,’ who take the gospel into their own hands and whose self-motivation leaves no room for that generous grace.

If there’s one thing true about me, it’s this. From the beginning of my awareness of Jesus Christ’s call on my life, I have wanted nothing else but to find those who gather with Jesus (for those who do not gather with Him, scatter), and like the bride in the Song of Solomon I have tried to heed the advice she was given, ‘stay close to the shepherds’ tents.’ Now that that’s established, regarding love of God and love of neighbor, I have only two principles. Everyone who believes in Jesus belongs in the Orthodox Church, whether they know about it or not, and even if they have heard of it, judged and resisted it. Everyone who is human and made in the Divine image is potentially Christ coming to me in disguise, and whether they call on His name or not, believe in Him or not, know of Him or not, even if they judge and resist Him, making themselves His enemies, they must be treated with love, mercy and respect.

Messengers of redemption are what we are who have been called by Christ and responded by joining ourselves to Him bodily and spiritually in the Holy Church, and our task is very simple. To announce the Message, not primarily by words, but by our deeds, not by our perfect church attendance, but by our perfect following of the word of Jesus, who enjoins us to ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,’ in loving all people impartially and providentially as the Father does. I often ask myself, ‘Is this really too much? Who can hope to do this?’ And the answer comes, sometimes within moments. A friend, a neighbor, a complete stranger, maybe even an enemy, appears in front of us, in our way. Do we push him or her aside and walk around them, or cross the street to avoid them? Sometimes, I’m afraid, yes we do—I mean, yes, I do. But I find that Jesus Christ can walk anywhere, and if I follow Him, so must I.

These are rambling thoughts of a disciple who has found the cost of discipleship worth paying, because the Master asks nothing of us that He doesn’t do Himself, and every challenge we meet, at home, in our families, at work, at school, even in the Church, cannot and must not be avoided, they must be faced and, more than faced, they must be met with Jesus. It is only because we feel we are alone that we fear anything and anyone. We say we believe, but make our feelings the gauge of our belief. If the gauge reads cold, we feel justified in doing nothing. If hot, we feel exuberant and enthusiastic, but our own energies are next to nothing and quickly fail us.

Lord, grant us to want You, to want Your grace, to walk in it, to proclaim Your gospel first to ourselves and then, believing it, send us to do ‘those greater things’ that You have matter-of-factly given to us to do, living and working through us, with us, and in us.

The mystery of apostasy

The mystery of apostasy. This one just won’t let me sleep. I wake up in the dead of night, no, in the pre-dawn darkness, visual shreds of an interrupted dream settling on my waking mind. Remnants of a memory of having seen and spoken to him, a brother who had turned unexpectedly from sheep to wolf, following me as a shadow as I step into a line of brethren queued up to venerate the holy cross, I, stripped to the waist and feeling my half-nakedness with an undisguised satisfaction. The place of veneration, a cold stone sanctuary in a darkness illuminated by unseen, flickering torches, I follow meekly behind anonymous others, contemplating the wounds I am about to venerate. His hands, His feet, and yes, also, His thorn-pierced brow. Do I dare approach Him that closely and lay my lips on His head, who is the Head of my life? I feel afraid for a moment, as I realize, this is no mere ikon of the Sacrifice, but the Divine Presence Himself hanging on the beam and stake. I suddenly awake.

I call it the mystery of apostasy, not mystery in the sense of the holy mysteries, but in the sense of something I find it difficult to understand, or maybe there is no difference. The holy mystery in which the Unseen God becomes visible in our co-activity with Him, conveying Himself to us, and us to Himself, bringing heaven to earth and earth to heaven, who can understand this? And who can understand how a sheep turns into a wolf, or a wolf into a sheep, yet the procession in two directions goes on in us and all around us without our knowledge and outside our power. It is really the mystery of free will, which puts the foolishness of God on perfect display before the universe He created, to the joy and rapture of angels and saints, and to the contempt and mockery of the devils and satan.

There is a man I know, a Christian brother, who has somehow shadowed me without either of us knowing, as I have followed the Lord who saved me, though imperfectly. I remember him years ago passing through the same places, the same stages on the journey to the abode of Truth, that is, Holy Church. I remember him in the way station of St Mark, a ‘high church’ Anglican parish where I erected an altar of devotion and thanks for the gift of sons, and where I baptised them of my own body, and one or two godsons of my generation. To the Greeks I went and became a Greek, while he, as I later found out, entered the Kingdom through the Antiochian door. I met him again when I visited the parish that is now my home. There he was, physically older, robust, standing tall with a fierce quietude in the Divine Liturgy, leaning on his highland staff, clad in a kilt and sturdy, rustic footwear, among docile, beautiful Syrians with their gentle eyes, bright as gazelles.

I spoke to him a few times in fellowship after services. I was curious, and bold enough, to ask him about his costume. He astonished me by his single-minded devotion to the Celtic ethos. He assured me that he never wore anything but kilts, at home, at work, in church, and that he owned seven of them, of various quality. I wondered at the patience of his lovely, meek wife, who usually stood and sang with the choir, while he manned his post on the left of the center aisle at the pew’s end, strong and silent, looking like a combatant from Braveheart at rest before the next battle. Yes, that’s what he looked like, a warrior waiting for the moment to spring an ambush, and I was strangely afraid of him. Seeing him always made me think of St Patrick, not of the saint, but of the guards sent by the heathen king to prevent him from approaching to convert him and his people. But this was a Christian brother, and I silenced my fear and refrained from judgment. Orthodoxy is the Church, and the Church is a pan-human reality. It accepts all.

