All power and authority

All power and authority given to man on earth by God is given to him when he prays.

‘How can this be? I pray all the time and I don’t have any power, I have no authority. What are you talking about? But I do see power and authority given to people who have status, who have money, who are educated, who know how to pull the strings. As for the rest of us, right, we pray, but we pray because there’s nothing else we can do.’

With a sigh of resignation the words of barely hidden contempt are mouthed. Men for whom Christ died and who say they believe in Him, men on whom ‘all authority in heaven and on earth,’ given to Christ by His Father has been bestowed, men who can read the words for themselves, ‘anything you ask for in My name,’ are reduced to practicing magic they don’t even believe in.

‘Glory to You, O Lord, glory to You!’ I hear muttered constantly under his breath, and ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!’ cried out in lonely and forsaken places, moaned even, mingled with sobs of sorrow for his sins. Of little account, the world passes the saint and thinks him mad, yet his prayer is genuine and not for show or for sale.

The religious are even baffled. ‘We do more than he does, keep the fasts, drink tea without sugar, never touch flesh or oil or cheese during the prohibited times, never miss a service, and we greet each other nicely. Why does everybody go running to him? He scares us. He doesn’t follow the rules. He’s proud and wants his own way. Why does God answer his prayers and not ours?’

He can battle the devil, he can even drive him out, because he knows him personally. He has locked himself in battle with him in an invisible ring many times. His weapons? The words of holy and divine scripture, outbursts of mighty psalms, supplications to God Himself and his shameless asking for what he doesn’t deserve, his confession of his own sins, his laying all at the feet of Jesus.

The irreligious, bent as they are on what profits them, can come closer to the Truth than those who were suckled by it, who feel so sure that they know what works and what doesn’t, that they do neither. Seeking himself, the worldly man can stumble upon his own corpse and, asking, rise from the dead. The religious polish their coffins, but the saints lie down in theirs in peace, expecting life.

‘In peace I lie down, and fall asleep at once, since You alone, Yahweh, make me rest secure. (Psalm 4)

For me the reward of virtue is to see Your face, and, on waking, to gaze my fill on Your likeness.’ (Psalm 17)

He will truly come

People can do me no evil, as long as I have no wounds.

I saw two caves, one of which revealed an echo, while the other had none. And many curious children were visiting the former and were mischievously carrying out shouting matches with the cave. But from the other cave visitors were quickly returning, because it was not answering them with an echo.

If my soul is wounded, every worldly evil will resound within it. And people will laugh at me, and will throng more and more strongly with their shouting. But truly, evil-speaking people will not harm me, if my tongue has forgotten how to speak evil. Nor will external malice sadden me, if there is no malice in my heart to resound like a goatskin drum. Nor shall I be able to respond to ire with ire, if the lair of ire within me has been vacated and there is nothing to be aroused. Nor will human passions titillate me, if the passions within me have been reduced to ashes. Nor will the unfaithfulness of friends sadden me, if I have resolved to have You for my friend. Nor can the injustice of the world crush me, if injustice has been expelled from my thoughts. Nor will the deceitful spirits of worldly pleasure, honor and power entice me, if my soul is like an immaculate bride, who receives only the Holy Spirit and yearns for Him alone.

People cannot shove anyone into hell, unless that person shoves himself. Nor can people hoist anyone up on their shoulders to the throne of God, unless that person elevates himself.

If my soul has no open windows, no mud can be thrown into it. Let all nature rise up against me; it can do nothing to me except a single thing—to become the grave of my body more swiftly.

Every worldly crop is covered with fertilizer, so that it will sprout as soon as possible and grow better. If my soul, alas, were to abandon her virginity and receive the seed of this world into herself, then she would also have to accept the manure, which the world throws onto its field. But I call upon You day and night: come dwell in my soul and close all those places where my enemies can enter. Make the cavern of my soul empty and silent, so that no one from the world will want to enter it. O my soul, my only concern, be on guard and learn to distinguish between the voices striking your ears. And once you hear the voice of your Lord, abandon your silence and resound with all your strength. O my soul, cavern of eternity, never permit temporal thieves to enter you and kindle their fire within you. Keep quiet, when they shout to you. Stay still, when they bang on you. And patiently await your Master. For He will truly come.

— From Prayers by the Lake, by Nikolaj Velimirović,
Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

In us

You asked somebody, ‘Where is God?’ And you got an answer that God is inside you. And you marvel at this answer. How can that be?

Kind of like light in a room, or like fire in a stove. When you are able to feel God within you, you will feel and know that He is inside you, but you will not be able to explain it to someone else. But you will look for images in nature and then you will speak to the other person as I speak to you: God is within me like light in a room, or a like fire in a stove, or like air in the lungs, or like life in every creature, or like force and love and thought inside of man. Of course, these are just images and likenesses, and they cannot express what a man feels when God dwells within him in His fullness. God’s apostle, our spiritual father Paul, wishes for the faithful to be filled with all fullness in God [Ephesians 3: 19]. God works from within a man in two ways — by helping and by governing.

When helping, God works within a man of medium or weak faith, who only occasionally remembers God and only keeps His commandments partially. God does not abandon him because he also does not completely abandon God.

However, God acts through governing in a man of great faith, who has opened wide the doors of his soul to his Creator. And it is written, "He who opens the door I will enter to him" [Revelation 3: 20]. Such a man does not rely on himself at all but only on the Almighty. He feels the presence and the working of the Spirit of God within himself and has great love toward his Lord.

And Christ has promised to the one who loves God that God will come and dwell within him. "He who loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him. And we will come to him and will make our abode within him." You will not be able to understand this if you forget that God is a Spirit, who can enter everything and be everywhere, according to his power, and will. He is high above all matter, like the sun is high above the earth, but its light can enter every open thing. As the apostle says: "One God and the Father of all who is above all and through all, and in us all," [Ephesians 4: 6]. He writes this about the holy and the faithful.

But when someone rejects God, starts thinking ugly thoughts and speaking against God, God also leads him. It is the same as if somebody would close off the windows of a room and prevent the light from coming in and illuminating everything. For God’s prophet Samuel said to the self-willed King Saul, "You have rejected the word of the Lord and for this the Lord has rejected you… and the spirit of the Lord abandoned Saul."

But even when God abandons a soul of a stubborn man, He does not stop working on him from without, the way He works on water and stone and wood.

