Coffee With Sister Vassa: The Great Paradox

 

COFFEE WITH SISTER VASSA

THE GREAT PARADOX 

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mk 8:35)

Here are a few thoughts, my friends, on this passage from yesterday’s Gospel, on the Sunday of the Cross. I have to let myself lose certain things and even certain people, including my “self,” in order to receive “salvation.” It’s a difficult truth to grasp, but you could think of it this way: You receive, when you give it away. Or: If you love him/her, you should (at times) let them go.

What is “salvation”? It is everything. It is wholeness, or a return to wholeness, from having been fragmented by “my”’desires of this or that thing or place or person(s). These desires are not always fulfilled in the ways I would want or expect. My wholeness, in harmony with God’s vision of me and my unique place in His bigger picture, is restored through my surrendering to His will, manifested through the ups and downs of my cross-carrying journey, to which He calls me every day. I do my part, by putting one foot in front of the other and doing the next right thing, but I also need to let go and let God do His part. I don’t know or understand it a lot of the time, but I trust Him. Because He sees the whole picture and my unique place in it, which is where I thrive and come into ever-new life.

Lead us not into temptation, our loving Father, but deliver us from the evil one, if we do become entangled in our misplaced or mis-timed desires. Because You are in the driver’s seat, and Yours is the kingdom, which is always breaking in to our little lives, and Yours is the power to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves, and Yours is the glory in which we bask, when we let you in. Amen!

Monday Morning Meditation: 'Cross-bearers' - Not Simply 'Cross-wearers'

Source: pravicon.com

 At the very midpoint of Great Lent we venerate the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. If we have in any way taken up the cross of asceticism in obedience to the Church and in reaction to our over-indulgent surroundings, then by the Third Sunday of Great Lent the purpose of our ascetical efforts - and the very goal of our journey - are brought to our attention: to stand by the Cross of the Lord as we journey toward Jerusalem and Holy Week. 

The timing is perfect, for by this third Sunday of Great Lent we begin to tire, if not "wear out" with our lenten effort to this point. However, in our weakness we can find the strength and resolve to continue our journey with enthusiasm, and not simply obligation. This is made possible by the presence of the Cross, not only at the heart and center of Great Lent, but at the heart and center of the biblical revelation; of the entire historical process; of the cosmos; and at the heart and center of the Trinity, as the Lamb of God is slain before the foundation of the world. 

With that in mind, we can chant and sing the appointed hymns cited above, not only as fine examples of Byzantine rhetoric, but as profound insights into the meaning and purpose of the Cross. 

What may appear at first sight as hyperbole or exaggeration in the Church's hymnography, is discovered, upon deeper meditation, to be the search for words and images adequate to the great mystery of the Cross, in itself the inexhaustible wisdom of God as the "breadth and length, and height and depth" of that wisdom which will fill us "with the fulness of God"(EPH. 3:18-19). The only response to this Mystery once we begin to assimilate it, is to "bow down" in worship before the Master's Cross in awe and adoration. 

In our liturgical tradition we decorate the Cross with flowers in order to enhance and reveal its inner beauty, as we bring the Cross in solemn procession into the midst of the church for veneration. The decorated Cross is one way of trying to capture the paradoxical nature of the Cross.

For in no way is the Church trying to cover up the horror and brutality of crucifixionas one of the most perverse and twisted means of humanity's sinful capacity to inflict pain and humiliation on others. Here is the dark side of human nature at its most lethal. This is all clearly beneath the surface in the Gospels and their restrained and sober narrative of the Lord dying on the Cross. And it is on Golgotha "when they had crucified him" (MATT. 27:35) that we can begin to understand why the Lord "cried with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach'-tha'ni' that is 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (MATT. 27:46). It is in and through this cry of solidarity with suffering humanity while lifted up on the Cross that we never soften or "sing away" the horror of the Cross. We respect what it meant for the Lord to ascend the Cross. A clear-sighted realism demands that of us.

Yet, Christ is our Passover, the Lamb of God "who takes away the sin of the world"(JN. 1:29). On the Cross, as the sinless Son of God, Christ absorbs and takes upon Himself all of that sin in order to overcome it from within. He died on the Cross, but death had no hold over Him. He died for the life of the world and its salvation. By His obedience to the will of the Father, Christ destroys death by death.

For this reason, when we venerate the Cross we simultaneously glorify the Lord's "holy Resurrection." It is on the Cross that Christ is victorious, not in spite of the Cross. The Son glorifies the Father precisely while lifted up on the Cross. "I call Him King, because I see Him crucified," said St. John Chrysostom. 

As we sing at every Liturgy after having received the Body and Blood of Christ: "for through the Cross joy has come into the world." That is an incredible claim, but through faith we understand that claim as the very heart of the Gospel, the "good news" that life has overcome death "once and for all." 

