Rebuking the Tempter, and Following Jesus

Christ being Tempted by Satan

Dear Parish Faithful,

Today is the Leavetaking of Theophany, the great feast commemorating the Baptism of the Lord and the revelation of the Holy Trinity at the Jordan River.  It is this open manifestation of God that accords this feast the name Theophany and not the Nativity of Christ.  For, as St. John Chrysostom says:  “Why, then, is this day called Theophany?  Because Christ made Himself known to all – not then when He was born – but then when He was baptized.  Until this time He was not known to the people.”  It was His baptism at the hands of the Forerunner that inaugurated the public ministry of Christ – a public ministry that will begin with the words recorded in the Gospels and which continue to reverberate through the centuries to this day with a call and a challenge that is meant to shake all of humanity out of a false sense of complacency and comfort:  “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (MATT. 4:17).  According to Christ there is something more than the joys and sorrows that inevitably accompany the natural cycle of life and death.  Acknowledging this with thanksgiving, the very pinnacle of our communal worship of God in the Liturgy begins by “blessing” the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit in the opening doxology. Yet, before these powerful words are uttered in the Gospels; and before the Lord will begin His ministry of demonstrating the Kingdom of Heaven’s presence through His words and deeds culminating in the Cross and Resurrection; there is an event of tremendous significance that further prepares Christ for His messianic ministry:  The Temptation/Testing in the Wilderness (MATT. 4:1-11; MK. 1:12-13; LK. 4:1-13).  The nuances of the Greek word behind this event allows us to think in terms of “temptation” or “testing.”  Perhaps we could say that Christ was tested when God allowed Him to be tempted by the devil. Either way – or with a combination of both terms – the forty days spent by Jesus in the wilderness will shape Him and His ministry to Israel and to the world by defining an image of the Messiah that He will reject and one that He will embrace.

It is highly significant that it is the Spirit who “led” Jesus “into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (MATT. 4:1).  Nothing in the life of Christ is accidental.  In all things He is led by His heavenly Father acting through  the Holy Spirit, including this “face-to-face” encounter with the evil one.  The austere and unsettling figure of the Grand Inquisitor of Dostoevsky’s famous Legend embedded in his masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov, refers to the devil as “the dread and intelligent spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-being.”  It is this dread spirit who will tempt Christ through the three questions that will test the fidelity of Christ to His unique messianic vocation as willed by His heavenly Father.  Dostoevsky, through the tragic figure of the Grand Inquisitor, further reveals the power and non-human source of these powerful temptations, when the Inquisitor says in his monologue:  “By the questions alone, simply by the miracle of their appearance, on can see that one is dealing with a mind not human and transient but eternal and absolute.  For in these three questions all of subsequent human history is as if brought together into a single whole and foretold; three images are revealed that will take in all the insoluble historical contradictions of human nature over all the earth.”  In other words, these three temptations were not “invented” or “made up” by the evangelists for dramatic effect.  The very “perfection” of the temptations posed by the devil reveal their veracity.

And what are these three temptations?  According to St. Matthew’s account, they begin with the following as Jesus in fasting and experiencing hunger in the wilderness:  “And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread’.”  This was followed by the second temptation to test God’s fidelity to Him after the devil “took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, less you strike your foot against a stone’.”  The final temptation was grandiose and sweeping in its scope:  “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’.”  In Dostoevsky’s particular and profound interpretation of Christ’s encounter with the tempter in the wilderness, Jesus refuses to receive obedience through miracle, mystery and authority as represented in these three tantalizing temptations.  By  compelling  human beings to believe in Him by overwhelming them with the miraculous; by exploiting a sense of mystery to attract human beings to follow him; and by appealing to the human need for security through external authority; Christ would have accepted and approved of a distorted understanding of human nature.  In Dostoevsky’s understanding of Christ, as attainable as these “powers” may be for the Son of God, each one in its own way violates the gift of human freedom given to us by God and appealed to by Christ.  It is for this very reason that Christ did not come down from the Cross as He was “tempted” to do by those who mocked Him.  Even if freedom is a burden as well as a gift, it is the true vision of humanity created “in the image and likeness of God.”  We, in turn, freely choose to follow Christ, the crucified “Lord of glory.”