But if a man remains stubborn and resists God until the end and refuses to repent, then God allows an evil spirit to enter in. Like it is written about Saul when the Spirit of the Lord abandoned him, "and an evil spirit disturbed him from the Lord." Or as it is written, even worse, about Judas the betrayer, "Satan entered into him."

Such people, who rise against God, of course, can never feel God within themselves or say, "God is inside of us."

And those who love God, and desire Him, and see Him, and entreat Him to come, they feel God within themselves and they can say, "God is within us by His Holy Spirit."

Blessed are such bright souls, for they will always reign in the kingdom of Christ. As the Lord has promised to those who love Him saying, "I will take you to myself so that you may be where I am."

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

Reflecting on the prophets

Some people read the Bible as a historical document, taking note of context, criticizing the Word of God from a humanistic perspective. Perhaps this kind of study has value, but does it shed light on our lives and our times, bringing redemption, and producing fruits that feed us?

I believe what C. S. Lewis wrote in his children’s book, The Silver Chair, can be applied to the holy scriptures, the written Word of God. When the children in the story are mocked for believing in one of the signs that Aslan [the Lord] provided, and told that their interpretation of it was mistaken because they weren’t putting it in the context in which it was written, that they were unhappily victims of an historical accident, their faithful guardian rebukes the mocker with these words, “Don’t you mind him. There are no accidents. Our guide is Aslan, and he was there when the giant king caused the letters to be cut, and he knew already all things that would come of them, including this.” The mocker was a prince under an enchantment, being prepared to rule a land by force in subjection to an evil sorceress, a land that was his to rule by right, because he was himself its legal sovereign. This is so much like what we find in the “real” world. We can fall under satan’s spell and, denying God’s infallible signs, we can find ourselves paying dearly for that which is already ours by right. Jesus Christ has paid the price in advance for us, yet we would rather pay for it ourselves. Pursuing our thoughts, we abandon the Holy Spirit’s gift to us of the mind of Christ. We give up thinking His thoughts, so we can think our own. What’s so liberating about that?
The prophets of Israel still speak to our condition today, even today more than ever. Though originally spoken to God’s hereditary people Israel, we who are in Christ have been grafted into them. Their Tanakh is our Old Testament. Though prophecies specific to the nation Israel in past, present and future mustn’t be applied wrongly to just anyone, as many sectarians do, the other words of the prophets that reveal God’s will not only to Israel but to the human race, can be read and taken to heart for our correction. It’s this kind of reading that the learned and clerical establishment regard with contempt, as being childish and backward. But the holy apostle Paul is not one of them, for he quotes in his first letter to the church at Corinth, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate,” (Isaiah 29:14) and he goes on to lay down the relationship of the wisdom of men to God’s Wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:18-31).

The prophets of Israel still have much to say to us, much to instruct, much to warn. Here are just a few verses that I’d like to share from my much marked up study bible (the one pictured in my side panel, verses to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” (BCP, proper 28). Blessed Fast to all who are observing the Lent of the Holy Apostles which starts today, and God’s blessing.

Seek Yahweh while He is still to be found,
Call to Him while He is still near.
Let the wicked man abandon his way,
The evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn back to Yahweh who will take pity on him,
To our God who is rich in forgiving;
For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
My ways not your ways—it is Yahweh who speaks.
Yes, the heavens are as high above the earth
as My ways are above your ways,
My thoughts above your thoughts.
Yes, as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating, so the Word that goes forth from My mouth does not return to Me empty, without carrying out My will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.
Isaiah 55:6-11 Jerusalem Bible

Thus says Yahweh,
“Let the sage boast no more of his wisdom,
nor the valiant of his valor,
nor the rich man of his riches!
But if anyone wants to boast, let him boast of this:
Of understanding and knowing Me.
For I am Yahweh, I rule with kindness,
Justice and integrity on earth;
Yes, these are what please Me—
It is Yahweh who speaks.”
Jeremiah 9:22-23 JB

Come, let us return to Yahweh.
He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us;
He has struck us down, but He will bandage our wounds;
After a day or two He will bring us back to life,
On the third day He will raise us
And we shall live in His presence.
Let us set ourselves to know Yahweh;
That He will come is as certain as the dawn;
His judgment will rise like the light,
He will come to us as showers come,
Like spring rains watering the earth.
Hosea 6:1-3 JB

What god can compare with You:
Taking fault away, pardoning crime,
Not cherishing anger for ever
But delighting in showing mercy?
Once more have pity on us,
Tread down our faults,
To the bottom of the sea throw all our sins.
Micah 7:18-19 JB

There is much, much more in the prophets than these encouragements. There are words of judgment also, but I haven’t quoted these, lest I seem to casting stones at others. Yet it is the prophets’ words of God’s judgment that should fall on our ears and convert our hearts, preparing us for the Day of the Lord.
Keep yourselves in the Word, brothers, watch and pray.
For the time is close (Revelation 1:3).

The light of Israel will become a fire
And its Holy One a flame
Burning and devouring thorns
And briars in a single day.
Isaiah 10:17 JB

Eliyahu ha-Navi

The ikon of holy prophet Elijah, Elías, or Eliyahu, that illustrated the post Hebrew Orthodox Christianity can be downloaded as a PDF file with Hebrew inscriptions in various script styles.

The inscription reads in Hebrew, Eliyahu ha-Tishbi ha-Navi, ‘Elijah the Tishbite, the Prophet’.

Then, the text of 1 Kings 17:4 is written in smaller script under the prophet's name and title, ‘You can drink from the stream, and I have ordered the ravens to bring you food there.’

There are six versions of this ikon with Hebrew inscriptions. Download and print a full-sized ikon by clicking the link beside the detail image. These ikons were adapted from the standard Greek ikon by removing the Greek text and replacing it with the Hebrew.

Torah Sofer script
16th Century AD






Isaiah Scroll script
2nd Century BC






Moabite Stone script (brown)
9th Century BC





Moabite Stone script (black)
9th Century BC





Yavneh Yam script
7th Century BC






Standard Hebrew script

Inclusive

Judaism was destined for the people of Israel only. The Christian Church was destined for the people of Israel too, but not for them only. She included Greeks as well.

The Greek polytheism of Olympus was destined for the Hellenic race only. The Christian Church was destined for the Hellenic race too, but not for it only. She included Indians as well.

Buddha’s wisdom was offered to the monks and vegetarians. Monks and vegetarians the Christian Church included in her lap, but also married and social people too.