Whenever we taste of that joy, we taste of the glory of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps here we discover the paradoxical nature of a decorated Cross: the ultimate sign of defeat and death has become the "unconquerable trophy of the true faith." Or, as the Apostle Paul has declared:  "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (I COR. 1:18).

The Lord taught us:  "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (MK. 8:34). These words challenge us to never be content with being passive observers of the Cross, but rather active participants in the life of self-denial and co-suffering love that are implied in taking up the Cross.

This further means that by our very vocation as Christians, we are "cross-bearers" and not simply "cross-wearers." It is one thing to wear a cross, and another thing to bear a cross. 

Of course it is a good thing that Christians do wear a cross. This is something of a identity badge that reveals that we are indeed Christians, but this worn cross is certainly not another piece of jewelry - Byzantine, three-barred, Celtic or Ethiopian! By wearing a cross we are saying in effect: I am a Christian, and therefore I belong to the Crucified One, who is none other than the "Lord and Master of my life." My ultimate allegiance is to Him, and to no other person or party. With the Apostle Paul, I also confess:  "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith ..." (ROM. 1:16). 

Such a confession already takes us way beyond passively being a "cross-wearer" to actively being a "cross-bearer." Dying to sin in Baptism makes the impossible possible. And with a faith in Christ that is ever-deepening in maturity, we can further exclaim with the great Apostle:  "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (GAL. 5:24).

The Third Sunday of Great Lent - The Adoration of the Life-Giving Cross - reveals, I believe, that here is something that makes Lent potentially great. Here are reasons that make taking Lent seriously a worthy and noble endeavor. We are slowly learning to be Cross-bearers, and in the process transforming the simple profession "I am a Christian," into a powerful confession of Faith.

Coffee With Sister Vassa: THE POWER OF LONELINESS

Coffee With Sister Vassa

THE POWER OF LONELINESS

 

“Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, ‘This Man is calling for Elijah!’ Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink. The rest said, ‘Leave Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.’ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.” (Mt 27: 45-50)

For many years I thought of loneliness as a poisonous state of mind, which one needs to avoid or fix somehow. But Christ’s loneliness on the Cross, which preceded His ultimate triumph over death, shows us how loneliness precedes new bursts of life and grace, when we allow ourselves to be led and bound and put on trial through it, on our cross-carrying journeys. 

Loneliness becomes for us a crucible for transformation, for a new freedom and new understanding of ourselves and others, when we let ourselves be alone before God’s silence. While our friends and others we may have previously relied on prove not reliable or not helpful, as many of those who stood around the Cross, God’s silence leads us to focus on or “listen” to His presence in our lives in a new way. We need not despair, because loneliness is God’s call to us, to take pause and re-focus, because He is renewing our sense of His purpose for us. If we hang in there, and I mean, literally “hang in there” on our cross, our loving God invariably leads us into new life and light and growth, through our loneliness. This is what I find to be true, anyway, nowadays when God leads me into loneliness, my old friend. “Hello darkness, my old friend,” I say, and listen in to the sound of silence. 

Happy feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, NC-friends! And Happy Church New Year, to those of us on the Older Calendar!

 

'Wood is healed by Wood!' - The Tale of Two Trees

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

As we anticipate and prepare for the Feast Day of the Elevation/Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord, perhaps a few words about the Cross might be appropriate.

The Feast of the Elevation of the Cross raises a myriad of themes - Biblical, historical, theological, etc. - for our meditation, to use that term. One such theme is what we call a typological reading of the Scriptures. This is a profound way of discovering the inner connection between persons, events, and places of the Old Testament - what we would call "types" - with their fulfillment as "antitypes" in the New Testament. Thus, Adam is a type of which Christ - the last Adam - is the antitype:  "Adam who was the type of the one who was to come" (ROM. 5:14).

Through typology we learn that the Old Testament can now be read as anticipating the Person of Christ and the saving events recorded in the New Testament, without undermining the integrity of the historical path of ancient Israel as the People of God entrusted by God with a messianic destiny. One such typological application is expressed in an intriguing and paradoxical manner through one of the hymns of the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross:

...For it is fitting that wood should be healed by wood, and that through the Passion of One who knew not passion should be remitted all the suffering of him who was condemned because of wood. (Sticheron, Great Vespers)

A truly wonderful phrase: "wood should be healed by wood!" Yet, what is this "wood" that is being referred to? How does wood "heal" wood? The wood in both instances is clearly the wood of two trees - the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil as found in GEN. 2; and the wood of the Tree of the Cross. In disobedience to the command of God, the man and woman of GEN. 2 - Adam and Eve - ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was the one tree, the fruit of which, it was not safe for them to eat:

You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day that you eat of it you shall die. (GEN. 2:17)