Dostoevsky had his particular concerns when he resorted to the temptation in the wilderness to dramatize the dialectics of human freedom and coercion in an unforgettable manner in The Brothers Karamazov.  Within the context of the Gospels, we can say that Christ had to overcome the temptation to be a particular kind of Messiah that was not in accord with the will of God.  He was not declared to be His Father’s “beloved Son” at the Jordan River so as to be a militant Messiah who ruled through power.  The words of God the Father at the Jordan were clear echoes from the Suffering Servant songs from the prophet Isaiah.  And the Suffering Servant would heal us by His “stripes.”  His very suffering would be redemptive.  And therefore that suffering (on the Cross) was essential to the divine economy.  To overcome such temptations as man, the Lord resorted to prayer and fasting in the wilderness – the spiritual weapons given to us all in the Church for precisely the same purpose in the “wilderness” of a fallen world:  to strengthen the “inner man” against false and pretentious promises.  We can accomplish this by relying on “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”  (DEUT. 8:3). We further heed the words, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (DEUT. 6:16).  And we also follow Christ who reminded us:  “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (DEUT. 6:13).  Christ refuted the evil one’s false counsel by the power of the scriptural word.  Another clear lesson for us in our relationship with the Holy Scriptures.  As the “root” of a new humanity, Jesus re-enacts the history of Israel, but He “passes” the type of test that Israel “failed” to pass in its earlier forty-year wanderings in the wilderness.  In fact, as the New and Last Adam He reverses the effects of Adam’s disobedience through His faithful obedience to the Father. It may sound startling to us today, but Jesus was “perfected” precisely through obedience!

Our human will was healed by the human will that the Son of God assumed and united to His divine will in the Incarnation.  Before the Garden of Gethsemane, the perfect expression of that healing through obedience may just be the temptation/testing in the wilderness.  As the final temptation was beaten back by Christ, He was able to say to the tempter:  “Begone, Satan!”  Our goal is to be able to rebuke the tempter with the same words when we are also tempted/tested – perhaps on a daily basis!

A Blessed New Year!

I would like to begin by wishing everyone a blessed New Year.  While I am a few days late, the new year 2013 is just beginning, and we still have a long way to go.  So a greeting at this point is not altogether untimely.  I am avoiding the usual cliché of wishing everyone a “happy” New Year, simply because that terms evokes something so ephemeral and elusive that it threatens to lose any significant meaning through an almost mindless and constant repetition.  Certainly, the word “happy” has a meaning that it easily understood and shared by all, for we all share emotional, social and cultural expectations and perceptions that allow for a common discourse regarding our goals and ideals.  Otherwise, we would not be able to communicate effectively. But when questioned for clarification, perhaps it is then that the elusiveness behind the concept of happiness becomes more apparent and our definitions become more uncertain.  Are we “happy” when we get everything that we want?  Would “having it all” make us truly happy?  Would winning one of those gigantic lotteries exponentially increase our level of happiness beyond the conceivable?  Or, are we happy when we manage to avoid any calamities or tragedies?  Does a life free of hardship or heartbreak render us happy?  Put another way, are we happy when we experience pleasure and avoid pain?  Just how happy can we be when others around us are suffering or experiencing tragedy?  Can you be happy when someone close to you is unhappy? Not easy questions to answer, I believe.

In a provocative essay by the Polish philosopher, Leszek Kokakowski, titled “Is God Happy?” the author strikes a blow to those who may equate their success with genuine happiness, however we define that term:

There are, of course, people who consider themselves happy because they are successful:  healthy and rich, lacking nothing, respected (or feared) by their neighbors.  Such people might believe that their life is what happiness is.  But this is merely self-deception; and even they, from time to time, at least, realize the truth. And the truth is that they are failures like the rest of us.

The term “blessed” – much more biblical and with a deeper resonance – calls to mind a relationship with God.  We are blessed by God, and we bless God in return:  “Bless the Lord, O my soul! Blessed art Thou, O Lord!”  We need only to recall the Beatitudes spoken by Christ.  But the Beatitudes tell us that those who are blessed are so because they are “meek;” because they “mourn;” that they “hunger and thirst after righteousness;” and that they are blessed because they are “persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” Not exactly what is on the mind of most people when that glittering ball dropped in New York’s Times Square!  When all the kissing ended and toasts had been made, and when all the confetti had landed and the balloons had popped, a question inexorably forced itself upon the festive gathering:  Now what?  Perhaps that is why countless people are really quite un-happy.  Looking in the wrong place makes the search for happiness a rather unattainable—and even unsatisfying—pursuit.  Because happiness is such an ephemeral experience with a “here today, gone tomorrow” quality about it, after many years one can become discouraged or cynical due to its impermanence.  All the promises implied by the “pursuit of happiness” may never be quite delivered.  And that can cause a reaction filled with disappointment or discontent.  By resisting the blessedness that comes from a Source beyond the temporal and passing quality of daily life, we could be missing the “one thing needful” that brings blessedness to our lives.  To be blessed is to seek a “quality of life” marked by greater depth and permanence.  It cannot be taken away by an unforeseen accident or even tragedy.  This is because blessedness is God-sourced.