Lately I noticed that he was absent from services, and that I hadn’t seen him or his wife for almost as long as I had been worshipping at the church of St George, which is about two years. I did not ask anyone about them. I just assumed they had moved, and were going to another church. This happens. There have been some spiritual upheavals and distress in some of the Orthodox churches in our town the last few years, resulting in some migration. I too found myself as a religious refugee from a parish that has been, until quite recently, under ‘alien occupation.’ I know others who also have left the parish I now belong to, because they somehow felt excluded. This too is a mystery, because welcome has met me there. Without being able to express it in words, I know that God will use this feeling of being ‘squeezed out’ of one place, to get us moving along the path He wants us to travel. He doesn’t like us to ‘spin our wheels’ and if He must shake the earth to get us moving again, He will. But He never pushes us, or pulls us, out of the path of His Son. He keeps us always on the road to Calvary. That is, if we let Him.

Yesterday I found this brother again in an unexpected way. I found him writing wild words where others could read them, for whatever reason I don’t know. Perhaps as an apologia. I was shocked and very sorry to read what I never thought anyone in Christ would express.

‘When the Priest says “Christ is in our midst...” in the Liturgy he's lying. Christ isn't in a “cultural/ traditional church,” He's in a Church of Faith and gathering of Saints. The Liturgy could be True! But only if the People totally believe it! The Orthodox Church has failed, the Orthodox Faith has not! Get rid of those Vandalizing Icons, speak only English, and accept all, then and only then will you be Orthodox! Am I speaking for God? the answer, Yes, I am! And I will not apologize for right! God Bless!’

I have read and heard such things before, but not from Orthodox brethren, only from sectarians. Looking at more of his writings, I could see that he is just hurt, hurt by a church that he feels excludes him because of his idiosyncrasies. His apostasy is no different from any other. All are caused by the unwillingness to follow Christ to the cross, and whether we express this unwillingness as he does or not, whether our apostasy is visible to others or not, whether or not we try to justify it, we cannot hide from Christ in the foliage of our excuses.

The mystery of apostasy. It’s not about who stays attached to Holy Church and goes to heaven, or about who falls away and goes to hell. It’s not even about ‘whoever confesses Me before men’ or ‘whoever denies Me,’ because Christ Himself does not speak as a judge in these sayings, but as a prophet. Unseen He ransoms souls from Hades by the bright lightning flash of His divinity, putting to shame all our vainglory and self-justification, putting to death our passions, revealing to the trapped their prison walls so He may ask them for permission to demolish them. We cannot judge our brethren, no, not even ourselves, we can only witness, and wait. Yes, prayer, the dance of our flesh on the threshing-floor of time, before the Holy Ark and the mercy-seat over which hovers the Spirit who is King of kings of kings, Holy God, Mighty, and Deathless, yes, prayer, turning around to face Him forever whom we denied moment by moment because of our weakness, prayer, the asking which He must answer, dissolves all mysteries that flow not towards His holy throne, the life-giving Cross, and breaks all bonds, setting the captives free.

O Lord, save Your people, and bless Your inheritance!

Only beginnings

Before our Lord began His public ministry, the world was prepared for Him by someone who Christ Himself called ‘greater than any man who ever lived!’ Saint John, the great Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist, was this man.
        John is best remembered for baptizing Christ in the Jordan River. He had a great following, which took to heart the message of repentance that he preached throughout the vast wilderness region surrounding this famous river. Many thought that he was the long-awaited Messiah, but John was always quick to point out that ‘There comes one after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.’
        John's life was brought to an abrupt ending, largely because of his criticism of Herod's taking of his brother's wife. He refused to be silenced, raising his voice in protest of this immoral act, even though it meant his arrest and imprisonment.
        Herod was reluctant to punish the Baptist any further, for he was intrigued by John's preaching. He was forced to take action against him, however, after promising the daughter of Herodias [his brother's wife whom he had married] any request she wanted to be granted when she entertained the King with her dancing at his birthday feast. After conferring with her vengeful mother, the daughter approached Herod with this chilling request: ‘I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.’
        The Church solemnly remembers the day of John's beheading with prayer and fasting [August 29]. We are asked to follow his example, and we are urged to fearlessly defend God's laws. We must never waver in protection of the sacred truths upon which our entire Christian faith is based.

The words quoted above seem harmless enough, pretty standard fare for the backs of church bulletins, giving us some examples and then urging us to imitate them, something to read while getting settled into the pew to enjoy the service, I mean, to participate in the service. What caught my eye and ear was the words in the very last paragraph, ‘we are urged to fearlessly defend God's laws. We must never waver in protection of the sacred truths upon which our entire Christian faith is based.’ And quick as lightning, the Christian equivalent of Islamic jihad came to mind—the Crusades, and every other ‘Christian’ application of this admonition to ‘fearlessly defend’ and ‘never waver in protection’ of the truth of our faith and our God. Terrorism in the name of God, even if you are not literally killing those you think are offending God's laws, but only emotionally maiming them, is still, when compared to the words of Jesus Christ, the service of satan, who is called ‘the accuser’ in the book of Revelation (12:10).