The freedom and self-determination of the first man and woman were tested by this divine commandment. In a celebrated interpretation of this passage, St. Gregory the Theologian (+395) draws out the meaning of this command and its consequence:

[God gave Adam] a law as a material for his free will to act on. This law was a commandment as to what plants he might partake of and which one he might not touch. This latter was the tree of knowledge; not, however, because it was evil from the beginning when planted, nor was it forbidden because God grudged it to us - let not the enemies of God wag their tongues in that direction or imitate the serpent. But it would have been good if partaken of at the proper time. The tree was, according to my theory, contemplation, which is safe only for those who have reached maturity of habit to enter upon, but which is not good for those who are still somewhat simple and greedy, just as neither is solid food good for those who are yet tender and have need of milk. (Second Oration on Easter, 8)

This is also found in St. Athanasius the Great (+373)

Knowing once more how the will of man could sway to either side, in anticipation God secured the grace given to them by a command and by the place where he put them. For he brought them into his own garden and gave them a law so that, if they kept the grace and remained good, they might still keep the life in paradise without sorrow or pain or care, besides having the promise or incorruption in heaven. But if they transgressed and turned back and became evil, they might know that they were incurring that corruption in death that was theirs by nature, no longer to live in paradise but cast out of it from that time forth to die and abide in death and corruption. (On The Incarnation, 3.4.)

The theme of the initial innocence of Adam and Eve, their lack of maturity and need for spiritual growth and maturation was very characteristic of the Eastern Church Fathers, being found as early as St. Irenaeus of Lyons (+c. 200).

Therefore, the "wood" of this tree proved to be death-dealing, not because God made it such "in the beginning," but because it was partaken of in a forbidden manner and not "at the proper time."

Nothing created by God is evil by nature; rather, all is "very good." But misdirected free will can pervert the good into something that is evil. The gift of the promise of deification is a God-sourced gift, not a self-sourced gift. 

On the other hand, the Tree of the Cross is precisely the wood through which the first disobedience was undone by the One who died on it in obedience to the will of the Father. The Tree of Life that was in the Garden was the actual "type" of the Tree of the Cross on Golgotha. The last Adam - Christ - healed us of the sin of the first Adam. (As early as St. Justin the Martyr, it was taught that the Virgin Mary was the "new Eve" also because of her obedience to the Word of God). The Cross is therefore

... the blessed Wood, through which the eternal justice has been brought to pass. For he who by a tree deceived our forefather Adam, is by the Cross himself deceived; and he who by tyranny gained possession of the creature endowed by God with royal dignity, is overthrown in headlong fall. (Sticheron, Great Vespers)

According to a pious tradition, the place of the skull is the place where Adam was buried when he died. The blood that flowed from Christ "baptized" that skull as symbolic of the sons of Adam (and Eve) being given renewed and eternal life by the blood shed by Christ on the Cross - the Tree of Life.

The Tree of true life was planted in the place of the skull, and upon it hast Thou, the eternal King, worked salvation in the midst of the earth. Exalted today, it sanctifies the ends of the world... (Litiya, Great Vespers)

"Wood is healed by Wood!" This is the good news revealed in the typological interpretation found in the liturgical hymns of the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross together with the biblical exegesis of the Church Fathers. This is why we honor and venerate the Cross by literally bowing down before it in adoration. The Cross was at the heart of the proclamation of the Gospel, a instrument of shame in the ancient world. But this did not deter the Apostle Paul from proclaiming that Gospel as the power of God:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (ROM. 1:16)

We also cannot be "ashamed" of the Tree of the Cross through which "joy has come into the world."

Fr. Steven

 

An Orthodox Christian Perspective on the Cross of Christ

 

An Orthodox Christian Perspective on
the Cross of Christ 

by Archpriest Steven C. Kostoff

We have reached the saving passion of Christ our God. Let us, the faithful, glorify His ineffable forbearance, that in His compassion He may raise us up who were dead in sin, for He is good and loves mankind.

— Praises, Bridegroom Matins of Holy Monday

The misunderstanding may still persist that the Orthodox Church downplays the significance of the Cross because it so intensely concentrates on the Resurrection, or on other such themes as transfiguration, deification, mystical encounter with God, and so forth. This is an implicit criticism that there is some deficiency in the Orthodox Christian presentation of the place of the Cross in the divine dispensation “for us and for our salvation.” Such criticism may not hold up under further reflection and inspection, for the Orthodox would say that based upon the divine economy of our salvation, resurrection – and any “mystical encounter” with God – is only possible through the Cross. As this was “the purpose of his will” and “the mystery of his will” (Eph 1:5,9), our salvation could not have been accomplished in any other way. The “Lord of Glory” was crucified (1 Cor 2:8) and then raised from the dead. Elsewhere, the Apostle Paul writes that “Jesus our Lord” was “put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes of “Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2). A text such as this could be behind the hymn we sing at every Divine Liturgy after receiving the Eucharist: “For through the Cross, joy has come into the world.” Jesus himself said “that the Son of Man must suffer many things…and be killed and after three days rise again”(Mark 8: 31). Of the Greek word translated as “must” from these words of Christ, Archbishop Demitrios Trakatellis wrote:

This expresses the necessity (dei) of the Messiah’s terrible affliction. Judging from the meaning of the verb (dei) in Mark, this necessity touches upon God’s great plan for the salvation of the world. (Authority and Passion, p.51-52)

 

 Many such texts can be multiplied, but the point is clear: The Cross and the empty tomb – redemption and resurrection – are inseparably united in the one paschal mystery that is nothing less than “Good News.” Like Mary Magdalene before us, one must first stand by the Cross in sober vigilance before gazing with wonder into the empty tomb and then encountering the Risen Lord (John 20:11-18).

As something of an aside, part of this misunderstanding of the Orthodox Church’s supposed neglect of the Cross in the drama of human redemption could stem from a one-sided emphasis on the Cross in other churches at the expense of the Resurrection. The redemptive significance of the Cross somehow overwhelms the Resurrection so that it is strangely reduced to something of a glorified appendix to the salvific meaning of the Cross. As Vladimir Lossky wrote: “This redemptionist theology, placing all the emphasis on the passion, seems to take no interest in the triumph of Christ over death.” Since the “triumph of Christ over death” is so integral to the very existence of the Church -- and since it is the ultimate paschal proclamation, as in “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death!” -- then the Orthodox Church will never concentrate on a “theology of the Cross” at the expense of the Resurrection. Rather, the one paschal mystery will always embrace both Cross and Resurrection in a balanced manner. Within the Church during the week of the Cross (beginning on the third Sunday of Great Lent), we sing and prostrate ourselves before the Cross while chanting:

"Before Thy Cross we bow down in worship, and Thy holy Resurrection we glorify!"

 

In addition, and perhaps more tellingly, the growth, development and continuing existence of certain theories of atonement that have proven to be problematic today, but not shared by the Orthodox Church, have had an impact on evaluating the Orthodox Church’s understanding of the Cross on the whole. These theories of atonement will portray God as being primarily characterized by a wrath that demands appeasement, or “propitiation,” something only the death of His Son on the Cross could “satisfy.” These theories would stress the “juridical” and “penal” side of redemption in a one-sided manner. They may also bind God to act within certain “laws” of eternal necessity that would impose such categories as (vindictive?) justice on God in a way that may obscure God’s overwhelming mercy and love.

Not sharing such theories of atonement as developed in the “West,” the Orthodox Church may face criticism for lacking a fully-developed “theology of the Cross.” However, such “satisfaction” theories of atonement are proving to be quite unsatisfactory in much of contemporary theological assessments of the meaning and significance of the Cross in relation to our salvation “in Christ."

The Orthodox can make a huge contribution toward a more holistic and integrated understanding of the role of both Cross and Resurrection, so that the full integrity of the paschal mystery is joyfully proclaimed to the world. From the patristic tradition of the Church, the voice of Saint Athanasius the Great can speak to us today of this holistic approach (using some “juridical” language!):

Here, then is the…reason why the Word dwelt among us, namely that having proved His Godhead by His works, He might offer the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering His own temple to death in place of all, to settle man’s account with death and free him from the primal transgression. In the same act also He showed Himself mightier than death, displaying His own body incorruptible as the first-fruit of the resurrection. (On the Incarnation, 20)

In soberly assessing too great of a dependency on juridical language when speaking of redemption, and anticipating some later theories that would narrowly focus on the language of “payment” and “ransom” in relation to the sacrifice of Christ; Saint Gregory the Theologian argued that a “price” or “ransom” was not “paid” to the Father or to Satan, as if either would demand, need or expect such a price as the “precious and glorious blood of God.” Saint Gregory says, rather, the following:

Is it not evident that the Father accepts the sacrifice not because He demanded it or had any need for it but by His dispensation? It was necessary that man should be sanctified by the humanity of God; it was necessary that He Himself should free us, triumphing over the tyrant by His own strength, and that He should recall us to Himself by His Son who is the Mediator, who does all for the honor of the Father, to whom he is obedient in all things …. Let the rest of the mystery be venerated silently. (Oration 45,22)

 

However, getting it right in terms of a sound doctrine of atonement is one thing – essential as it is – but assimilating the necessity of the Cross in and to our personal understanding and the conditions of our life is another. In fact, it is quite a struggle and our resistance can be fierce! If this is difficult to understand, assimilate and then live by, the initial disciples of the Lord suffered through the same profound lack of comprehension. Their (mis)understanding of Jesus as the Messiah was one-sidedly fixated on images of glory, both for Israel and for themselves. A crucified Messiah was simply too much for the disciples to grasp, ever though Jesus spoke of this in words that were not that enigmatic. When Peter refused to accept his Master’s words of His impending passion and death in Jerusalem after just confessing His messianic stature and being blessed for it; he is forced to receive what is perhaps the most stinging rebuke in the Gospels when Jesus turns to him and says: “Get behind me Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men” (Mark 8:33). It was Satan who did not want Jesus to fulfill His vocation by voluntarily dying on the Cross, so Peter’s refusal to accept Christ’s words was his way of aligning himself with Satan.

