Rejoicing on Pascha

Hallelujah! Christ is risen!

I love Easter. I love it more when the Christian community, East and West, by delightful coincidence happens to be celebrating it on the same day, but on years like this, when they don't, I do my best to look at the silver lining: I get twice as many resurrected Christs. My intent had been to share another passage from John of Sinai today, but he has nothing very pleasant to say about Easter.

The gluttonous monk...counts the days to Easter, and for days in advance he gets the food ready. The slave of his belly ponders the menu with which to celebrate the feast. The servant of God, however, thinks of the graces that may enrich him.

Joy and consolation descend on the perfect when they reach the state of complete detachment. The warrior monk enjoys the heat of battle, but the slave of passion revels in the celebrations of Easter. In his heart, the glutton dreams only of food and provisions whereas all who have the gift of mourning think only of judgment and of punishment.

Well, I'm not a warrior monk, and I left my mourning on Great and Holy Saturday where it belongs. I suppose there is a reason why John of Sinai is standard Lenten reading for the Orthodox and not standard Easter reading. Though I admit the possibility that this is duplicitous of me, and I'm sure John of Sinai would accuse me of just that, but I'd like to think that I can think both of the physical feast and of the spiritual feast afforded by the resurrection. In fact, I rather like to believe that the two are related. With sacramental flavor, the feasts of holy days are intended to make tangible to our bodies and minds--more accustomed and attuned to the immediacy of physical stimuli than spiritual ones--the great joy which we have received from God. Today being the remembrance of that consummate joy of Christian existence, I intend to make that as holistic an experience as possible, letting my body partake of the joy of my heart, and vice versa. I can only hope that God consecrates that effort rather, and I don't run headlong into gluttony and dissipation.

On that note, happy Easter everyone (even those of you who thought Easter was more than a month ago).

The New Pope on Easter

Most people are getting a little weary of hearing about Pope Francis. (I'm not; I'm getting weary of people complaining about how much they are talking about him.) Whose feet is he washing? What did he say about gay marriage? Is he talking to Kirill? How significant is his provenance? His order? His papal name? Etc. It is easy to forget in all this interpretive tumult that the pope is still the spiritual icon for one seventh of the world's population, one who has a message that is not hidden beneath layers of ambiguous action and mysterious origin. He offers these wonderful thoughts for the Easter Vigil:

Dear brothers and sisters, let us not be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives! Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him.

Here is the essence of Easter, distilled and repackaged to meet the world's needs in this moment. The conquest over death is not merely a soteriological mechanism but a testimony to the efficacy of divine action. There is no recession that is more destructive than death, no sorrow which can match its permanence, no wound which can mirror its absoluteness. It is the content of our greatest tragedies and the aim and consequence of our most viscous sins. Yet God took it and transformed it, not into something marginally less terrible but into life itself. It is precisely because of this confidence display of power that we can turn to salvation, that we can expect our own deaths--the individual and the corporate deaths, the physical and the existential deaths--to be transformed ultimately into the eternal life promised for those who love him. In a world acutely aware of its own sufferings and dogged by its own perpetual inability to cure them through its chosen devices, the pope has echoed the psalmist who finds in the fidelity and potency of God the redemptive power of hope: "This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life."

Christos Anesti!

With all the eggs found, all the chocolate bunnies devoured, and all the peeps microwaved, most of us have allowed the resurrection of Christ to pass from our minds (if it was ever there at all). It would benefit Western Christians, however, to remember that there are still hundreds of millions of Christians around the world who are celebrating the central moment in the Christian narrative today. Let me offer, for your consideration, a selection from the paschal encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarch:

If Christ’s Resurrection referred to Himself, then its significance for us would be negligible. The Church proclaims, however, that, the Lord did not arise alone. Together with Himself, He also resurrected all people. This is how our predecessor, St. John Chrysostom, proclaims this great truth in thunderous language: “Christ is risen, and none are left dead in the grave; for in being raised from the dead, he became the first-fruits of all who were asleep.” This means that Christ became the first-fruits of the resurrection of all who have fallen asleep and who will fall asleep in the future, as well as of their transition from death to life. The message is a joyful one for us all because, with His Resurrection Christ abolished the power of death. Those who believe in Him await the resurrection of the dead and are accordingly baptized in His death, rise with Him and live on in life eternal.