Pythagoras founded a religious society of intellectual aristocrats. The Christian Church from the beginning included intellectual aristocrats side by side with the ignorant and unlettered.

The Persian prophet, Zoroaster, recruited soldiers of the god of light among the best men to fight against the god of darkness. His religious institution was like a military barracks. The Christian Church included both the best and the worst, the righteous and the sinners, the healthy and the sick. It was a barracks and a hospital at the same time. It was an institution both for spiritual fighting and spiritual healing.

The Chinese sage, Confucius, preached a wonderful ethical pragmatism, and the profound thinker, Lao Tse, preached an all-embracing spiritualism. Christian wisdom included both of them, opening Heaven for the first and showing the dramatic importance of the physical world for the second.

Islam—yes, Islam—had in some sense a Christian ambition: to win the whole world. The difference was: Islam wished world-conquest; the Church, the world’s salvation. Islam intended to subdue all men and bring them before God as His servants: The Church intended to educate all men, to purify and elevate them, and to bring them before God as His children.

And all others: star-worshippers, and fire, and wood, and water, and stone, and animal-worshippers had a touching sense of the immediate divine presence in nature. The Church came not to extinguish this sense but to explain and to subordinate it; to put God in the place of demons and hope instead of fear.

The Church came not to destroy, but to purify, to aid and to assimilate. The destination of the Church was neither national nor racial, but cosmic. No exclusive power was ever destined to be a world-power.

The ultimate failure of Islam to become a world-power lies in its exclusiveness. It was with religion as with politics. Every exclusive policy is foredoomed to failure: the German as well as the Turkish and the Napoleonic.

The policy of the Church was designed by her Divine Founder: “He that is not against us is for us.” Well, there is no human race on earth wholly against Christ and wholly unprepared to receive Him. The wisdom of the Christian missionaries therefore is to see first in what ways Providence has prepared a soil for Christian seed; to see which of the Christian elements a race, or a religion, already possesses, and how to utilise these elements and weld them into Christianity. All that, in order to make Christianity grow organically, instead of pushing it mechanically.

In conclusion let me repeat again: the wisdom of the Church has been inclusive.

Inclusive was the wisdom of her Founder, inclusive the wisdom of her organisation and of her destination. Exclusiveness was the very sickness and weakness of the Church. That is why we in the East in the time of sickness of the Church looked neither towards Peter, nor Paul, nor John, but towards the Holy Wisdom, the all-healing and all-illuminating. For Aghia Sophia in Constantinople, the temple dedicated to Christ the Eternal, includes in itself the sanctuaries of Peter, Paul and John; moreover, it is supported even by some pillars of Diana’s temple from Ephesus and has many other things, in style or material, which belonged to the Paganism of old. Indeed, Aghia Sophia has room and heart even for Islam. The Mohamedans have been praising it as the best of their sanctuaries!

Look to the Holy Wisdom! Look beyond Peter, and Paul, and John—through them and still beyond them! Every Church has her prophet, her apostle, her angel. Look now over them all to the very top of the pyramid, where all the lines meet!

Either Christianity is one, or there is no Christianity.
Either the Church is universal, or there is no Church.

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

Exclusive

The primitive Church was very puritanic concerning the Christian spirit. She was not particular as to the vessels in which to pour the new wine, but she was extremely particular as to the wine itself. She borrowed the vessels in Judæa, Alexandria, Athens, Rome, but she never borrowed wine. The Christian spirit and the pagan spirit were just like two opposite poles, like white and black, or day and night. The Church was conscious of it, and jealously watchful that no drop of any foreign spirit should be mixed with the precious spirit of the New Gospel. There existed no thought of compromise, and no idea of inclusiveness whatever regarding the spirit. The terrific conflict of Christianity and Paganism through centuries sprang from the irreconcilability of two different spirits. Were the Church as inclusive as to the spirit as she was to forms, doctrines, customs and worships, conflicts never would arise—but then neither would Christianity arise.

The modern Church is particular as to its institutions, but not particular at all as to its spirit. The Roman Emperors never would persecute the modern Church, for they would easily recognise their own spirit included in her. Nor would the Pharaohs from Egypt persecute modern Christianity. Nor would Areopagus or Akropolis be puzzled so much had St Paul preached to them the modern European Christianity with its complicated spirit of all kinds of compromises with Heaven and Hell, compromise with the State, Plutocracy, Nationalism, Imperialism, Conquest, War, Diplomacy, Secular Philosophy, Secular Science, Agnostic Parliaments, Tribal Chauvinism, Education, Officialism, Bureaucracy, etc., etc. All these things have their own spirit, and every such spirit is partly or wholly included in the spirit of the Church, i.e. of modern Christianity. None of the Christian Churches of our time makes an exception as to this inclusiveness of all kinds of spirits. Even Protestantism, which claims the simplicity of its Christian ritual and administration, represents a lamentable mosaic of spirits gathered from all the pagan corners of secular Europe and mixed up with the Christian wine in the same barrel.

The Church of the East excommunicated thousands of those who crossed themselves with two fingers instead of using three fingers. The Church of the West burnt thousands of those who did not recognise the papal organisation of the Church as the only ark of salvation. Yet there is rarely to be found in the Church annals an excommunication on the ground of chauvinism or brutal egoism. No one of the world conquerors—neither Napoleon nor Kaiser William—have been excommunicated by the Church. It signifies an extreme decadence of the Church. And this decadence penetrates and dominates our own time. Speaking on the reunion of the Churches the peoples of the East are anxious to know, not whether the Church of the West has preserved the unmixed Christian spirit in its integrity, but whether this Church still keeps Filioque as a dogma, and whether she has ikons, and whether she allows eggs and milk in Lent. And the people of the West are anxious to know whether the Eastern Church has a screen quite different from their own screen at the altar, and whether she has been always tenaciously exclusive in teaching, worship and organisation. Who of us and of you asks about the integrity of the Christian spirit? If St Paul were amongst us he would ridicule our controversies on Filioque and all the trifles concerning Church organisation and the external expressions of Christianity. He would ask: What happened with the spirit he preached? What happened with this spirit which excommunicated de facto the Jewish narrow Patriotism and the Roman Imperialism? Have we still this exclusive spirit which moved the world effecting the greatest revolution in History? I am sure he would have to repeat with good reasons to every Church and to everyone of us: ‘If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.’