The disciples were not enlightened until after the resurrection of their Lord and Master. We are raised in the Church so that we already know of Christ’s triumph over death through the Cross. Our resistance is not based on a lack of knowledge, but of a real human dread of pain and suffering. It may be difficult to us to “see” the joy that comes through the Cross until we find ourselves “on the other side," for "now we see in a glass darkly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). It is our hope and the “certainty” of our faith that Christ has indeed triumphed over death, “even death on a Cross” (Phil 2:8). God has blessed us with yet another Great Lent and upcoming Holy Week and Pascha in order to share in that experience of His glorious triumph that begins with the life-giving wood of the Tree of the Cross.

'Wood is healed by Wood!' - The Tale of Two Trees

  

Dear Parish Faithful,

"I call Him King, because I see Him crucified." (St. John Chrysostom)

As we bid farewell to the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross, today being the Leave-taking, perhaps a few more words about the Cross might be appropriate.

The Feast of the Elevation of the Cross raises a myriad of themes - Biblical, historical, theological, etc. - for our meditation, to use that term. One such theme is what we call a typological reading of the Scriptures. This is a profound way of discovering the inner connection between persons, events, and places of the Old Testament - what we would call "types" - with their fulfillment as "antitypes" in the New Testament. Thus, Adam is a type of which Christ - the last Adam - is the antitype:  "Adam who was the type of the one who was to come" (ROM. 5:14).

Through typology we learn that the Old Testament can now be read as anticipating the Person of Christ and the saving events recorded in the New Testament, without undermining the integrity of the historical path of ancient Israel as the People of God entrusted by God with a messianic destiny. One such typological application is expressed in an intriguing and paradoxical manner through one of the hymns of the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross:

...For it is fitting that wood should be healed by wood, and that through the Passion of One who knew not passion should be remitted all the suffering of him who was condemned because of wood. (Sticheron, Great Vespers)

 

A truly wonderful phrase: "wood should be healed by wood!" Yet, what is this "wood" that is being referred to? How does wood "heal" wood? The wood in both instances is clearly the wood of two trees - the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil as found in GEN. 2; and the wood of the Tree of the Cross. In disobedience to the command of God, the man and woman of GEN. 2 - Adam and Eve - ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was the one tree, the fruit of which, it was not safe for them to eat:

You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day that you eat of it you shall die. (GEN. 2:17)

 

The freedom and self-determination of the first man and woman were tested by this divine commandment. In a celebrated interpretation of this passage, St. Gregory the Theologian (+395) draws out the meaning of this command and its consequence

[God gave Adam] a law as a material for his free will to act on. This law was a commandment as to what plants he might partake of and which one he might not touch. This latter was the tree of knowledge; not, however, because it was evil from the beginning when planted, nor was it forbidden because God grudged it to us - let not the enemies of God wag their tongues in that direction or imitate the serpent. But it would have been good if partaken of at the proper time. The tree was, according to my theory, contemplation, which is safe only for those who have reached maturity of habit to enter upon, but which is not good for those who are still somewhat simple and greedy, just as neither is solid food good for those who are yet tender and have need of milk. (Second Oration on Easter, 8)

 

This is also found in St. Athanasius the Great (+373)

Knowing once more how the will of man could sway to either side, in anticipation God secured the grace given to them by a command and by the place where he put them. For he brought them into his own garden and gave them a law so that, if they kept the grace and remained good, they might still keep the life in paradise without sorrow or pain or care, besides having the promise or incorruption in heaven. But if they transgressed and turned back and became evil, they might know that they were incurring that corruption in death that was theirs by nature, no longer to live in paradise but cast out of it from that time forth to die and abide in death and corruption. (On The Incarnation, 3.4.)

 

The theme of the initial innocence of Adam and Eve, their lack of maturity and need for spiritual growth and maturation was very characteristic of the Eastern Church Fathers, being found as early as St. Irenaeus of Lyons (+c. 200).

Therefore, the "wood" of this tree proved to be death-dealing, not because God made it such "in the beginning," but because it was partaken of in a forbidden manner and not "at the proper time."