My mind quickly reinterpreted what I had just read, as I have tried to apply it in my own life. For me, to ‘fearlessly defend God's laws’ is to live my life in a way that proves the righteousness of God, so that if someone had no access to the bible, whether through mere ignorance of its contents or by prejudice against it, they could ‘read’ the laws of God in observing my behavior. Stop! I am not saying I do this faultlessly or consistently, but this is my intention, and in spite of my human weakness and ability to sin, by God's grace I sometimes succeed. The same is true of the principle to ‘never waver in protection of the sacred truths,’ again, I believe with the surest certainty, that this means that it is our responsibility as Christians to be a good witness. And a witness to what? Why, nothing else but what the holy gospel really is, not a religious perfectionism or a moral righteousness that we impose on others, but what holy apostle Paul says it is, ‘Remember the good news that I carry, Jesus Christ risen from the dead’ (2 Timothy 2:8 JB).

Thinking about what we have seen in the world since the resurgence of religious fundamentalism, it's hard for me not to recoil when I read or hear words such as these in the context of Christianity, especially within Orthodoxy, because I fear that for many, the only interpretation of ‘defend’ and ‘protect’ is the one which causes us to impose on others, not on ourselves, standards of belief or behavior that we cannot achieve in our own lives. Again, the holy apostle Paul addresses this in the second chapter of his letter to the Romans. It is very ironic that religious fundamentalism—is there any other kind, even when it expresses itself as political?—focuses not on the whole text of the scriptures being used, but only on those that fulfill its ambitions. If we are historians, and if we are honest, we will see these same anti-Christian forces at work throughout the history of the Church, committing not crimes of the Church, but crimes against it, and against Christ.

After two thousand years, except for fits and starts, it seems like the Church has made only the beginnings of following Christ in every generation. It seems that very few have understood what it means to declare that Jesus Christ is ‘the new Man.’ This is not a religious declaration. This is a declaration of war on our fallen human nature, coupled with a means of escape from what we have become, to a new nature that is accessible to us even now. Christ Himself says, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ This is not a carrot on a stick held ahead of us to keep us going forward. Christ almost never tells of that which is unattainable here on earth but only in heaven. He is the most practical of men, following His heavenly Father who likewise, having made the heavens and the earth, is most practical. What Christ tells us is for the here and now first, and later, what shall it become?

Jesus said, ‘I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, father, children or land for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, who will not be repaid a hundred times over, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and land—not without persecutions—now in this present time, and in the world to come, eternal life.
Many who are first will be last, and the last first.’
Mark 10:29-31

The beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ,
the Son of God…
Mark 1:1

Not only on paper

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.
Ephesians 3:17

A person does not have Christ 
who has Him only on his tongue.

Neither does a person have Christ 
who has Him only on paper.
Neither does a person have Christ 
who has Him only on the wall.

Neither does a person have Christ 
who has Him only in a museum of the past.

A person truly has Christ who has Him in his heart.

For Christ is Love and the throne of Love is the heart.

If Christ is in your heart, then, for you, He is God.

If He is only on your tongue, or on paper, or on a wall, or in a museum of the past—and even if you call him God—for you, He is but a toy. 
Beware then, O man, for no one can play around with God without punishment.

The heart is a seemingly narrow organ, but God can dwell in it. When God dwells in it, then it is filled, and filled to overflowing, and nothing else can stand in it. If, however, the whole world were to settle in it, it would remain empty without God.

Brethren, let Christ, the Resurrected and Living Lord, pour faith into your hearts, and your hearts will be filled, and filled to overflowing. He cannot enter and dwell in your hearts except through your faith. If you do not possess faith, Christ will remain only on your tongue, or on paper, or on the wall, or in a museum of the past. What benefit is there for you in that? 

What benefit is there for you in holding life on your tongue and death in your heart? For if you hold the world in your heart and Christ on your tongue, you hold death in your heart and life on your tongue. Water on the tongue of the thirsty does not help. Let the living Christ into your heart, and your will be permeated with the truth and you will sense unspeakable sweetness.

O Resurrected Lord, cleanse our heart from the deadly guests who dwell in it and do Thou Thyself take up dwelling in it, that we may live and glorify Thee. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

A childlike religion

It's not often that I get to tell people about Orthodoxy, because we don't promote it: we usually wait to be asked. If someone wants to know about it so bad that they have to ask, then it's worth telling them, I think. For me, this happens mainly during the Greek Festival on the first weekend of October at Aghía Triás, my church. I have been standing watch in the church for the last quarter century—I think I've missed only a single year—not bragging, I just like to do it. I am a doorkeeper of the Lord's temple, that's my job, 24/7. At festival time, it takes on a literal meaning.