The world that is alienated from Christ endeavors to amass material goods because it bases its hopes for survival on them. It unwisely imagines that it will escape death through wealth. Deceived in this way to amass wealth, supposedly to extend their present life, human beings disperse death among others, too. They deny others the financial possibility of survival, often even violently depriving others of life, in the hope of preserving their own life.

How tragic! What a huge deception. For life is only acquired through faith in Christ and incorporation in His body...This means that it is no longer necessary to search for the “fountain of immortality.” Immortality exists in Christ and is offered by Him to all.

There is no need for some nations to be destroyed in order for other nations to survive. Nor is there any need to destroy defenseless human lives so that other human beings may live in greater comfort. Christ offers life to all people, on earth as in heaven. He is risen, and all those who so desire life may follow Him on the way of Resurrection. By contrast, all those who bring about death, whether indirectly or directly, believing that in this way they are prolonging or enhancing their own life, condemn themselves to eternal death.

John of Damascus for Easter

Come, and let us drink of that New River,
Not from barren Rock divinely poured,
But the Fount of Life that is for ever
From the Sepulchre of CHRIST the LORD.

All the world hath bright illumination,—
Heav’n and Earth and things beneath the earth:
’Tis the Festival of all Creation:
CHRIST hath ris’n, Who gave Creation birth:

Yesterday with Thee in burial lying,
Now today with Thee aris’n I rise;
Yesterday the partner of Thy dying,
With Thyself upraise me to the skies.

John of Damascus for Holy Saturday

Into the dim earth’s lowest parts descending,
And bursting by Thy might the infernal chain
That bound the prisoners, Thou, at three days’ ending,
As Jonah from the whale, hast risen again.

Thou brakest not the seal, Thy surety’s token,
Arising from the Tomb Who left’st in Birth
The portals of Virginity unbroken,
Opening the gates of heaven to sons of earth.

Thou, Sacrifice ineffable and living,
Didst to the FATHER by Thyself atone
As GOD eternal: resurrection giving
To Adam, general parent, by Thine own.

Gregory the Theologian for Good Friday

O Thou, the Word of truth divine!
All light I have not been,
Nor kept the day as wholly Thine;
For Thou dark spots hast seen.

The day is down: night hath prevailed:
My Lord I have belied;
I vowed, and thought to do, but failed;
My steps did somewhere slide.

There came a darkness from below
Obscuring safety's way.
Thy light, O Christ, again bestow;
Turn darkness into day.

Easter

Christ is risen!

Easter is always a bittersweet time for me. Just as, paradoxically, the beginning of Lent is always a happy occurrence so with Easter there is a tinge of sorrow. It marks the end of the great fast and my favorite time of year, liturgically. The various Christian bodies will go off to observe their separate traditions (or ignore tradition altogether) and the spiritual unanimity of the paschal season will be lost. This is particularly true now because it will be several years yet before the Eastern and Western Easter calendars align again like they have for the past two years.

The real bitterness, though, is in reflection on my own spiritual state at the end of the fast. Easter and its magnificence throws into sharp relief all my own short comings of the past six weeks. Every time I may have broken fast or neglected the spirit of the fast or even every time I didn’t anoint my head with oil. Recently, I had focused so much of my concern on persevering until the end, that I overlooked the startling craftiness of the devil. The real trial of fasting is not that we might grow weary of it but that we shouldn’t. In our weariness, we meet God. He has a heart for the broken, the weak, and the longing. The real snare that our enemy sets for us is arrogance, the confidence that we can persevere. We become so comfortable in our deprivation that we forget that our success depends on God or else we allow our resolve to slip into the background and begin to fill the void we have created by fasting with a substitute both for the object or behavior we are abstaining from and for the God who ought to be our satisfaction in its stead.