Now, of course, no one in his or her right mind will ever wish to be unhappy, for no one wishes to be more-or-less miserable.  If happiness is what we are seeking, there are countless moments in life when we experience that happiness – together with joy, contentment, deep satisfaction, perhaps even a certain ecstasy.  Life yields so many wonderful possibilities for such deeply sought-after experiences.  For many, it is those experiences that “keep us going,” so to speak.  And for many, life is the pursuit of connecting those moments ever more closely. That may be true for all human beings at all times, but for Christians, those experiences are again deepened by and through a living faith in the living God.  Such experiences are good in and of themselves, but they also offer a foretaste of a far deeper reality:  “But as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him’”  [1 Corinthians 2:9-10].  I believe, then, that if we are seeking to have a “blessed” New Year, then what we are seeking is to become closer to God and to grow in our relationship with Him.  It is to look beyond the superficial enticements that pose as true happiness for more challenging but much more satisfying relationships and accomplishments within the very human spheres of our daily lives. Our resolutions would then be active attempts at true repentance.  When all is said and done, it is truly blessed to put God above all.

Again, I wish one and all a Happy—rather, a Blessed!—New Year!!!

Recovering a Genuinely Christian Vocabulary

The Incarnate Word Reclining

Dear Parish Faithful,


CHRIST IS BORN!
GLORIFY HIM!

He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all, Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt.  -  St. Athanasius the Great

Within the Church we have a biblical/theological vocabulary that is very expressive of what we believe as Christians.  These words are drawn primarily from the Bible, the Ecumenical Councils and the theological writings of the great Church Fathers, such as St. Athanasius the Great, quoted above.  As responsible, believing and practicing Christians, we need to know this vocabulary at least in its most basic forms.  As we continually learn a new technology-driven vocabulary derived from computers to smart phones; we need to be alert to the traditional vocabulary of the Church as it has been sanctified over centuries of use.  And this vocabulary should be natural to us – not something foreign, exotic and “only for theologians.”  It does not take a great deal of effort to be theologically literate, and there is no excuse not to be.  I recall something that a visiting Xavier professor said to me after he came to our parish to hear Archbishop Kallistos Ware a few years back.  He said that you must have a “theologically-literate parish” after Archbishop Ware’s brilliant talk on eschatology (Do you know the meaning of that word?!).  It was encouraging to hear him say that, and I like to believe that it was an accurate assessment.  Those words were meant to be a genuine compliment and, as the parish priest, it was gratifying to hear them.

As we continue to celebrate the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, a key term that must be part of the vocabulary of all Orthodox Christians is incarnation.  The nativity of Christ is the incarnation of the Son of God as Jesus of Nazareth.  Or, we simply speak of the Incarnation, immediately knowing what that word is referring to.  If we turn to the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, we find the term defined somewhat blandly, in that kind of clipped, compact and objective style found in most dictionaries:

in•car•na•tion \in-kär-`nā-shǝn\ n (14c)  1  a  (1):  the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form  (2) cap:  the union of the divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ.

In the Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology, the Orthodox theologian Fr. John McGuckin begins his definition under a fairly long entry of this term as follows:

Incarnation  Incarnation is the concept of the eternal Word of God (the Logos) “becoming flesh” within history for the salvation of the human race.  Incarnation does not simply refer to the act itself (such as the conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin, or the event of Christmas); it stands more generally for the whole nexus of events in the life, teachings, sufferings, and glorification of the Lord, considered as the earthly, embodied activity of the Word. (p. 180)

Speaking of expanding our theological vocabulary, we need to further know that we translate the key Greek term Logos as Word, referring, of course, to the Word of God who was “with God” and who “was God” according to St. John’s Gospel “in the beginning.”  We also refer to the Word of God as the “Son,” “Wisdom,” and “Power” of God.  It is this Logos/Word of God who becomes incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth.  The key verse that is the classical expression of the Incarnation in the New Testament is found in the Gospel according to St. John:  “And the Word (Logos) became flesh”  (JN. 1:14).  Incarnation is derived from the Latin word “in the flesh.”  The Greek word for Incarnation would be sarkothenta, meaning “made flesh.” So the Incarnation of the Word of God is the “enfleshment”of the Word, and here “flesh” means the totality of our human nature.  The Word has assumed our human nature and united it to Himself in an indissoluble union that restores the fellowship of God and humankind.  The sacramental life of the Church is based on the Incarnation, and the potential for created reality to become a vehicle for spiritual reality.  The ultimate manifestation of this is the Eucharist, and the bread and wine “becoming” the Body and Blood of Christ.