 

This is the Orthodoxy that I adhere to. Everything about it is paradox and irony. People ask, ‘How can you stand for so long in those services? They're hours long!’ and ‘How do you put up with all that repetition?’ and ‘Why do people seem to be crossing themselves all over the place, and not just once, but three times?’ The list of questions goes on, interminably. While I'm on duty, the Lord gives me infinite patience in dealing with them all—and their questions, what's more ironic, are just as long and repetitive and spontaneously ceremonial to me as our Orthodoxy seems to them. It's a perfect match!

The mystery of Orthodoxy is not what most people think. It's not arcane and secret doctrines or impossibly complex ‘byzantine’ theological dogmas. It's not the apparent rigidity of ceremonial which, for unsympathetic (or too grown-up) outsiders, seems empty and meaningless. It's not even (what appears to some as) the pomp and fussyness of worship, which combined with the Oriental chanting and the fragrant frankincense smoke filling the sanctuary, creates an almost psychedelic experience (a living, moving three-dimensional hieroglyphic, it's been called).

No, the mystery of Orthodoxy is that, underneath what the eye can see, lies a childlike religion, startling in its simplicity, a following of Jesus in the world, almost incognito. What the five senses perceive in the encounter with Orthodox Christianity in its traditions, is the luxuriant, redundant joy of the childlike heart exulting ceaselessly and seamlessly in the Presence of God. What some experience as ‘too much’ from an adult point of view, others receive gladly and can't seem to get enough of.

That's one reason, I think, why Orthodoxy isn't for everyone. It takes a child's heart, simple enough to trust that the Father is so totally caring and careful, that it doesn't just believe, it knows that nothing happens without Him knowing, and therefore, all will be well. That's also one reason why we immerse our young in every aspect of the faith, even giving communion to unknowing infants. It is this foundation that every Orthodox can fall back on, rebuilding, if need be, after suffering the damage that the world is sure to inflict.

A childlike religion, lighting candles and standing them up in sandboxes in the church, bringing flowers, even the most humble, and leaving them in front of the icons as a love gift, taking part in dozens of small ceremonies—not very different in some ways from Judaism, another childlike religion—and always asking questions, and full of wonder at the Presence of God. None of us ever really leaves our childhood behind, but not all of us will admit it. But it is to such as these that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs.

‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me…’ is a much wider invitation than most people realize, and that too is the invitation of true Orthodoxy, wherever it exists.

Today the Uncreated

Ποίημα Σωφρονίου Πατριάρχου Ιεροσολύμων
(Poem of Sophronios, patriarch of Jerusalem)

Τριας υπερούσιε, υπεραγαθε, υπέρθεε, παντοδύναμε, παντεπίσκοπε, αόρατε, ακατάληπτε…
Triad beyond all being, beyond all goodness, beyond all godhead,
all-powerful, all-vigilant, invisible, incomprehensible;
Creator of the spiritual beings and rational natures,
innate goodness, unapproachable Light
that enlightens everyone coming into the world,
shine also in me your unworthy servant.

Enlighten the eyes of my mind that I may dare to sing
the praise of your measureless benevolence and power.
May my supplication for the people here present be acceptable,
so that my offences may not prevent the Holy Spirit
from being present here; but permit me now
without condemnation to cry out to you and say,

Master, lover of mankind, beyond all goodness,
Almighty, eternal King:
We glorify you, the Creator and Fashioner of the universe.
We glorify you, only-begotten Son of God,
without father from your Mother, without mother from your Father.
For in the preceding feast we saw you as a babe,
but in the present one we see you full and perfect man,
our God, made manifest as perfect God from perfect God.

For today
the moment of the feast is here for us
and the choir of saints assembles here with us,
and Angels keep festival with mortals.
Today the grace of the Holy Spirit
in the form of a dove dwelt upon the waters.
Today the Sun that never sets has dawned
and the world is made radiant with the light of the Lord.
Today the Moon with its radiant beams
sheds light on the world.
Today the stars formed of light make the inhabited world lovely
with the brightness of their splendour.
Today the clouds rain down from heaven
the shower of justice for mankind.

Today the Uncreated by his own will
accepts the laying on of hands by his own creature.

Today the Prophet and Forerunner draws near,
but stands by with fear seeing God’s condescension towards us.
Today the streams of Jordan are changed into healing
by the presence of the Lord.
Today all creation is watered by mystical streams.
Today the failings of mankind are being washed away
by the waters of Jordan.
Today Paradise is opened for mortals
and the Sun of justice shines down on us.
Today the bitter water as once for Moses’ people
is changed to sweetness by the presence of the Lord.
Today we have been delivered from the ancient grief,
and saved as the new Israel.
Today we have been redeemed from darkness
and are filled with radiance
by the light of the knowledge of God.
Today the gloomy fog of the world is cleansed
by the manifestation of our God.
Today all creation shines with light from on high.
Today error has been destroyed
and the coming of the Master makes for us
a way of salvation.
Today things on high keep festival with those below,
and those below commune with those on high.
Today the sacred and triumphant
festal assembly of the Orthodox exults.
Today the Master hastens towards baptism,
that he may lead humanity to the heights.
Today the One who does not bow
bows down to his own servant,
that he may free us from servitude.
Today we have purchased the Kingdom of heaven,
for the Kingdom of the Lord will have no end.
Today earth and sea share the joy of the world,
and the world has been filled with gladness.