Well, we must come again to this source of Christian strength and greatness, which is Christ’s spirit. A new revival, yea, regeneration of Christianity, could be possible only in a united Christian Church; and the union of the Church is possible only upon the ground of the primitive Church, which was inclusive in teaching, worship and organisation, but exclusive in spirit. On the day when we all exclude from ourselves the Jewish and Greek and Roman spirit, and retain only the pure Christian spirit, we shall be at once ready to include each other’s Church into one body, into one Christianity. We must be clear about it, and we must confess that the divisions of the church are due to the invasion of a foreign spirit, an unclean spirit, into the Church. When the Church cleanses herself from this foreign unclean spirit she will be victorious over herself, and from this victory to the ultimate victory of Christianity over our planet will be a very short distance.

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

Christ fulfills all

More and more I say again and again to myself and to others, ‘Just follow Jesus. Do what you see Him doing. He is still doing it, even in today's world, not as a historical figure that you can read about and study, but as living people, men and women called to be saints today, alive not with their own life but with the life of Christ who personally lives in them today, living lives of grace, of peace, of healing, of forgiveness, of reconciliation, yes, following Jesus.

These words by a recent Church Father come from his writing called, The Agony of the Church, and continue the theme that I presented in the post Inclusive. Christ is the New Testament that completes the Old Testaments, not of the Jews only, but of all nations and cultures, and Holy Church, following her Master closely, deals with the peoples as He does, not as Caesar does, loving them, not lording over them, yes, following Jesus.

By His birth [Christ] included and bound together the lowest and the highest, the natural and the supernatural: stable, manger, straw, sheep and shepherds on the one hand; stars, angels, magi and Davidic royal origin on the other.

By His life He included the austerity of the Indian monks, of John the Baptist and the Nazarenes on the one hand; and on the other the Confucian moderate feasting, in the houses of friends, at the marriage feast and on other solemn occasions.

His life-drama was interwoven into the lives of all classes of people: men, women and children, Judaists and heathen, King Herod and the proconsul Pilate, priests and soldiers, merchants and beggars, learned sophists and ignorant fools, the sick and the healthy, the righteous and the sinful, Jews and Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and all others who could be met in Palestine, the very market of races and creeds.

He was by no means a party man like the Pharisees and the doctors of law. He called both the Pharisees and their enemies to follow Him. He went to the temple to pray, but He also prayed alone in the desert. He kept the Sabbath and He broke the Sabbath by healing the sick and doing good on this sacred day. He came not to destroy the Law, but He brought something which was higher than the Law and even included the Law itself, i.e., love and mercy.

He rebuked people who used to pray and say, ‘Lord, Lord!’ And yet He prayed very often Himself. He rebuked those who were fasting, and yet He used to fast Himself. What He really looked for was neither prayer nor fasting, but the spirit in which one prayed or fasted.

He commanded the people to give to Caesar things which were Caesar’s, and to God that which was God’s. He did not criticise this or that form of government, nor did He accentuate Monarchism, Republicanism, or Socialism as one form preferable to another. Under His scheme all forms of government were included as equally good or evil according to what place they reserved for God, what gifts they duly gave to God, and by what spirit they were inspired.

He followed the customs of His nation, and did not break them or evade them purposely. He took food according to the Law, and washed hands according to the Law, and went to the Holy City and took part in worship in the temple (though He was ‘greater than the temple’), according to the Law. It seems that He excluded no form of worship or social life, though He despised the unclean and petty spirit with which the hypocrites filled these forms. And when it came to a dispute He, the Messenger of a new spirit, naturally tried to save rather the pure spirit even without a form than a form filled with an impure spirit. Therefore He felt bound to say, ‘Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man,’ or ‘to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man,’ or ‘thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,’ etc.

Even so, too, He embraced all nationalities and races. Nothing was for Him unclean that God had created, nothing but unclean spirits. When the Roman centurion asked help from Him, He gave it. And when the people beyond the Israelitish boundaries, from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, cried after Him, He did not listen to the exclusivistic warnings of His disciples, but He distributed even there His divine mercy. He was mindful even of the people of Nineveh. And when He sent His disciples, He sent them to ‘all nations.’

Finally, He included the natural and the supernatural. He talked with spirits. He saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. He stood amongst Peter, John and James on one side, and Moses and Elias on the other. All the people saw lilies in the field and sparrows upon the roof, but He saw more, He saw how His Father clothed the lilies and how He fed the sparrows. He united the natural and the supernatural in His teaching.

‘Love those who love thee’ was a natural teaching, but He added, ‘and those who hate and persecute thee,’ which was supernatural.

‘Give to them who give to thee’ was a natural teaching, but He added, ‘and to them who do not give to thee,’ which was supernatural.

‘Bless those who bless thee,’ but He added, ‘and those who curse thee,’ which was supernatural.

And He united the natural and supernatural in His death. He suffered and died in agony. He rose from the dead, descended to Hell and ascended to Heaven. For Him there was as little boundary between heaven and earth, between nature and supernature, as between Israel and Canaan, or as between man and man, or form and form.

His wisdom was inclusive from the beginning to the end. What did He ever exclude—save unclean spirits? His disciples were as exclusive as anybody could be, exclusive when judging and acting according to natural wisdom. But when they looked at Him, they were reconciled. He was the Holy Wisdom, in which everyone could find a mansion for himself, every disciple, every nation, every form of worship, everything—but the unclean spirit.

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

Awaiting on You All

On the way home from work this afternoon I listened to the George Harrison song Awaiting on You All that I had copied along with other songs by this artist from his album All Things Must Pass. Hearing this song after so many years (it was on a CD that I had lost and just found a day or two ago) was an interesting experience, and as often happens when you unearth some part of your past and compare it with your present, I heard it almost with fresh ears. I am not the same person that I was then. I was in my twenties when I followed George Harrison both musically and spiritually. Though the Eastern religious views he espoused most of his public life were similar to mine at that age, it didn’t take long for me to outgrow them. ‘Outgrow’ is not exactly the right word, though. I didn’t really outgrow them. You could say I traded them in, new lamps for old. I never struck a better deal.