And yet wonderfully, mystically, beautifully therein lies the indomitable joy of Easter. It came anyway. It didn’t matter that I failed on so many levels. It didn’t matter that beneath all the apparent unity in our Christian observance there lingered seeds of discord. It didn’t matter that some didn’t fast and never fast. None of it mattered. None of our sins were ever enough to keep Christ in the grave. Before time and outside of time he knew just how pathetic I would be, but he still created me, still came for me, still died for me, and still rose then and today as a conqueror over the darkness that I am inadequate to overcome.

The veil has been torn, the stone has been rolled away, death has been swallowed up in victory, and Jesus Christ--praise to his name--is risen.

And the church said: amen.

Pascha

Christ the Lord is risen today. Hallelujah!

Gregory the Theologian, Oration 1:

It is the Day of the Resurrection, and my Beginning has good auspices. Let us then keep the Festival with splendor, and let us embrace one another. Let us say Brethren, even to those who hate us; much more to those who have done or suffered aught out of love for us. Let us forgive all offences for the Resurrection’s sake: let us give one another pardon.

Yesterday the Lamb was slain and the door-posts were anointed, and Egypt bewailed her Firstborn, and the Destroyer passed us over, and the Seal was dreadful and reverend, and we were walled in with the Precious Blood. To-day we have escaped from Egypt and from Pharaoh; and there is none to hinder us from keeping a Feast to the Lord our God—the Feast of our Departure; or from celebrating that Feast, not in the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, carrying with us nothing of ungodly and Egyptian leaven.

Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; to-day I am quickened with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; to-day I rise with Him. But let us offer to Him Who suffered and rose again for us—you will think perhaps that I am going to say gold, or silver, or woven work or transparent and costly stones, the mere passing material of earth, that remains here below, and is for the most part always possessed by bad men, slaves of the world and of the Prince of the world. Let us offer ourselves, the possession most precious to God, and most fitting; let us give back to the Image what is made after the Image. Let us recognize our Dignity; let us honor our Archetype; let us know the power of the Mystery, and for what Christ died.

Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become God’s for His sake, since He for ours became Man. He assumed the worse that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich;2537 He took upon Him the form of a servant that we might receive back our liberty; He came down that we might be exalted; He was tempted that we might conquer; He was dishonored that He might glorify us; He died that He might save us; He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who were lying low in the Fall of sin. Let us give all, offer all, to Him Who gave Himself a Ransom and a Reconciliation for us. But one can give nothing like oneself, understanding the Mystery, and becoming for His sake all that He became for ours.

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures:

Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and keep high festival, all ye that love Jesus; for He is risen. Rejoice, all ye that mourned before, when ye heard of the daring and wicked deeds of the Jews: for He who was spitefully entreated of them in this place is risen again. And as the discourse concerning the Cross was a sorrowful one, so let the good tidings of the Resurrection bring joy to the hearers. Let mourning be turned into gladness, and lamentation to joy: and let our mouth be filled with joy and gladness, because of Him, who after His resurrection, said Rejoice. For I know the sorrow of Christ’s friends in these past days; because, as our discourse stopped short at the Death and the Burial, and did not tell the good tidings of the Resurrection, your mind was in suspense, to hear what you were longing for.

Now, therefore, the Dead is risen, He who was free among the dead, and the deliverer of the dead. He who in dishonor wore patiently the crown of thorns, even He arose, and crowned Himself with the diadem of His victory over death.