Nothing created by God is evil by nature; rather, all is "very good." But misdirected free will can pervert the good into something that is evil. The gift of the promise of deification is a God-sourced gift, not a self-sourced gift. 

On the other hand, the Tree of the Cross is precisely the wood through which the first disobedience was undone by the One who died on it in obedience to the will of the Father. The Tree of Life that was in the Garden was the actual "type" of the Tree of the Cross on Golgotha. The last Adam - Christ - healed us of the sin of the first Adam. (As early as St. Justin the Martyr, it was taught that the Virgin Mary was the "new Eve" also because of her obedience to the Word of God). The Cross is therefore

... the blessed Wood, through which the eternal justice has been brought to pass. For he who by a tree deceived our forefather Adam, is by the Cross himself deceived; and he who by tyranny gained possession of the creature endowed by God with royal dignity, is overthrown in headlong fall. (Sticheron, Great Vespers)

 

According to a pious tradition, the place of the skull is the place where Adam was buried when he died. The blood that flowed from Christ "baptized" that skull as symbolic of the sons of Adam (and Eve) being given renewed and eternal life by the blood shed by Christ on the Cross - the Tree of Life.

The Tree of true life was planted in the place of the skull, and upon it hast Thou, the eternal King, worked salvation in the midst of the earth. Exalted today, it sanctifies the ends of the world... (Litiya, Great Vespers)

 

"Wood is healed by Wood!" This is the good news revealed in the typological interpretation found in the liturgical hymns of the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross together with the biblical exegesis of the Church Fathers. This is why we honor and venerate the Cross by literally bowing down before it in adoration. The Cross was at the heart of the proclamation of the Gospel, a instrument of shame in the ancient world. But this did not deter the Apostle Paul from proclaiming that Gospel as the power of God:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (ROM. 1:16)

 

We also cannot be "ashamed" of the Tree of the Cross through which "joy has come into the world."

Fr. Georges Florovsky, 'On The Tree Of The Cross', Part 2

HOLY TUESDAY

Dear Parish Faithful,

Again turning to Fr. George Florovsky for today's Holy Week meditation. Notice how closely related the Cross and Resurrection are organically related. The very death of Christ is a "resurrecting death," it is not a tragedy or miscarriage of justice reversed by the Resurrection.

Redemption is, above all, the salvation from death and destruction, a restoration of the original unity and stability of human nature. But it is only possible to restore the unity in human nature by restoring the communion between humanity and God. The resurrection is only possible in God. Christ is the resurrection and the life. The way to and hope of resurrection was revealed in the incarnation. Humanity sinned but also fell into corruptibility; therefore, the Word of God became a human person and received our body... Death had been implanted in the body; therefore, life had to be implanted again in order to save it from corruptibility and clothe it with life. Else it would not be able to be resurrected.

The decisive reason for the death of Christ is the mortality of humanity. Christ suffered death, but He conquered death and corruptibility and destroyed the power of death. In the death of Christ, death itself receives a new meaning.

- On the Tree of the Cross, p. 146

Fr. Georges Florovsky, 'On The Tree Of The Cross', Part 1

Dear Parish Faithful,

Holy and Great Monday

"For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified."
(I Cor. 2:2)

As I wrote last week, I intend to share a few short, but remarkable passages, from the writings of Fr. George Florovsky (+1979), perhaps the preeminent Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century, as we enter into the mystery of Holy Week. 

 

Fr. George wrote extensively on the Orthodox understanding of redemption, or how Christ accomplished our salvation through the Cross and Resurrection. He was always engaged in discovering the "mind of the Church" by carefully reading and studying the great Church Fathers. In fact, he attempted to synthesize their thought in a cohesive and convincing manner. A great deal of what her wrote on redemption is helpful for a better appreciation of the culmination of Holy Week in the Cross and Resurrection.

The incarnation of the Word was a revelation of life; Christ is the Word of Life. But the highpoint of the Gospel is the Cross; the death of the incarnated. Life was completely revealed in death. This is the paradoxical mystery of the Christian faith; life through death; life from the grave. We are born to a true eternal life only by our baptism into death and burial in Christ; we are reborn with Christ at the baptismal font. This is the unchanging law of true life: "what you sow is not made alive unless it dies" (I Cor. 15:36).


Redemption is an historic event, as much as it is also an eternal design. It is a sovereign deed of God, but it is also an offer to humanity, and humanity's response in faith belongs to the very structure of the actual redemption. The world has been redeemed, once and forever, but it is still being redeemed, and is to be redeemed. Christ's coming is itself both an accomplishment, a consummation of the promise, and an inauguration of the New Covenant, of the New Humanity, of the "New Creation: " Christ and His Body cannot be separated.