Still, listening to the song I was amazed just how spot on he was in much of what he was saying. I can still relate to almost all of it. I don’t think that either of us, George or I, was aware of the fuzzy thinking that made us combine devotion and belief in Krishna and Jesus without noticing the two aren’t the same. I’m not talking about doctrinal or religious differences. Hinduism and Christianity are distinct religions, granted, but anyone who believes in God knows, ‘God is God. There is no thing you can compare to God. God is God.’ We tend to believe that at best other religions are wrong in the details but right in the big picture. This may be true, but no one can say so without denying his faith community. In youth, I think we were bored with dogmatic strongholds, and wanted the freedom to meet God on our terms, not according to those of our ancestors. How little did we understand that ‘the ancestors in stone armor calling for loyalty untrue’ seeking ‘to make a zigzag of the arrow’s flight’ were doing no such thing.

No, they knew that the shortest path between two points is rarely a straight line, though arrows may fly to their mark, being projectiles aimed at a target. Unfortunately people are not projectiles, and our destination is not really a target, no matter how much we wish we could hit the bullseye. We are beings fashioned in the Divine image and likeness. We live in more than three, more even than four, dimensions, and the paths we tread cannot be traced, planned or prophesied by mortal logic or the magic of music. They are no more than mere beginnings, our thoughts and feelings, before we bump into the aweful reality which we glibly like to call ‘God.’ Meet Him on our terms? Hardly possible, unless He allows it, and only as a sign that He is there, hidden behind our wall, waiting for us to… 
No, that is also just what we glibly like to think, as George Harrison sings in his song…

You don't need no love in
You don't need no bed pan
You don't need a horoscope or a microscope
To see the mess that you're in
If you open up your heart
You will know what I mean
We've been polluted so long
Now here's a way for you to get clean

By chanting the names of the Lord, and you'll be free
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see…

You don't need no passport
And you don't need no visas
You don't need to designate or to emigrate
Before you can see Jesus
If you open up your heart
You'll see he's right there
Always was and will be
He'll relieve you of your cares

You don't need no church house
And you don't need no Temple
You don't need no rosary beads or them books to read
To see that you have fallen
If you open up your heart
You will know what I mean
We've been kept down so long
Someone's thinking that we're all green

… The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
By chanting the names of the lord, and you'll be free

I purposely left out the stanza about the pope owning controlling interest in General Motors and not being qualified to quote us anything but the Stock Exchange. This is childish talk and hatchets all the good things he has to say. This, I find, is true of youthful thinkers in every generation. It’s true of otherwise noble and idealistic youth today. It was true of me as a Vietnam War draft resister. We ‘let the cat out of the bag’ about ourselves when we pounce on anyone, especially an authority figure we don’t approve of, and show that, however pure we think our motives, however lofty our ideals, we’re still no better than the fallen heroes we no longer believe in. What George Harrison says in this song I still agree with. Where I have a problem, is what he proposes as a solution to the mess we find ourselves in. As much as I enjoyed chanting Hare Krishna, it didn’t save me, or the world, and it never will.

But the rest is, amazingly, true, as I have found out in the intervening years. The words about Jesus are almost straight out of the Bible. The words about churches and temples, the same. Somebody went to Sunday School as a child. Yes, you’re right. I did.
I know that for sure, and guess what? It stuck. What started out as an incomprehensible religious upbringing somehow became comprehensible when it finally collided with what I was made for. 

Yes, my parachute failed to open, and the earth received my bruised and broken body. I was alive for just a moment, just long enough for me to realize I was about to die. Then His gentle hands slipped under my head and shoulders as He lifted me up from what should have been my grave. He had already been there, aeons before I came to birth or leapt to my unintended death. No, this did not literally happen. I’ve never used a parachute. But His hands are real.

Awaiting on You All, a great song,
but He is waiting only from our point of view.
On His side, we are either already with Him, or without Him.

Ramadan رمضان

Ramadan (Arabic: رمضان) is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and the month in which Muslims believe the Qur’an was revealed.

Fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The month is spent by Muslims fasting during the daylight hours from dawn to sunset. Muslims believe that the Qur'an was sent down to the lowest heaven during this month, thus being prepared for gradual revelation by the angel Jibra'il (Gabriel) to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Furthermore, Muhammad told his followers that the gates of Heaven would be open all the month and the gates of Hell (Jahannam) would be closed.

This is exactly how religion works. There are laws to be followed. There are acts of self-denial to be performed. There are unprovable—maybe even improbable—beliefs to be accepted, explanations of ‘why things are the way they are.’ Finally, there are promises—in reality a variety of perks, again unprovable—that give the average believer a motivation to follow the laws and perform the ceremonies and customs that will ensure him a better existence in whatever happens after physical death.

It's always about death, and the fear of it. Sometimes it's also about sex. Indeed, sexual instincts and death seem to be intertwined somehow, defying reason by insurmountable paradox. Maybe because sexual activity procreates, keeps living beings from extinction, preserves them from permanent death, as a species. So religion, like the funeral industry, has an inescapable relevance to humans everywhere, and the former usually incorporates the latter in every culture. That's religion for you, pacifying unanswerable need.

Whether or not the Word of God (that unwritten eternal Book, that incarnated in Jesus son of Mary) came down to man's level, or very close to it, by being revealed to Muhammad, Gabriel may know. I don't. To me it seems slightly less credible than what happened in the Incarnation, but both claims must seem like nonsense to the believing Jew. Everyone knows that there is only one YHWH, and therefore only one real religion, the one that was revealed to Moses at Sinai. Even Jesus son of Mary followed it.

Real religion—if there is such a thing—doesn't so much need to be in accord with man's power of reason, as to not offend common sense, which is not always the same thing. Laying down laws and making promises just for their own sake, now that is what we expect religions to do, at least the ones we've had to deal with so far. Adding a good dose of supernatural fantasy is also on the agenda. After all, if there is something or Someone ‘up there,’ they will have to keep our interest. Makers of religions know their stuff.

But I find plenty of assurances of Divine mercy, plenty of revelations of what and Who really exist in the pages of the Bible, starting with the Old Testament. There's nothing old about what I find there, except in the sense of  ‘always being the same from before time was.’ If I had to start with that Book, and no other, I would be at a loss to create a religion for myself or for others. There's just something too real, too immediate, about that Book. Yet people use its text to erect religious towers, fortresses, armies, and banks.

Religion has a certain characteristic to it. It is almost always predictable. It will be rich in stories and legends. It will be colorful, even beautiful and seductive to the senses. It can be expected to mobilise people and employ them in tasks that have no earthly object. It always holds out a better tomorrow or hereafter. I doesn't have to limit itself, though, to the future life. The most pungent religions are those that completely take your life over, and use you for anything from sheep to be fleeced to soldiers to be sacrificed.