Venatius Honorius, On Easter:

O Christ, Thou Saviour of the world, merciful Creator and Redeemer, the only offspring from the Godhead of the Father, flowing in an indescribable manner from the heart of Thy Parent, Thou self-existing Word, and powerful from the mouth of Thy Father, equal to Him, of one mind with Him, His fellow, coeval with the Father, from whom at first the world derived its origin! Thou dost suspend the firmament, Thou heapest together the soil, Thou dost pour forth the seas, by whose government all things which are fixed in their places flourish. Who seeing that the human race was plunged in the depth of misery, that Thou mightest rescue man, didst Thyself also become man: nor wert Thou willing only to be born with a body, but Thou becamest flesh, which endured to be born and to die. Thou dost undergo funeral obsequies, Thyself the author of life and framer of the world, Thou dost enter the path of death, in giving the aid of salvation. The gloomy chains of the infernal law yielded, and chaos feared to be pressed by the presence of the light. Darkness perishes, put to flight by the brightness of Christ; the thick pall of eternal night falls. But restore the promised pledge, I pray Thee, O power benign! The third day has returned; arise, my buried One; it is not becoming that Thy limbs should lie in the lowly sepulchre, nor that worthless stones should press that which is the ransom of the world. It is unworthy that a stone should shut in with a confining rock, and cover Him in whose fist all things are enclosed. Take away the linen clothes, I pray; leave the napkins in the tomb: Thou art sufficient for us, and without Thee there is nothing. Release the chained shades of the infernal prison, and recall to the upper regions whatever sinks to the lowest depths. Give back Thy face, that the world may see the light; give back the day which flees from us at Thy death. But returning, O holy conqueror! Thou didst altogether fill the heaven! Tartarus lies depressed, nor retains its rights. The ruler of the lower regions, insatiably opening his hollow jaws, who has always been a spoiler, becomes a prey to Thee. Thou rescuest an innumerable people from the prison of death, and they follow in freedom to the place whither their leader approaches. The fierce monster in alarm vomits forth the multitude whom he had swallowed up, and the Lamb withdraws the sheep from the jaw of the wolf.

Melito of Sardis, On Pascha:

But he arose from the dead and mounted up to the heights of heaven. When the Lord had clothed himself with humanity, and had suffered for the sake of the sufferer, and had been bound for the sake of the imprisoned, and had been judged for the sake of the condemned, and buried for the sake of the one who was buried, he rose up from the dead, and cried aloud with this voice: Who is he who contends with me? Let him stand in opposition to me. I set the condemned man free; I gave the dead man life; I raised up the one who had been entombed.

“Who is my opponent? I,” he says, “am the Christ.”

“I am the one who destroyed death, and triumphed over the enemy, and trampled Hades under foot, and bound the strong one, and carried off man to the heights of heaven, I,” he says, “am the Christ.”

“Therefore, come, all families of men, you who have been befouled with sins, and receive forgiveness for your sins. I am your forgiveness, I am the Passover of your salvation, I am the lamb which was sacrificed for you, I am your ransom, I am your light, I am your saviour, I am your resurrection, I am your king, I am leading you up to the heights of heaven, I will show you the eternal Father, I will raise you up by my right hand.”

This is the one who made the heavens and the earth, and who in the beginning created man, who was proclaimed through the law and prophets, who became human via the virgin, who was hanged upon a tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected from the dead, and who ascended to the heights of heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father, who has authority to judge and to save everything, through whom the Father created everything from the beginning of the world to the end of the age. This is the alpha and the omega. This is the beginning and the end–an indescribable beginning and an incomprehensible end. This is the Christ. This is the king. This is Jesus. This is the general. This is the Lord. This is the one who rose up from the dead. This is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. He bears the Father and is borne by the Father, to whom be the glory and the power forever. Amen.

Holy and Great Saturday

The Sabbath is the day of rest, when in the beginning God did not merely complete creation by passively ceasing to create but by actively declaring finality. It would not suffice to create man on the sixth day and then proceed immediately into the daily business of the cosmos. God positively declared completion, and with that completion rest.

But creation was by no means complete. Humanity was by no means complete. God, who had once reached His hand into the dust to form man and into the breast of man to form woman, would have to interject Himself into the world even more profoundly to rescue man from his own corruption. Rather than merely picking up the stuff of man in order to create him, God took on the very nature of man in order to recreate him.

So when Jesus cried out on the cross "It is finished" and gave up his spirit, we know that there is still something yet to come. Just as in Genesis 1, God takes a day of rest after His work comes to fruition, and we wait as he lays in the tomb for the recreation that we yearn for.