The waters saw you, O God,
the waters saw you and were afraid.
The Jordan turned back
when it saw the fire of the godhead
descending in bodily form and entering it.
The Jordan turned back
as it contemplated the Holy Spirit
in the form of a dove,
descending and flying about you.
The Jordan turned back
as it saw the Invisible made visible,
the Creator made flesh,
the Master in the form of a servant.
The Jordan turned back
and the mountains leapt
as they saw God in the flesh,
and the clouds uttered their voice,
marvelling at what had come to pass,
seeing Light from Light,
true God from true God,
the Master’s festival today in Jordan;
seeing him drowning the death from disobedience,
the goad of error and the bond of Hell in Jordan
and granting the Baptism of salvation to the world.

Therefore I too, a sinner and your unworthy servant,
recount the greatness of your wonders
and, seized with fear, in compunction cry out to you:

Great are you, O Lord, and wonderful your works,
and no word is adequate to sing the praise of your wonders.
Glory to you, O Lord, glory to you!

The work of epiphany

What is the work of epiphany, and who does this work, and when?

Holy Epiphany is the name we give to that moment in salvation history when ‘the Lamb of God’ is identified, is pointed out, ‘who takes away the sin of the world’:

Τη επαύριον βλέπει ο Ιωάννης τον Ιησουν ερχόμενον προς αυτόν, και λέγει • Ιδε ο αμνος του Θεου ο αιρων την αμαρτίαν του κόσμου.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ John 1:29

The world, ho kósmos, ‘the ordered [of God]’. The sin, hi hamartía, ‘the not a part of’. Takes away, airo, ‘to lift off’.

We associate the work of epiphany with John the Baptist. The scripture is quite blunt. John was sent, given a concrete command, told to baptise. That was his part of the work. It didn’t matter that he himself wasn’t given all the details ahead of time. ‘I myself did not know Him’ (John 1:30). But he did know, he did have to trust, the One who gave him the commandment, keep doing what he was told. The work of epiphany could only be done with his cooperation, with his faith, with his obedience.

When the work of epiphany was actually accomplished, nothing could have been less conspicuous. ‘At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him’ (Matthew 3:16). Not many others were standing by to see this, or to hear the words, ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’ (Mark 1:11). John was doing his work, and the work of epiphany happened, yet John seeing the work completed did not stop working.

Whatever it is we do, whatever work has been assigned us, it is the work of epiphany, yet it is not we who do the work, nor is it ourselves that we point to. We have our instructions, and we know what to respond to askers and trippers, ‘A man can receive only what is given him from heaven’ (John 3:27). It is always ours to begin the work, to trust the Word, to be obedient, even when we don’t have all the answers, even when we don’t know what it will look like—it is His to finish the work—when He appears.

The work of epiphany is for us what it was for John the Baptist. Each of us does what he is commanded by God, trustingly, obediently, so ‘that He might be revealed to Israel,’ (John 1:31) to our own people, to those around us. Our work is lighter than John’s because we have seen the end as well as the beginning in Christ, and following Him we can truly say, ‘we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen’ (John 3:11). We know what the work of epiphany is, we know Who does the work, but we don’t always know when, because in weakness we try too hard to watch it happening.

We know the heavens will open, and so we watch for it, forgetting not ourselves in the process, but ironically forgetting Him. Straining so hard to see what cannot be seen, to hear what cannot be heard, we too can miss Him standing before us, speaking in our faces, ‘among you stands One whom you do not know’ (John 1:26). The timing of the epiphany, when it will happen, is now. It is every moment that grace has given to us, because ‘it is the day of Resurrection’ which is ‘the Day without end.’ That which was hidden from the world has, in a paradox, become what will in the end be seen by all.

Meanwhile, we have our work to do, and He has His, the work of epiphany, yes, each of us doing the work given to us by heaven, because soon, very soon now, we will see it open one more time, ‘And I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and one sitting on it, called Faithful and True, and he judges and makes war in righteousness’ (Revelation 19:11). Brethren, let us work, and trust Him in whom we have believed, and be obedient, that the work of epiphany be done in us, that we may soon hear, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’ (Matthew 25:23).

Hidden

The history of mankind is shaped and given direction, we tend to think, by great events, by pivotal persons strategically placed, visible to all, as implacable as fate, that drag us in their wake, as they plow ahead into a future that could not have been any other than the one we now live in.

The vast machine and scope of the Roman Empire seeded by a single individual, Julius Caesar, which itself seeded the whole of Western civilization. The intricate apparatus and miraculous achievements of the modern natural sciences seeded by great thinkers and scientists of the Renaissance, themselves the product of plantations seeded by ancient Greek philosophers.

Our current political map of the world seeded by revolutions and wars that we know by name, caused by great men we can also name, great though not always good. Luther, Cromwell, Robespierre, Washington, Napoleon, Bismarck, Lenin, Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill, Gandhi, and Mao. All very visible in their time, and forever after. We study them to try to understand today, which they godlike made.

But these are the externals of history only. They are not what and who really drive the race irresistibly forward, only the agents that keep us from going over the edge, or maybe bring us closer to it.