Christmas is the time of the year to recall all of this profound reality and recover a genuine Christian vocabulary that expresses our Faith about as well as that is humanly possible. This further means that theological words are not dry and abstract concepts when approached with not only respect, but with awe and wonder.  This makes our reading and studying of our theological Tradition exciting – as well as humbling. The words reveal life-transforming truths that if received with prayer and thanksgiving enhance and expand our minds and hearts, so that we might have the “mind of Christ.”

In the Fullness of Time

Dear Parish Faithful,

The Epistle reading for the Feast of our Lord’s Nativity is short, but powerful and profound in all of its revealed implications:

But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba!  Father!”  So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.  (GAL. 4:4-7)

This is a key text in how the Apostle Paul also affirms the Incarnation of the Son of God as a human being.  This is Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world.  If God “sent forth his Son” it means that the Son already existed, or as we say in our theology, the Son “pre-existed” His earthly existence as a human being as the eternal Son of the eternal Father.  The Son did not come into existence as a new person when He was “born of a woman;” rather the eternal Person of the Son now assumed our human nature and began to live as Jesus of Nazareth, “born under the law.” Being “born of a woman” affirms his true humanity, that Jesus is one of us.  Being “born under the law” affirms his unique role within the messianic role that Israel was destined to have among the nations.

One of the most well-known and theologically-rich hymns that we sing is found in the Vespers of the Nativity.  Actually, this hymn combines a keen sense of how God acts within history together with yet another glorification of the Incarnation:

When Augustus ruled alone upon the earth, the many kingdoms of men came to an end, and when Thou wast made man of the pure virgin, the many gods of idolatry were destroyed.
The cities of the world passed under one single rule, and the nations came to believe in one sovereign Godhead.
The peoples were enrolled by the decree of Caesar, and we the faithful were enrolled in the Name of the Godhead,
when Thou, our God, wast made man.

Great is Thy mercy, O Lord!  Glory to Thee!

This magnificent hymn is clearly expanding upon the Gospel of St. Luke’s account of the historical conditions under which Christ entered the world:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.  This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.  (LK. 2:1-2)

Caesar Augustus was the first Roman emperor (27 B.C. – 14 A.D.), and he inaugurated the “glory days of Rome” during the early years of Christ’s life.  In fact, it is said that he inaugurated the pax romana, the Roman peace that supposedly made for a more stable and less militant world.  Everything from Roman roads to Roman administration served the Empire and the peaceful world that the Empire protected and prolonged.  For this Augustus was even called “Lord” and “Savior.”  This was, of course, a political conceit because it was Rome’s military might that ruled the world of the Mediterranean and ruthlessly suppressed any sign of dissidence.  Roman taxation and Roman garrisons throughout the Empire were oppressive rather than liberating.  This was especially true in Israel, where the Roman presence was a cause of great anguish, for how could the People of God be ruled by Caesar and not the Lord who expressed His will for the destiny of Israel by the revelation of the Law? 

It was into this world that the Son of God was incarnate.  He was a King, but a King who did not rule by coercion supported by militant means.  For His Kingdom was that of God, and through His teaching the virtues implanted in the minds and hearts of human beings were meant to first inwardly transform lives so that peace could radiate outwardly from the inward source of a repentant heart oriented toward God.  St. Luke was being polemical, if you like, by revealing to us the “real” Lord and Savior in the nativity of Jesus of Nazareth.  That particular point in time – an event that has led us to calculate time differently – was the “fullness of time” when God acted on our behalf and for our salvation.  Our hearts should not be directed to Augustus, or to whatever political power may rule with endless promises of prosperity and peace:  “Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men in whom there is no salvation.”  The evangelist is directing our hearts toward the mystery revealed in Bethlehem, when both the cosmos and the world – represented by angels and humble shepherds – joined together in praising and worshiping the newborn child wrapped in swaddling clothes.  There is not a great deal of room left here for sentimentality and warm feelings.  St. Luke is revealing a particular historical theology that reveals that God acts within human history to redeem us from the horrors of sin and death.  For the Child will eventually His life up on the Cross for our salvation.