It is not, however, an idle passing of time awaiting an inevitable conclusion. It is an active time of preparation. We have heard the promises, and we believe. While Christ descends into death, we await with bated breath and focused hearts for the moment of his triumphant conquest over the tomb. We gird up our loins, so that at the moment of his return we may be found ready.

To this, I add the sentiments of the fourth century bishop and poet Synesius:

All-glorious Thou with many a crown!
Thou didst to wretched earth come down,
To dwell with man by death assailed,
Thyself in mortal body veiled;
And Thou dark Tartarus didst tread,
Midst countless nations of the dead,
Then Hades, ancient-born, amazed,
Did shudder as on Thee he gazed;
And the all-devouring savage hound
Backward recoiled with frightened bound.
But lo! to holy souls, oppressed
With direful woes, Thou gavest rest,
That they in chorus led by Thee,
To praise the Father might be free.

We interrupt this Easter for a word from our sponsors...

I am not normally political. The mixing of church and state is repugnant to me on the deepest levels of my conscience. That is why I do not inject my religion into politics, and why I am infuriated this morning to read how President Obama has injected politics into my faith. Regardless of the merit of health care or education reform, the politicization of Easter is utterly meritless. The death of Christ Jesus is not a tool to be employed for our devices, but an implement of God’s divine will meant to act on humanity. To that end, I have a few correctives I would like to apply to the presidents heinous speech:*

"On this Easter weekend, let us hold fast to those aspirations we hold in common as brothers and sisters, as members of the same family — the family of man."

But there is no “family of man,” because a family united by our humanity is nothing more than an evolutionary accident. It is a family without a father, and without the Father there is nothing which binds me to you as a brother. We are one in the “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

Work is important to people's security and dignity, Obama said. “…as human beings, we seek not only the security, but the sense of dignity, the sense of community, that work confers.”

But as Christians, and at Easter most of all, we remember that our security comes in the unmitigated sovereignty of he who died for us, our dignity is derived from association with his majesty, and our community is one formed in and cemented by the blood of one Lord, with one hope and one faith and one baptism.

“Our health is the rock upon which our lives are built, for better and for worse.”

“Who is the Rock except our God?” If my life is built upon the rock of my health, then everything that I am and everything that I touch really is “just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” My life must be founded on a firmer rock; rocks greater than the ones that trembled and split at the moment of my savior’s death, and much greater than the stone which tried in vain to contain the Lord of Hosts in his tomb. My rock is the “Rock of Israel.” “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

“All of us are striving to make a way in this world; to build a purposeful and fulfilling life in the fleeting time we have here. A dignified life. A healthy life. A life, true to its potential. And a life that serves others. These are aspirations that stretch back through the ages – aspirations at the heart of Judaism, at the heart of Christianity.”

The true aspiration of Christianity and the true message of Easter is one that transcends, even contravenes, human striving. It cries out against human self-sufficiency, our ability to achieve anything, be it dignity, healthy, or a truly fulfilling life. With the same voice it triumphantly announces that we may expect greater things than we ever imagined we could by our futile human striving, through one whose ways are ineffably higher than our own. This is the one who said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”

“Do you believe this?”

*This post quotes, in addition to Scripture, the presidential address and the news article which alerted me to it.

Holy and Great Friday

“Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” – 1 Petet 2:21b-24


Today God died. Churches and their keepers are robed in black. Christians fast and mourn. If we learned our own humility in response to God through the humility of God in the past two days, how much more should we be humiliated that by our own self-gratifying volition we have chosen for the innocent to suffer. We should weep at the depths of our depravity and the cost of our sin.

And yet, in my heart I secretly glory at the thought of it. How ironic it is, how divinely ironic, that at God’s weakest, at His most vulnerable, that He should win His greatest victory. And on my behalf no less. As much as it pains me, infinitely more it causes me to rejoice. We ought to weep today - the whole earth who mourned the death of God on the cross – but we also ought to be able to taste the ecstasy of Easter already. Like children who know how the story ends, we should rush headlong in our hearts to the triumph of God with praise on our lips and elation in our hearts.