The real movers of mankind are mostly hidden, invisible to nearly all humanity when they appeared, though in time their epiphanies gradually came to light, and then slowly faded from sight as they became foundation and framework to everything else we know and see.

The world, believers and unbelievers alike, celebrates the birth of a child two thousands of years ago, born poor, homeless, and endangered, a refugee unknown to all except a mad monarch, a handful of shepherds, and perhaps three mystery men, born hidden.

A remnant of believers in who this child is today celebrate an event obscure when it occurred, his baptism in a remote river by a religious prodigy, who alone recognized when he performed it the epiphany of his God, signaled by a voice, to all but him, hidden.

A space of only three years provided this child, now a man, time to make his message known, despite the miracles that followed him, to only a few thousands of persons in a land that, though the crossroads of the world, was a backwater avoided by the wise, again hidden.

And finally, condemned to death as a common criminal by hanging on a scaffold along the roadside, exposed to the ridicule of the rabble that he came to rescue, his work the redemption by resurrection of the race of Adam, wholly unknown when it happened, was hidden.

Hidden from the world, who yet shapes and directs it, who writes its history on a hidden scroll stretched wider than the heavens and just as invisible to those who see only sky and reject it, he was, he is, and he is to come, who is Lord of all, and who is with us now, as we live even as he, hidden.

Preparers of the way

Everyone exists to prepare the way for someone. And everyone who lives has been waited for, even longed for, and the way for them has been prepared. There have been for everyone, for you, for me, preparers of the way.

First, there were our parents, who wanted us. That is too obvious, yet for many that is also not true. They may have been ‘an accident,’ an unwanted, but mercy intervened somehow, or fear, but for whatever reason, their lives were allowed to continue. They escaped being aborted. Yet, though their mother or father didn’t really want them, someone else did, and that person was waiting for them, preparing the way even before knowing why.

This is no speculation, nor even a solid guess, this is a certainty.
It is written all over the facts of life, on both sides,
and in the acts of God. Do we see it?

Everyone is preparing the way for someone, usually for many, and in general, and once we think about it, it’s obvious. But we also are preparers of the way for another individual, not all of us are, but some are. It is a type of call. We see this in holy and divine scripture. Every prophet, in fact, is qualified by this call to prepare the way for ‘One who is coming who is mightier than I.’

We know the name of the last of these special preparers of the way. It is the holy, honorable prophet and forerunner, John the Baptist, the one who said, ‘a man can lay claim only to what is given him from heaven.’ Ruthlessly honest.

We don’t have to be prophets to be preparers of the way,
but what if we are?

In most cases we are preparers of the way for others just as ordinary as ourselves. We think us and them so ordinary that we don’t give it much thought. Why make a big deal out of nothing?
But is it, are we, really nothing?
I don’t think so.

Again, back to the premise, whether you think it true or false, that we are wanted, which means that there is a preparer of the way for each one of us, and the more we listen up, the more we’ll hear,
and the more we hear, the more we will believe,
since faith comes by hearing.

One day, doing your ordinary job, whatever God called you to do, it could be working in a factory or behind your teacher’s desk at school, or sorting the vegetables if you happen to be a green grocer; you could be driving your cab or bus, working a booth at the farmer’s market, or cutting hair in a styling salon; you could be on an Alaskan fishing boat, or working the oil rigs, or any number of jobs that you think are just ordinary, even demeaning or boring; and suddenly, someone crosses your path, and something inside says, ‘that’s the one.’ Not talking romance, not talking fantasy, not talking at all.

Remember John? He baptised Jesus, and then let Him go. Only later, when he saw Jesus walking by, he pointed Him out to his disciples and said, ‘That’s the One. That’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’

We’ve grown so used to this story and seeing this pattern of preparers of the way in relation to religion that it never occurs to us that the same pattern is happening all the time, around us, and to us. Sometimes we are the preparers of the way, sometimes we are the one who is prepared for. This pattern is part of the drive train of the universe, and we know Who the Force behind it all really is.

We prepare the way for one another.
‘He must become greater,
I must become less.’

This is the way it works, this is how to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, to undergo a contraction within us, so that another real person can be born into the world.

To make room for the ones that are sent to you.
Yes, ‘every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain,’
this is the work of the preparers of the way.

The Great Illusion

‘…We do not appear to travel well. [My wife] comes up with migraine headaches with air pressure changes. I have my own phobias about the U.S. so I tend to make an emotional mess of any visits south of here. I am appalled at what the U.S. has become. The Nazis have nothing on what the U.S. is becoming and what it is yet to become. That is likely a longer story than I care to discuss right now…’

A friend from my college days with whom I have come back into contact after a period of literally forty years wrote me the above in response to my question about whether he and his wife have traveled much. They, along with a handful of other friends and myself, migrated to Canada in the early 1970’s with the intention of setting up an intentional community, a commune. They also migrated to avoid the Vietnam War draft. My number in the draft lottery was too high, and I was never called. We were all student radicals, at least we thought we were, and also spiritual seekers. As it turned out, my career as a student radical was a shallow copying of others, what we have since learned to call being ‘a poser.’ All of us, after an initial tangle with ‘New Age’ religions, turned to Christ and became Christians. Me, at first an Episcopalian and then, after twelve years, a Greek Orthodox. My friends, various denominations ranging from Pentecostal to Roman Catholic, and anything in between.