As we approach the festal date of December 25, I hope that our attention and our hearts can focus on the mystery of the Incarnation.  If we plan appropriately, we can be sure that before all else we are committed to be in church in order to worship Christ, the Son of God who entered the world “when the time had fully come.”  The forty-day Advent Fast culminates in the Feast of the Lord’s advent into the world in the flesh.  As Israel was prepared by God to receive its Messiah, we have been prepared within the Church to again actualize this Mystery hidden before the ages but now revealed to us within the Church.  The festal Liturgy on the morning of December 25 needs to take precedent over all of our other warm family traditions that are meant to further fill our homes with the radiant presence of Christ.  How can we properly celebrate Christmas without first being in church to worship the newborn Christ and receive the Eucharist?  I certainly anticipate a church filled with joyful worshipers.  For those who will be out-of-town with family, I further hope that you were able to find an Orthodox church close enough so that you too may worship Christ away from home.   Our humble witness to the world is that we place Christ at the very heart of our lives – as families and as a parish family.

A Heart Untouched?

Dear Parish Faithful,

“Were not ten cleansed?  Where are the nine?” (LK. 17:17)

In St. Basil the Great’s First Prayer in Preparation for Holy Communion, he acknowledges – and we acknowledge along with him when we offer this prayer up to God – that we are so often “thankless and graceless.”  St. Basil makes this claim after enumerating what “Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ our God” has done for us:  taken on our human nature, suffered crucifixion for our sake, and renewed our human nature by His own blood.  Yet still, says the saint, we remain “thankless and graceless.”  So much for building up our self-esteem!  Is that in reality a pious and rhetorical exaggeration embedded in a prayer meant to inspire genuine feeling within us; or has St. Basil simply articulated a “hard truth” about our human nature “corrupted by sin” - to borrow yet another phrase from his magnificent prayer?

Based on experience, it is hard not to believe that St. Basil is correct in his over-all assessment, and that he has done us a great service in reminding of this unfortunate characteristic of our human nature, a characteristic brought to life vividly in the Gospel narrative of Christ healing ten lepers, but only being thanked by one of them – and that one was a Samaritan!  (LK. 17:11-19)  The failure of nine lepers to return to Christ and offer thanksgiving is singled out for an unflattering comment; while the return of the Samaritan leper is singled out for open praise.  Christ most certainly does not need or demand our thanksgiving!  What he pointed out was for the sake of those healed and for those who witnessed the healing.  Healing is meant to touch the body and the “heart,”  so that the healed one’s life is totally redirected toward God.  Sometimes, however, the body can be healed, but the heart left untouched. That Gospel passage – heard just last Sunday – is a reminder that we can fall prey to just such a temptation:  to have been healed by Christ and yet to either “forget” to return to Him in thanksgiving; find other distractions more compelling; or simply to do so in outward form only.  I just coincidentally read in a book about another ecclesiastical figure that the famous Western medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas, wrote in his Summa Theologiae:  “It is evident that every ingratitude is a sin.”  That was based on the logic that since gratitude and thankfulness were virtues, their opposite must be a sin.  However one may assess that “scholastic” logic, it seems to ring true.

In Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s classic work, For the Life of the World, we heard his unique voice recalling our initial vocation to be “eucharistic beings,” human beings who offer gratitude and thanksgiving to God in the full awareness that all things come from God and have the potential to lead us further toward God.  This includes the very food that we eat on a daily basis.  We can eat and drink unto ourselves, and thus we eat and drink ultimately unto death.  Or we eat and drink to the glory of God, and then food becomes sacramental as a means of uniting us with God.  Our heavenly Father restored the eucharistic meaning of food precisely in the Eucharist, when He gave to us the flesh and blood of the Son of Man for our lives and “for the life of the world.”  The bread and wine represent all food and all life as offered up to God in a spirit of profound thanksgiving to the very Source of life.  We, in turn, receive this food back now as Holy Communion, through which we are united to Christ and have Christ dwelling within us.  Fr. Schmemann captures this approach to life in his chapter entitled, simply, “The Eucharist:”

When man stands before the throne of God, when he has fulfilled all that God has given him to fulfill, when all sins are forgiven, all joy restored, then there is nothing else for him to do but to give thanks.  Eucharist (thanksgiving) is the life of paradise.  Eucharist is the only full and real response of man to God’s creation, redemption and gift of heaven.  But this perfect man who stands before God is Christ.  In Him alone all that God has given man was fulfilled and brought back to heaven.  He alone is the perfect Eucharistic Being.  He is the Eucharist of the world. In and through this Eucharist the whole creation becomes what it always was to be and yet failed to be. (p. 38)

I hope that you will agree with me that to say we have a great deal to be thankful for is a massive understatement.  This does not refer to what we have but to who we are:  sinners now healed by Christ and made worthy to enter the Kingdom of God.  The “leprosy” of our sin has been cleansed away.  Now we need to turn back to the source of our healing, praise God with a loud voice, and fall down at the feet of Jesus and give Him thanks.   Just like the Samaritan.