All is nothing, except by faith

Last night, the beautiful vesperal liturgy of Theophany was celebrated, followed immediately by the Great Blessing of the Waters. “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 priests chanted, the ikon of the life-giving cross was immersed in the font of water, the Holy Spirit was invoked and petitioned to enter the waters, so that they would become for us life-giving and healing. Afterwards, we lined up to receive our first drink of those blessed waters, and to receive a small bottle of the same to take away with us and use to bless our homes. Outwardly, to some, this might seem like a magical vestige of ancient superstitious belief, but holy water is not magic. Whether or not the Holy Spirit literally enters the waters and in some objective sense remains in them for our healing, the water remains water, and the blessing we receive still comes to us by faith. Either all the waters of the earth have received the Lord of Life and have become blessed till the end of time, or none have. As one of my sons said when a three-year old entering a church with me as we past a holy water font, “Dad, all water is holy water!”

We drink the holy water, and use it to bless ourselves, yet we still fall into sin, sometimes right after drinking it. How little faith we have! We say, ‘What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?’ But it is for the pagans to run after these things, not for us. What we chiefly need to run after is not these things. “Seek after the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness before everything else, and all these other things will be given us as well.” Yet not just in terms of these generalities, even the holy water cannot keep us from wrongful desire or malice towards others or even against ourselves. We suffer the old man in us to continue to afflict us, though himself dead, and we are loathe to let him go. Christ have mercy! We trust You, Lord, but help the little faith we have!

A very dear friend of mine sits today with his son and their dying wife and mother, grieving for the end, because her suffering is acute, unbearable to the point where they have opted for euthanasia—not the ‘good death’ we pray for in every liturgy, but what the world calls ‘good death.’ The poison is to arrive today, and this dying sister wants it to be administered right away. She has made her farewells, and after suffering now for the fifth time the reoccurrence of the fatal disease, having no more will or strength to undergo a doubtful remedy, is ready to depart this life. After today, she will not be in this world anymore. We will look for her, and not find her.

We all know that mercy killing is wrong until we find ourselves in that very small room with ourselves, our loved one, and hopefully Christ. It is no longer ‘the whole world’ that we are among, letting its yeas and nays direct our lives and our opinions. No, we are now cornered, our backs against a wall and facing the enemy in our last battle. Yes, the Lord is with us, but do we know that? Do we believe that? In that tiny room, do we know He is there with us? Will He step in and save the day, and make everything right again?

Yes, but maybe not in the way we wanted, or expected.

Not many of the people among whom I live read my blog or even know about it, so I feel safe to ask you, brethren and friends, to pray for Nancy (her real name) as soon as you read my plea, for God’s will to be done, and for the salvation of her soul, if she surrenders her life this day. There is always time for a miracle, if it is God’s will. We don’t know His purposes, but we do know His faithfulness and His loving-kindness. He is the only lover of mankind, and in this as in all things, we turn to him in our weakness for Him to be our strength.

Christ, who is baptized in the Jordan for our transgression this day,
have mercy on us!