The onset of old age brings with it a clarity of vision unknown to the years of youth or even middle age to some, and to others, the confirmation of ‘truths they always knew.’ It has been my observation, now that I am here at the threshold of my ‘golden years,’ that people really don’t change. It seems that we remain in some sense till our life’s end what we always were, and the end of our lives proves our beginning. This is expressed in a different way in the Bible, something like ‘by how a man ends we can know what he was,’ though I cannot at the moment cite a particular verse or book. This flies in the face of the current wisdom of Christianity which states that when one accepts Christ, one becomes a new creature. One changes. By this is usually meant, all of one’s former life is cast aside and gradually replaced with the ‘Christ life’ because now Christ lives in him. All this has the support of scripture, and of course, it is true, though not for all of us, maybe not even for most. The object of Christianity for many people thus becomes, whether consciously or unconsciously, the acquisition of virtues and—I hate to say it—material increase. Once these ends are sufficiently achieved, one either ‘rests on his laurels’ or leaves Christianity altogether. This is what I call ‘the Great Illusion.’

Where I stand now in my relationship to Jesus Christ is the same place I stood when He found and chose me as a disciple, at the age of twenty-four. This year it will have been forty years. It seems to me that I have the same joy, and wonder, and enthusiasm for the Lord that I was given at the moment of my ‘epiphany’ experience. That may or may not be true. Like everyone else who has ever been born, I am a great actor, and I also like to believe my own tales. My life will be revealed more and more for what and who I am or was as I move closer to my own bodily death. This does not bother me, because I see that it is how ‘Judgment Day’ comes upon us, and if that’s how God wants it, I am content. In fact, I want what I am to be revealed, because I am confident that He who made me, called me, and sent me, will in the end redeem me. ‘I was saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved.’ This is what I mean when I say ‘in God I trust.’

For me, Christianity is not a program of self-help or moral improvement. It isn’t a regimen of discipline that will make me worthy to ‘acquire the Holy Spirit.’ It doesn’t depend on church membership, on my personal confession of faith, or on the good deeds I do. It’s not God’s stamp of approval on all my petty prejudices, phobias, and preferences. It doesn’t give me the right or authority to command, direct, or worst of all, judge those whom I may consider inferior to me (though they may only be different).

Christianity is to sit at the feet of Jesus, to listen to, no, to hang on His every word. It is to leave my water jar at the well of negativity and go to Him who is the well of positivity, that is, of indefatigable goodness, of life, temporal and eternal, and having received that which only He can offer, to give away, to distribute, to all others, that same goodness He has given me.

Light and life, it all amounts to this. If I am a Christian, is that what others experience from me? Is my life a bushel that has hidden the lamp, or is it a city set on a hill that cannot be hid? We want to defend and excuse ourselves when we fail to be ‘the light of the world’ that Jesus tells us we are. Something always gets in the way, but ‘our heart is in the right place,’ and in a pinch, when pressed, we will ‘give our testimony’ and confess before men that ‘Jesus is Lord’ verbally, come what may. Yes, we are convinced that one sentence of religious jargon, especially if it comes straight out of ‘God’s Word,’ will make up for all the negativity, judgmentalism, prejudice, and uncritical self-justification that we pride ourselves in, calling it our ‘Christian walk.’

Small wonder, then, that the ‘unsaved’ world prays to the God it doesn’t believe in but instinctively and regretfully knows is there, ‘Lord, save us from your people.’ The Great Illusion instead of the Great Commission. How can it be that the world understands better what the Truth is than we do? We, the Christian people, like the Ninevites, not knowing our right hand from our left, numbering in our millions, not to mention all our cattle.

Want to be one

What is more important in the Body of Christ than unity? The world does not believe because it sees that the Church is not the abode of peace, unity and love, but only another society much like itself, full of jealousies, usurpations, war and discord. It knows that we have a good Lord and God but that He must not be worth very much, that we do not really believe in Him very strongly and truly, because our belief hasn’t changed us very much. It looks in at our door and sees a house no better than its own. It looks at our family and sees the same dysfunction that afflicts its own family. Why would the world want to enter into the Kingdom of God, if that Kingdom is only the same as its own under another name?

The human world, the human race, is stopped in its tracks, cannot take the next step in its evolution, because the only part of it that has the possibility of taking the first steps has chosen not to. The only new man in the history of the world has appeared. Though we fought against Him with all our might and were able to bodily kill Him, He was not defeated but instead defeated everything in us that keeps us down. What is worse for us is that the Man did not go away but is always present in our midst, and still we, the Church that claims to be His Body, the Body of Christ on earth, His Presence, that people who can of all peoples take the step into the new humanity, the new world, do not take it.

Unity, yes, unity. It does not have to mean what we try to bend it to mean. It is not an ideal that we can say we strive for but are unfortunately unable to achieve. No. Unity in God does not mean administrative unity. We all do not have to be united under one pope or system of Church government. That has been our big mistake, but it stems from another deeper one, the desire to overcome, not ourselves, but others, in the name of God. How senseless, how brutal is our handling of the Message that it no longer has any power in it to transform the world. We are indeed on our last legs, we have indeed reached our next to last day. We have failed to bring new birth to the world.