Cyril of Jerusalem (selections from his Catechetical Lecture "On the Words 'Crucified' and 'Buried'"):

Every deed of Christ is a cause of glorying to the Catholic Church, but her greatest of all glorying is in the Cross; and knowing this, Paul says, But God forbid that I should glory, save in
the Cross of Christ.

For wondrous indeed it was, that one who was blind from his birth should receive sight in Siloam; but what is this compared with the blind of the whole world?

A great thing it was, and passing nature, for Lazarus to rise again on the fourth day; but the grace extended to him alone, and what was it compared with the dead in sins throughout the world?

Marvelous it was, that five loaves should pour forth food for the five thousand; but what is that to those who are famishing in ignorance through all the world?

It was marvelous that she should have been loosed who had been bound by Satan eighteen years: yet what is this to all of us, who were fast bound in the chains of our sins?

But the glory of the Cross led those who were blind through ignorance into light, loosed all who were held fast by sin, and ransomed the whole world of mankind. And wonder not that the whole world was ransomed; for it was no mere man, but the only-begotten Son of God, who died on its behalf. Moreover one man’s sin, even Adam’s, had power to bring death to the world; but if by the trespass of the one death reigned over the world, how shall not life much rather reign by the righteousness of the One? And if because of the tree of food they were then cast out of paradise, shall not believers now more easily enter into paradise because of the Tree of Jesus? If the first man formed out of the earth brought in universal death, shall not He who formed him out of the earth bring in eternal life, being Himself the Life? If Phineas, when he waxed zealous and slew the evil-doer, staved the wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew not another, but gave up Himself for a ransom, put away the wrath which is against mankind?

Let us then not be ashamed of the Cross of our Saviour, but rather glory in it.

Take therefore first, as an indestructible foundation, the Cross, and build upon it the other articles of the faith. Deny not the Crucified; for, if thou deny Him, thou hast many to arraign thee.

Judas the traitor will arraign thee first; for he who betrayed Him knows that He was condemned to death by the chief-priests and elders. The thirty pieces of silver bear witness; Gethsemane bears witness, where the betrayal occurred; I speak not yet of the Mount of Olives, on which they were with Him at night, praying. The moon in the night bears witness; the day bears witness, and the sun which was darkened; for it endured not to look on the crime of the conspirators.

The fire will arraign thee, by which Peter stood and warmed himself; if thou deny the Cross, the eternal fire awaits thee. I speak hard words, that thou may not experience hard pains. Remember the swords that came against Him in Gethsemane, that thou feel not the eternal sword.

The house of Caiaphas will arraign thee, showing by its present desolation the power of Him who was erewhile judged there. Yea, Caiaphas himself will rise up against thee in the day of judgment, the very servant will rise up against thee, who smote Jesus with the palm of his hand; they also who bound Him, and they who led Him away.

Even Herod shall rise up against thee; and Pilate; as if saying, “Why deniest thou Him who was slandered before us by the Jews, and whom we knew to have done no wrong?” For I Pilate then washed my hands. The false witnesses shall rise up against thee, and the soldiers who arrayed Him in the purple robe, and set on Him the crown of thorns, and crucified Him in Golgotha, and cast lots for His coat.

Simon the Cyrenian will cry out upon thee, who bore the Cross after Jesus.

From among the stars there will cry out upon thee, the darkened Sun; among the things upon earth, the Wine mingled with myrrh; among reeds, the Reed; among herbs, the Hyssop; among the things of the sea, the Sponge; among trees, the Wood of the Cross;

The soldiers, too, as I have said, who nailed Him, and cast lots for His vesture; the soldier who pierced His side with the spear; the women who then were present; the veil of the temple then rent asunder; the hall of Pilate, now laid waste by the power of Him who was then crucified; this holy Golgotha, which stands high above us, and shows itself to this day, and displays even yet how because of Christ the rocks were then riven