From On the Tree of the Cross - George Florovsky and the Patristic Doctrine of Atonement, p. 144 & 154

The 'Big Picture'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

As we continue to wait as a nation for a winner in the ongoing presidential election, I would imagine that some persons are agonizing, others are deeply interested, and others may be indifferent. Whatever the case may be, perhaps we all need to put everything in context and see the "big picture" of life all around us, especially as Christians. For that reason, I am sending out an older meditation that is based on a Feast Day that we already celebrated this year. It may be chronologically "out of turn," but I was looking for something that raises enduring themes that will draw out minds elsewhere - in case they are overly-preoccupied with politics, itself a relative dimension of life. So, if you may feel the need for a (meaningful) "distraction" that will take our minds elsewhere, this meditation is for you.

Fr. Steven

_____

God's Love - Shown Through the Cross

Dear Parish Faithful,

In preparation for the upcoming Feast of the Elevation/Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross on September 14, the Sunday preceding the Feast is designated simply as the “Sunday before the Cross.” This anticipatory focus on the Feast of the Cross alerts us to its importance in the consciousness of the Church. If we have the “mind of the Church,” then our own minds and hearts can be elevated and exalted upward toward the Son of Man who will be “lifted up” on the Cross for our salvation. This is precisely where the Church directs our attention with the upcoming Feast in mind. For in addition to the appointed Gospel reading at yesterday’s Liturgy, this second reading was taken from the Gospel According to St. John:

No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (JN. 3:13-17)

It is this passage, of course, that contains the well-known and magnificent text referred to simply as “John 3:16.” (Even those who never read the Gospels have either heard this verse somewhere or seen it displayed on a billboard, on a side of a barn along the highway, or even overhead on the tail of a helicopter as I once saw it at a baseball game). God (the Father) will “send” His Son – clearly the pre-existent Son – into the world (kosmos in the Gk.) that God loved into existence, and continued to love even though the world had fallen from its initial purpose and destiny. That “fall,” however conceived, meant that all was perishing. For human beings created for a relationship with God, this resulted not only in a death attended by guilt, regret, anxiety and fear; but also in the loss of life’s meaning and purpose. The biblical concept and reality of sheol/hades was no real consolation. A good deal of idolatry – the worship of “false gods” - is generated by a desperate search for some meaning in life; for something to attach to that will lift us up beyond the mundane and material aspects of existence. To believe in nothing is to be predisposed to believe in anything.

The expression that God “gave” us His Son is to point to the ultimate purpose of the Incarnation, which is the Cross, where again, the Son of man will be “lifted up.” And it is Jesus who is the Son of man. Behind the historical commemoration of this Feast, which is the discovery of the “true Cross” in the fourth c., we discover the Cross as the “place” where God wiped away our sin in and through the death of the Crucified Lord. In this way the “world” is “saved” through Christ, and we need no longer “perish” if we believe in Him. The “eternal life” of this salvation process is not an endless extension of time, nor is it the extension of biological existence (bios in Gk.) but something all together qualitatively different, as in true or abundant life (zoe in the Gk.) with and in God beyond the vicissitudes of time.

“Money makes the world "go 'round" is a cliché that many think and believe is true. Perhaps it seems most true to the very rich or the very poor. (As Hazel Motes of Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood said: A man with a new car don’t need redemption). The very rich may believe that they have discovered the secret to life’s meaning in the accumulation of great wealth; and the very poor may be convinced that a good life has been denied to them because they have been left out of the distribution of the world’s wealth One attitude can easily lead to arrogance, and the other to despair. But anyone struggling with economic distress, financial instability or making ends meet, may either willingly or reluctantly ascribe – to one degree or another – to the cliché that money is the energy and power that drives life and the “world.” Others, of course, may think that it is politics and politicians that make the world "go 'round." That may be the case, regardless of any given person's "party."

However, if we ascribe to the Gospel as revealing not only relative truths, but Truth itself in all of its majesty and glory; then we will realize that it is ultimately love that makes the world "go ‘round." This is not a sentimental counter-cliché. It is the love of God that is the “energy” that created the cosmos “in the beginning.” This love is the pouring forth of the eternal love that dwells within the Trinity and which as an “uncreated energy” gives, sustains, and redeems human life made “in the image and likeness of God.” Because of God’s steadfast love, the world which was created is now also saved by that same love. This love has no limit, because God is the source of an infinite love that we hardly comprehend. For God does want to condemn the world but precisely to save it. 

When we “bow down” before the decorated Cross during the Feast of the Elevation/Exaltation of the Cross, it is this Truth that we acknowledge and rejoice in.

 

The Cross Planted In Our Hearts

  

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

 

In mid-September, the Church has brought the Cross into our consciousness and into our midst tangibly for veneration. On the Sunday Before the Elevation of the Cross, we heard the ringing words from the Gospel According to St. John: "For God so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (JN. 3:16). This placed the Cross within the widest possible context - in fact within the immeasurable context of the love of God for the world/cosmos. As the Church Fathers always teach us, God loved the world into existence, and now He will act decisively in order to save the world. And the "giving" of His only-begotten Son will be as the Son of Man lifted up on the Cross "that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (JN. 3:15). The God who created the world, is the God who redeemed the world in Christ.