Heaven is the goal. Earth is just a waiting room, a school, a place of preparation, a ‘foyer leading into the world to come.’ Yes, I know. I believe some of these things too. No, actually, I believe all of them. Earth is temporary, but I still need to take it seriously. Why? Because it is my chance—possibly my only chance—to acquire a truly higher education. Knowing the curriculum, knowing what those lectures and labs should look like, helps me to stay away from schools that are not only unaccredited, but dangerous.

Well, what is it then? Religion or no religion? I believe in three facts that are unprovable, just as unprovable—and maybe just as improbable—as the stories one hears told of the founders and saints of mankind's religions. These three are, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. People have founded religions on these three, and yet what they found themselves saddled with seems inconsistent, indeed often seems completely unrelated, to these three facts. How can this be? What is belief? Even mine?

Religions have to be maintained, cared for, in order to continue. They have no life in themselves, only what people give them. Just as the idols in a temple have to be washed, dressed and ‘fed’ daily, religions need us. The fact of God's becoming a human being in Jesus of Nazareth, the fact that He lives beyond His historical identity and still moves among us, the fact that He has opened paradise—not some ‘pie in the sky’ magical place where we can be rewarded after a life of unnecessary toil—that transcends religion.

We can recognize the door only when we have tried them all and found which one really opens and is not just a picture of a door. We can distinguish the truth only when we have listened to all the stories and found which one really lives and is not just a fairy tale. We can embark on the way only when we have walked our chosen path long enough to see that it leads nowhere, that it dead ends, and that beside us has been walking He who is the way we sought but could not find. Religion ends at His feet, and relationship begins.

There is no Ramadan, no fasting, no revelations, no religion where we find ourselves when we meet Him, and no paradise except Him who is, and in His presence is peace.

In Christ is forgiveness

No, there's nothing we can find to picture this, nothing we can photograph or paint or draw or write poems and songs about, nothing we can fully describe, not even in the deepest and most heartfelt testimony. Still, we try.

One autumn day driving home from work, my heart crushed with sorrow over a broken friendship, I hadn't brought it to mind so intensely before, my soul's lamp was nearly extinguished, and I was very close to weeping, so sorry was I about it all.

And about my life, what a complete disaster, what a catalog of catastrophes and bad judgments, of failure to act when I should have, and of acting when I should have not, speaking up when I should have been silent, being silent when I ought to have shouted.

The thought of my mentor, 32 years my senior, telling me of the misfortunes that not just tainted his life, but ruined it, his reputation, his personal wealth, his family, all affected, and by things outside his control, a pious man whom others judged helpless.

Yes, ‘the victory, the victory is in the Blood.’ He used to tell me, while recounting, almost without intending to, and not complaining or blaming anyone except himself, how his life had turned out. Philip, the pentecostal, unwelcome in his own church.

I didn't see him do it, he would never have let me, but he told me how sometimes he would drive home crying, knowing how he had failed the Lord, failed himself, his son, his wife and daughters, all of whom he loved so much, even though he gave them all he had in him.

As I was close to tears, driving home, feeling sorry for my own failures, my own sins, wishing they could be lifted from me, I thought of him, and his life far worse than mine, and how he never ceased asking the Lord for forgiveness, even knowing it was granted.

I was on the point of crying, but something made me look up. Of course I was watching the road as any driver does, almost in a dream, reaching a destination without remembering the driving. I looked up. In front of me was an SUV with a wide, white sticker on the hatch.

In bold black letters on white, In Christ is forgiveness. That's all it said. There were almost no other stickers on that car, except for one of those crossed stoles that I first remember seeing years ago when they were pink and had something to do with AIDS victims.

Just four words plainly printed, black on white, In Christ is forgiveness. Something we all know, something I believe, yet to see it there on the car right in front of me was like Jesus Himself entering my inner conversation, overturning the sentence against me.

I noticed the license plate as well, 669 ZKR, the three letter root of the Hebrew word for ‘remember,’ zayin, kaf, resh, remember. When I came home I checked to see if there was a 69th verse in Zechariah chapter 6, but there wasn't. Numbers haunt me.

Nothing this side of heaven will ever heal some of our wounds, broken friendships, lost loves, missing children, childhood traumas, compromised marriage beds, untimely deaths. I feel I cannot live, sometimes, knowing what I have done wrong in my life, and I beg for mercy.

Sometimes with words, sometimes with deeds, sometimes by prayer, or reading the psalms, my usual comfort, that mercy comes to me, quiets the grief of my soul, opens my eyes to again see light where I thought all was blackness and idiocy. For that, I thank the Lord.

He knows. He knows us. He knows all about us. He knows what we are, why we are, what we have done or not done, and why. He has been through it with us all millions of times, walking beside us to steady our steps and keep us from falling into the pit where praise is no more.

Forgive your brother who has offended you seven times? ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times,’ says Jesus (Matthew 18:22), who has forgiven and keeps forgiving us seven times to the infinite power, from before time was, until the Day He comes.

Yes, Lord, as we pray on the 19th day, ‘…at the presence of Yahweh, for He comes, He comes to judge the earth, to judge the world with justice and the nations with His truth’ (Psalm 96), we await Your grace and mercy, now in the time of this mortal life.

Grant it to us, Lord and God, who in Christ suffers all, walks in all, healing us of our diseases, giving us sight, and speech, raising us up to walk where our infirmities prevent us. Yes, Lord, grant us Your grace and mercy, for in Christ is forgiveness.

The work of sanctification

In a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great Lion. The speed of him was like the ostrich, and his size was an elephant’s; his hair was like pure gold and the brightness of his eyes like gold that is liquid in the furnace…

Then I fell at his feet and thought, ‘Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him.’

But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, ‘Son, thou art welcome.’

But I said, ‘Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash.’ He answered, ‘Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.’

Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, ‘Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?’

The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, ‘It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man does a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?’

I said, ‘Lord, thou knowest how much I understand.’ But I said also (for the truth constrained me), ‘Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.’

‘Beloved,’ said the Glorious One, ‘unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.’

— C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle

The passage above from book seven of the Chronicles of Narnia
concerns Emeth, an infidel warrior who goes to his death, believing in a false god, the demon Tash. In the mythical world of Narnia, Christ wears the form of a Lion, but in most other respects His character matches that of His true form, the man Jesus Christ.