Thou hast Twelve Apostles, witnesses of the Cross; and the whole earth, and the world of men who believe on Him who hung thereon. Let thy very presence here now persuade thee of the power of the Crucified. For who now brought thee to this assembly? What soldiers? With what bonds wast thou constrained? What sentence held thee fast here now? Nay, it was the Trophy of salvation, the Cross of Jesus that brought you all together…that we may glory, exulting in the Cross, worshipping the Lord who was sent, and crucified for us, and worshipping also God His Father who sent Him, with the Holy Ghost:

To whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Holy and Great Thursday

The name in Western churches today is Maundy Thursday, derived from a Latin reference to Jesus washing of the disciples feet. Continuing the theme of humility begun yesterday, there could hardly be a more appropriate image on which to focus. The vast differences in human responses to God have been considered, ranging from self-abasement at the feet of God to the greatest hubris whereby the created presumes to destroy the Creator . Yet, Jesus Christ, in God's infinitely wise ways, loves us before we loved him and humbles himself to us before we humbled ourselves to him. He provides for us an example for all time. When Mary anointed Jesus' feet at Bethany she gave him infinitely less than was his due. When Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, he lowered himself to a position so diametrically opposed to his actual station that to consider it ought to be laughable to us.

Nevertheless, God's "folly" has given us a profound lesson in humility. Our humility is not to be the result of a calculated appraisal of our worth relative to others. We do not realize that we are less than God, and be humble towards him, only to decide that we are better than some of our peers and feel justified in our arrogant treatment of them. Jesus has demonstrated that humility is a state of being before God, a commitment to the service of God through the service of His entire creation. It isn't based on our quantifiable worthlessness but on his unquantifiable worthiness.

Thus, Augustine exhorts:

Pride is the source of all diseases, because pride is the source of all sins...Therefore, that the cause of all diseases might be cured, namely pride, the Son of God came down and was made humble. Why are you proud, o man? God was made humble for you. Perhaps you would be ashamed to imitate a humble man; at least imitate a humble God.*

*Quoted from Joseph M. Hallman's The Descent of God.

Holy and Great Wednesday

As Easter approaches, each day takes on a new significance. On Holy and Great Wednesday, remembrance is made of the anointing at Bethany and of Judas' decision to betray Jesus. Both these events should inspire us a radical humility. They represent the total depths of human sinfulness and the most appropriate and most inappropriate possible responses to that sinfulness.

On the one hand, there is Judas who looks on the image of his creator and is so overcome by lust for sin that he conspires to destroy the one who created him. The radical irony of this cannot be overstated. When faced with the one who came to remove his sins, Judas reacted with even greater sin. When faced with the one who came in mercy, Judas turned him over to the merciless. When faced with perfection, Judas deepens his own imperfection and labels the blameless one a criminal. He meets sincerity with hypocrisy, purity with defilement, love with hate, not only for the one who loves him, but by implication for himself as well. After all, what could be more self-destructive, more self-loathing than the respond to salvation with total rejection.

Then there is the woman, scandalous and sinful though she was, who met the divine with the truly appropriate posture: on the ground, humbly making an offering to God. Where Judas became so consumed with his own desires that those desires consumed him, Mary empties herself totally for the one who would empty himself for her. She debases herself for the one who was ineffably debased on her behalf. She washes the feet of the one who washes our souls, and makes fragrant the one whose fragrance we are to become to the world. It is a beautiful juxtaposition of human inclination towards God, and one that should inculcate in us a spirit of humility and imitation.

To that end, Hesychios the Priest offers some practical advice on achieving humility to consider:

If we are concerned with our salvation, there are many things the intellect can do in order to secure for us the blessed gift of humility. For example, it can recollect the sins we have committed in word, action and thought; and there are many things other things which, reviewed in contemplation, contribute to our humility. True humility is brought about by meditating daily on the achievements of our brethren, by extolling their natural superiorities and by comparing our gifts with theirs. When the intellect sees in this way how worthless we are and how far we fall short of the perfection of our brethren we will regard ourselves as dust and ashes, and not as men but as some kind of cur, more defective in every respect and lower than all men on earth.