On the Feast Day of the Elevation of the Cross itself (Sept. 14), we again hear from the Gospel According to St. John, and this time it is the actual narrative account of the Crucifixion. The pathos of the Cross is illuminated by a series of theological revelations that express the meaning of the Cross. One particularly profound instance of this comes immediately upon the death of the Savior: "But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water" (JN. 19:34). Many of the Church Fathers were insightful and eloquent in uncovering the meaning of this seemingly mundane act of further violence:

 

For "blood and water came out." Not simply without a purpose, or by chance, did those founts come forth, but because by means of these two together the Church consists. And the initiated in the Mysteries know it, being by water indeed regenerated, and nourished by the blood and the flesh. Hence the Mysteries take their beginning; that when you approach that awesome Cup, you may so approach, as drinking from the very side. (St. John Chrysostom, Homily 85 on the Gospel of St. John).

He caused the fountain of remission to well forth for us out of His holy and immaculate side, water for our regeneration, and the washing away of sin and corruption; and blood to drink as the hostage of life eternal. (St. John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk. IV, Ch. IX).

As His earthly course began with water, so it ended with it. His side is pierced by the spear, and blood and water flow forth, twin emblems of baptism and martyrdom. (St. Jerome, Letter LXIX, to Oceanus).

Although the Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion are narrated with sobriety and very little emphasis on the pain, anguish, and blood of the cross, they nevertheless firmly witness to the true sufferings of the Lord, so that the Cross does not disappear into a kind of docetic symbolism. This was a real event and the Lord really suffered and died on the Cross. We can never lose sight of this fact in an abstract "theology of the Cross." Truly, "one of the Holy Trinity" tasted of death on our behalf because He "became flesh."

On the Sunday After the Elevation of the Cross - that is, next Sunday - we will hear the words of Christ that relate His Cross to our lives and the need for self-denial:

 

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. (MK. 8:34-35)

The emphasis is now on our self-denial. Or rather, self-denial is the taking up of one's cross in fulfillment of the Lord's words. The challenge is found in the obvious fact that most people - including Christians - are not particularly keen about self-denial. It does not come to us "naturally." The cost seems far too high. But although that sounds like a very "natural" reaction, perhaps there are better questions to ask ourselves: what is the cost of not practicing self-denial? What does the conscious or unconscious refusal to deny ourselves mean in terms of our relationship with God and neighbor? Is true discipleship even possible without self-denial? Can a marriage, a family, or a friendship prosper without self-denial? What, ultimately, is this "self" that cannot be denied anything?

The successfully marketed slogans of self-realization and self-fulfilment are more-or-less thinly veiled pseudo-philosophies or pop psychologies that actually promote self-absorption and self-interest. If indulged in for a seriously dangerous amount of time and with a good deal of energy, such efforts eventually collapse into the worst excesses of self-worship. The self is set up as an interior golden calf to be worshiped at all costs, and seeking constant propitiation. On the altar of this very well-known god, we burn up our relationships with God and neighbor and are left with little more than dust and ashes. (Perhaps this strong inclination toward self-idolatry is behind the Buddhist rejection of the very concept of the self. If the self is an illusion, then it can be ignored as irrelevant to the process of enlightenment). In our Orthodox theology and anthropology, the person (the "true self" we could say) is not absorbed or annihilated in the process of deification. Rather, the person as a unique mode of existence is brought to perfection and "stabilized" in not only well-being, but even eternal being, through union with God - the ultimate gift of the Holy Spirit working in us.

Jesus knew the liberating effect of fighting against self-love and self-will. Only in this struggle can we begin to see God and the neighbor as other centers of life and love. Only then can the passions - nurtured and fed by self-indulgence - be conquered in a battle described by Archbishop Kallistos Ware as one waged against the "fallen self ... for the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and it is the men of violence who take it by force" (MATT. 11:12). With a bit of courage and the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love, we can "deny ourselves" for the sake of the Kingdom of God, and be liberated from the prison of the self in the process.

In his article "The Tree of the Cross," Fr. Thomas Hopko offers a fine summation of the Church's emphasis on the Cross in either festal commemoration or personal devotion:

Genuine Orthodox spirituality is always a spirituality of the cross. When the tree of the cross is removed from the center of our lives we find ourselves cast out of paradise and deprived of the joy of communion with God. But when the cross remains planted in our hearts and exalted in our lives, we partake of the tree of life and delight in the fruits of the Spirit, by which we live forever with the Lord. Rejoice, O Lifegiving Cross!