If you're not familiar with this series of books but have seen any of the recent film adaptations, they do not even come close to the story line that Lewis intended. Also, be advised that despite the warnings of a few anti-Narnia ‘Christian’ web sites, these books are not in any sense occult or witchery-laden as some other more recent series. In fact, Narnia stands in stark contrast to them. It is not a modern fantasy series, but in the best classic sense, a kind of allegory or myth.

Written for children, they never cease to interest and enlighten adult readers. They are Christian theology for children, the kind that Christ speaks of when He says, ‘to such as them the Kingdom of heaven belongs’ (Matthew 19:14).

Why did I just quote this passage? Am I going to try to prove anything by it? Not at all. I am not qualified to ask or answer the sorts of questions people sometimes debate, concerning the implications regarding ‘just who are saved’ that they read into this passage. I also don't think Lewis was jockeying into position to ask or answer such questions either.

What this passage bespeaks to me is the work of sanctification. This is not a human work but rather, the work of Christ: It is Him turning us into the kinds of creatures who not only are worthy of eternal life, but also want it. This is what comes to mind when I think about sanctification.

There is only one Christianity—biblical Orthodoxy—and all Christians owe its existence to the Church Fathers from the beginning till now.

Spiritual life goes on, undeniably, outside of the ‘visible Church.’

The work of sanctification is possible only through Christ, because only He accomplishes it.

Real sanctification is different from spiritual sophistication.

When Christ emptied the tombs He did not go only to those who knew Him or of Him, but to all.
Escape from hell and death is possible only through Christ, who is the Only-Begotten Son and Word of God.

Our narrow parameters for ‘just who are saved’ are based on a shallow interpretation of Christ's word about the ‘narrow path.’

Everyone whom He saves will finally know Him, even if while they were being saved, they may not have known by Whom.

I once read an interesting comment on this very subject. A woman named Lorelei wrote, ‘When Jesus said “No one comes to the Father except through me,” he meant that He claims us—not that we must claim Him. Just as Aslan claimed Emeth, and not the other way around.’ This thought really contains a good dose of Calvinism, of predestination, but I am not sure that it must be taken that way.

God's plan of salvation, His divine ikonomía, as we call it in Greek, is too impossibly vast for our puny minds and meticulous methodologies to express or understand. Bits and pieces of it we learn and ingest all our lives, as we follow Jesus in faithful obedience, but we are never given to understand it completely, and as soon as we think we've got it all systematised, God acts, and our house of cards collapses again. Sounds familiar?

Back to the work of sanctification. What I wanted to say, what the story in The Last Battle speaks to me, is that wherever we find the work of sanctification going on—real sanctification, not religious hocus-pocus—there is Christ present, effecting it, since apart from Him, there can be no sanctification, as well as no salvation. The Church must look deeper than creedal preoccupations in herself and in others.

Everything we have been given on the path of sanctification and salvation is not for its own sake, but for the sake of the purposes of God the Holy Triad—what is it He wants for us? What does He intend when He creates us? Can we afford to quench the smoking flax when it is not in our own hands? If we know all is possible only through Christ, how can we welcome those whom He is sanctifying outside our gates?

Must we wait for Christ Himself to empty Hades of the souls whom we have relinquished there? What does Christ mean when He tells us, ‘If you confess Me before men, I will confess you before My Father who is in heaven’? And what does it mean to deny Him before men? Is there only one kind of apostasy? Who has the boldness to turn away those souls whom Christ has made worthy, thinking they own His Kingdom?

The temptations of church

I want to copy and post this entire essay by Fr Stephen because I never want to lose it. What it says is what I need to hear. There is so much tosh spoken and written about the Church—maybe even by me—that I need to read such clear thoughts to keep me on track. I dread to think of anyone living their life in Christ, especially imagining themselves as a missionary, for example 'preaching Christ to the Japanese,' without knowing and understanding these foundational truths about 'the Church'. At his blog Glory to God for All Things, Fr Stephen writes,

I have sometimes said (in a light-hearted manner) that God gave us the Church to keep us honest. The truth is, that God gave us the Church that we might be saved. The failure to see why and how the Church is the ark of salvation is a failure to understand some of the most fundamental parts of our Christian faith – and often a failure which transforms Christianity into an ersatz religion that knows nothing of the Church.

The Scriptures describe the Church as the “Body of Christ,” the “Pillar and Ground of Truth.” It is nowhere described as a mere bene esse (something given to us only for our “well-being”) much less as a mere locus of “fellowship.” As much as it is possible to say that Christ died for our sins, it is also necessary to say that Christ died that the Church might be born. It is an inherent part of His resurrection. For human beings, the Church is what salvation looks like (if that disturbs you then it should serve as a barometer for how deeply the inroads of heresy have made their way into the Divine teaching on the Church).

The Church exists by the grace of God and is dependent for its very existence on the love of each for each and the love of each for all. Forgiveness is not a moral act – it is an existential act. Goodness, meekness, kindness, generosity and the like are matters of our true existence and not the mere moral obedience to some outward norm. The Scriptures teach us that “God is love.” We ourselves only exist to the extent that “we are love,” and so Christ gives us His Church – the locus and the very nexus of His love.

It is possible for us to avoid this inevitable stumbling block by declaring the Church to be “perfect” in some other sense (essentially a “two-storey” arrangement) or simply to redefine the Church and make her of less importance than is declared in the Scripture. The Church, and the marvelous claims made for her within the Scriptures are simply a scandal within the historical context. We seek to rid ourselves of the scandal rather than accept the reality that Christ is indeed saving us through just such an apparently weak vessel.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote a small history of Orthodoxy entitled The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy. My first reading of it some years ago was a revelation in itself. I had never read such a frank and accurate account of Church history, particularly by someone who was such a devout son of the Church. Any reading of his journals offers the same loving, accurate and insightful account of contemporary Church life.

Orthodoxy is very easily seen through the lens of naivete – with an assumption that only the imagined perfect can be the true. The result can be disappointment, even anger, when reality fails to match expectation. However this is not a failure which renders the claims of the Church to be false – they are failures that reveal the nature of what God has given us (rather than our own expectations).

St. Paul tells us in his writings that “God made [Christ] to be sin, that we might become the righteousness of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

That same “exchange” is continually happening in our lives. The Church is the locus of this change (or certainly the arena in which it takes place). Thus every gathering of the Church, whether for Eucharist or for Council, inevitable means an assembly of sinners, those who, at best, have become righteous with the righteousness of Christ (though not their own). Our sins do not constitute the Church, but the Church offers sacraments that precisely confront us at the point of sinfulness and brokenness (confession, healing, the Eucharist, Baptism, etc.).