The Book is there and open to all who can read. The Christians read it and do not follow what it says but only argue about it and talk it to death. The world reads it and picks and chooses what it wants to take in its vain attempt to do without the Spirit what only the Spirit can do. The world and the Church are two disobedient sons, one saying it will do what the Father wills but does not, the other saying it will not do what He says—because there is no Father—and yet does, though without effect. Belief cannot be followed by disobedience. Obedience has no power to transform without faith. Though Christ prefers the obedient faithless to the disobedient believing, neither brings mankind to its destiny.

This talk of mine is no more than idle talk. I am both in the world and in the Church and I share the fate and fault of both. All I know is, I too want to be transformed. I too want to see the uncreated Light of Tabor and seeing it become it. There is no blame or shame that I do not share with all of you, my brothers, all of you, both believers and unbelievers. Nothing about us that divides us matters at all. Nothing. It is only what unites us that matters, and there is only one thing, one Man, that can unite us, and that is Christ. He does not unite us by brute force, by threats, intimidation, or by decree. He unites us by His prayer to the Father, by His life for the world, by His death on the Cross, by His resurrection.

This is what humanity is waiting for, what mankind really desires, what every man and woman, rich and poor, free and slave, really wants. Having this, having the unity that is in Christ, having it not just talking about it, is what dissolves the struggle between man and woman, tears down the wall between rich and poor, and makes of the human race a single family of priests and kings, where none rule but who serve, and where all make progress with not a single one left behind into the new world that Christ has established. He is the new Man, the only One, and what then does that make us? There is no middle ground, though we have made of human history a midden of disappointed hope by our refusal to follow Him.

Can we start today? Is there anything I can do as a single man, you as a single man or woman? If you are a pope, a bishop, a priest, a minister of the gospel, a missionary, a witness, a worker for Christ, whatever you call yourself, if you say you are following Christ, is there anything you can do? Is there anything you can do to make a difference? There is no program to follow, no principle to espouse, no compact to subscribe to. Have you been baptized and believed? Now just go and say and do what you hear Jesus saying and see Him doing in the holy gospels. Step into the shoes of the fishermen, but don’t do what you want, do what He wants. He is alive. He will tell you. I cannot do that. I can only listen for myself.

Humanity is waiting to take the next step in its evolution because those who know that the step has already been taken by Christ have refused to follow, but only squirm in their seats as they watch the Jesus movie and read the lives of the saints. The world will not believe until it sees God among us. Is He really there? Is He really here, with us? Do we believe that? If we do, then what are we doing sitting here like this? No, it isn’t just what we can do. In fact it is nothing at all that we can do that will transform humanity. Only He can do that, but we must first want it, we must first give Him our permission. We must let Him transform us.
All we need to do is want it.
Want to be one.

…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
John 17:21

Do you believe this?

Martha said to Jesus, ‘If you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I know that, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will grant you.’
John 11:21-22 Jerusalem Bible

Like Martha, we bring to the Lord’s attention some calamity that has occurred, reminding Him that it could’ve been avoided, if He had been here. Also like her, we are willing to give Him a second chance to make things right. We pull out our trump card, faith, which the Lord has given us, and we hope we can use it to press home our request, ‘From my lips, to God’s ear.’

‘Your brother,’ said Jesus to her, ‘will rise again.’ Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’
John 11:23-24 JB

Having made our request, like Martha we hear the word of Jesus, that everything will be made right, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ His word does not satisfy us. It has no setting in time or place. From our point of view, as from hers, it’s not enough. We have to let Him know that somehow. We take what He tells us, and protest, ‘Eventually it will be alright, but what about right now?’

Like the rich man in Hades, we want someone to rise from the dead ‘to give them a warning so that they do not come to this place of torment too’ (Luke 16:28), and we too meet with the word, ‘They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them’ (Luke 16:29).

We take His living word, ‘he will rise again,’ and turn it into a doctrinal statement, ‘I know he will rise again on the last day.’ That’s our response. The Lord speaks to us what we know to be an incredible word, ‘he will rise again’ and, as if to shame Him or console ourselves for having a powerless god, we respond, almost impersonally, ‘Yes, yes, we know all that! Like everyone else, he will rise on the last day, but, but we don’t want to wait till then!’ To us, the last day is infinitely remote. We want God’s judgment now, and in our favor.

Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’
John 11:25-26 JB

We asked for it, without really knowing what we were asking for, just as Martha did. The Lord never comes to us to discuss doctrine or to play faith games. He cannot be shamed, tricked or tempted into doing our will. No, He comes for one thing, and one thing only, to do the will of His Father who is in heaven. That’s how and why He came in His incarnation. That is how and why He comes to us now, abiding with us as He promised, ‘I am with you always; yes, to the end of time’ (Matthew 28:20).

He was, is, and always will be here for us with His all-powerful word. Do we receive that word? Do we receive Him as He speaks it to us? Do we hear Him ask us the question on which all things depend, ‘Do you believe this?’