My experience of life in the Church is that I am not only in the company of sinners such as myself, but that those very encounters are not occasions of lamentation, but occasions in which love, forgiveness, kindness and generosity, etc., are the only way forward. It is not for nothing that we find constant exhortation to such virtues within the epistles of the New Testament. A local Church either embraces Christ’s way of the Cross, or it becomes just one more outpost of hell.

I do not mean to disparage the Church as the Body of Christ, nor as the Pillar and Ground of Truth – rather – I want to detach such language from the “institutional” aspects of the Church. The Church is certainly the Body of Christ, but Christ remains hidden within her as the mystery of His life, death and resurrection. Christ nowhere promised us that He would become an institution. History makes such a mistaken notion obviously erroneous.

And so it is in the life of the Church that “one can only be saved.” In the life of the institution one can do any number of things (even in the name of Christ) that have nothing to do with Christ nor the Kingdom of God. The key is for none of us to lose his way. The easiest of all the “lost ways” is to idealize the Church or its history (and its institutions) and mistake those for the Kingdom of God itself. If what I am encountering and living is truly the Kingdom of God, then it will and can only ask of me obedience to the gospel of Christ.

Those images and ideas that tell me that the less than good thing I am doing will, in the end, work an even greater good, are lies of the enemy and have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God, and thus the true life of the Church, is coming forth and being manifested utterly apart from human permission. That “permission” has already been found in the humility of the Virgin Mother of God. Christ has come, entered into the depth of our suffering and hell and come forth resurrected, making all things new in Himself. We cannot aid that work, nor hinder it. We can be part of it or not – but it never depends upon us.

The mystery of Christ in the Church eludes us, I suspect, because we are always looking for the triumphant, resurrected Christ. St. Paul rather says:

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2).

This is more than a declaration of the historical crucifixion of Christ. St. Paul sees the crucifixion of Christ in cosmic terms as well, stretching not only into the present but into the very end of things. And thus it is that the Christ whom we know in the Church, is primarily manifest to us as the crucified Lord (indeed in the Resurrection appearances themselves, Christ still bears the marks of His crucifixion).

It is the manifestation of the crucified Christ, I suspect, that makes many people judge the Church incorrectly, or fail to see it for the fullness that it truly is. The mystery of the fullness of the Church (“the fullness of Him that filleth all in all”) is that this fullnes of Christ, this Pillar and Ground of Truth, is manifest to us as the Crucified Christ.

Like the disciples who questioned Christ after the resurrection, we too expect Christ to manifest Himself in some form of glory, of triumphalism. But such is not the case – nor, I suspect, will it ever be so. The revelation of God on the Cross is the same as the revelation of Christ in the Resurrection, if we have eyes to see – and both are the fullness of the revelation of God. The crucifixion of Christ is no mere “sideshow” in the economy of salvation, but it the very fullness of the manifestation of God.

And so it is that when we encounter things within our experience of the Church that disappoint and hurt (such as the sins of others and ourselves) – we are able to encounter the crucified Christ by the extension of His love and forgiveness of all. We encounter Christ not because we have purged the Church of every sinner (then it would be empty) or have corrected everything we perceive as lacking. We encounter the Crucified by embracing the weakness of love (which is stronger than death).

The fullness of the Church is always made manifest, when, in the lives of various saints, Christ Crucified meets anything which exalts itself against His weakness. Martyrs reveal the fullness of the Church. Those who speak dangerous truth, with love, manifest the fullness of the Church. Peace that radiates from the knowledge and love of the risen Lord, manifest the complete confidence found in the crucified Christ. “If Christ be for us, who can be against us?”

It is this search for union with the Crucified Christ that marks the heart of the Christian vocation. We will find Him in the heart of the Church – not by any virtue of argument or force of arms – but by the weakness of His crucified flesh. All who live by the weakness of His crucifixion, will know the power of His resurrection (and know, as well, that these are largely one and the same).


O Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the world, have mercy on us sinners, and grant us knowledge of your weakness in the midst of our sinful lives, that we might find the power of your weakness, and love everyone and everything.
For great art Thou, O Lord, and there is no word to hymn Thy wonders!

No place like home

To the Jews who believed in Him Jesus said, “If you make My word your home you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

John 8:31-32 Jerusalem Bible

Immediately upon hearing these words, argument and self-justification breaks out. Instead of attending to the first statement, the ‘if’ of Jesus’ word, His hearers latch on to the second statement, that in being His disciples ‘indeed’ they will be made free by the truth.

They take charge of the word He just spoke to them and immediately jump on it, assuming the worst, accepting it as an accusation or challenge to what they think they are. “We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone! What do you mean…?”

Nothing has changed, not with the Jews who believed in Him (for those are the very people that He was addressing and who came back with an argument), nor with the modern Christians (who also say they believe in Him, as long as…). They too pass over the ‘if’ of Jesus' word. Instead, they focus on themselves, not on Him, not on what He is really saying.

What He is really saying they don't even hear. What He is really telling them is the straightforward path to discipleship and fellowship with Him, and they meet it with silence.

So, the silence of the Word is met with silence, with non-recognition, by those ‘who believed in Him.’

Who can receive the word of Jesus in silence, just as He speaks it, without the interference of the ‘believing’ but questioning mind?
For this defines a great divide, a great gulf which cannot otherwise be bridged, between what we are and what we think we are, what the Word declares and what we think it declares, between discipleship and our need to justify ourselves.

The call to discipleship is answered by a simple ‘Yes’ and, as Ignatios of Antioch writes in his letter to the church at Ephesos,

“a man who has truly mastered the utterances of Jesus will also be able to apprehend His silence, and thus reach full spiritual maturity, so that his own words have the force of actions and his silences the significance of speech. Nothing is hidden from the Lord; even our most secret thoughts are present to Him. Whatever we do, then, let it be done as though He Himself were dwelling within us, we being as it were His temples and He within us as their God. For in fact, that is literally the case; and in proportion as we rightly love Him, so it will become clear to our eyes.”
(Ignatios of Antioch, Ephesians, ch. 15)

For what does the Word Himself declare to us?

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We shall come to him and make Our home with him.”

John 13:23 JB