St Peters Orthodox Church

How wondrous is the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. His disciples witnessed Christ's flesh and blood ascend into Heaven. The angels were amazed as they saw the Word of God with humanity joined to Himself ascend through them and beyond them. And, as Christ ascends, in Himself all humanity is brought directly before the Father. In His Ascension, our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to be the door to paradise, the ladder of our own ascension, and our Great High Priest eternally standing before the Father on our behalf that we might be saved.

In the Gospel of St. John 16, Jesus prepares His disciples for His Ascension, saying that He is returning to the Father. Knowing that they had sorrow over what He had said, our Lord encourages them by telling them that it is to their advantage that He leave them. For if He leaves them, He will send the Paraclete to them. That word Paraclete describing the Holy Spirit means comforter, helper, and advocate. It is the Holy Spirit that takes what is Christ's and gives it to us. God the Holy Spirit is such a source of illumination that shines into our souls. That illumination transforms our whole being giving us great comfort and bringing rest to our soul.

In John 16, our Lord Jesus Christ tells prepares His disciples for the time He will be betrayed and taken from them. He gives them hope of the joy that they will experience when they see Him again. At the same time, He is speaking to them and us of the last days between His Ascension and His second and final coming; we will call it today the age of the in between. What encouragement can we draw from our Lord's words in this passage? Our Lord teaches us in this reading how we should live in and from Him in the midst of the sufferings of this age.

The second Sunday after Pascha is the Sunday of Christ the Good Shepherd. In the Gospel of St. John 10, Jesus says "I am the Good Shepherd. I am the door of my sheep. I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father." Today we look at two aspects of the Nature of Christ our Good Shepherd. His Nature is to bind us up and heal us through Himself within Himself. And His Nature is that of a gatherer Who gives life as opposed to our enemy whose nature is to scatter and destroy.

Today on the first day after Pascha, we have the testimony of the faith of Thomas. Thomas, one who would be an Apostle and later a Saint, is given too often a bad wrap in some circles being referred to as "doubting Thomas." If Thomas was "doubting Thomas" then all of Christ's disciples were "doubting disciples." And we, His adopted sons and daughters must be labeled the same. The Christian journey is one from unbelief to belief every day. The key to our faith maturing and our believing is by placing ourselves in a position of encountering our risen Savior daily. For it is only the very real experience of the Living Christ that grants faith and heals the human soul.

As is tradition each year in the Orthodox Church, on this day we hear the blessed Paschal homily once preached by St. John Chrysostom.

As the Paschal Candle is first lit from the first fire struck of the Resurrection, we pray "May the light of Christ gloriously rising scatter the darkness of heart and mind." When Christ our God willingly gave up His ghost on the Cross, He immediately descended into the dark prison of Hades where every soul from Adam and Eve to that moment were held captive. He broke the gates of Hades open and bound Satan, crushing the serpent's head as prophesied in Genesis. There He revealed Himself in all of His glory and preached to all of those souls. The light dispelled the darkness. When light meets darkness, light always wins. If the light of Christ our God did this in Hades, do we not see what He can do in each and every soul He created? His light has descended into our Hades so that we may see Him and ascend with Him as well.

The death of our Lord Jesus Christ preceded His Resurrection. As Christ our God said in the Gospels, "Only when a grain of wheat falls in the ground and dies does it produce many seeds." Our fallenness must die with Christ and by His grace upon the Cross we have been commanded to take up as we live a life to follow Jesus. Only through that life of blessed repentance do we experience the wonder of the healing power of Christ that comes through the Cross granting us the experience of the Resurrection.

At the Mass of Maundy Thursday, two critical events done very intentionally by Christ our God are set before us to behold: Jesus' institution of the Eucharist with His disciples and His washing of their feet. In both, Jesus reveals to us His very Nature; a nature that by His grace we can now ascend to become. Tonight we gaze upon the love of God that we will eternally grow to comprehend, that we might be transformed into what we see in Christ our God.

The Orthodox Faith has a word describing the Incarnation that saves us all. That word is kenosis which is the self-lowering of the Word of God, by His own will entirely, that we may be raised up again. As we once again set the eyes of our soul to see Him in His Passion tonight, we consider many of the wondrous revelations from the prayer service of the Stations of the Cross showing forth just how far Christ our God lowered himself so that we might Ascend.

In the Orthodox Faith, we are taught that when we see the Cross we see our Deliverer and the instrument of our deliverance. Yes, our Lord suffered and was in agony upon the Cross. His suffering shows forth His unfathomable love for every soul. But, as St. Paul says, the Christian is to glory in the Cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is the wood of Aaron's rod that budded with life. It is the tree that made the bitter and harmful waters of Marah sweet and life-giving. As the Introit of this Mass reveals, "But as for us, it behoveth us to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, our life, and resurrection; by whom we were saved and obtained our freedom."

On Palm Sunday, God's people rejoiced in the coming of their Savior with palm branches and crying out, "Hosanna," which means Lord save! These same people days later would reject Him shouting "Crucify Him!" While we might see them with great disdain, we should consider the ways in our lives we tend to reject Christ without even knowing we are doing so; the ways we separate ourselves from Him and turn away from Him. Today these ways are examined along with helpful guidance as to how we might grow out of these patterns in our lives.

A sinful woman comes to Christ our God in Bethany. She breaks open an alabaster jar of precious oil and anoints Jesus with the oil and her tears. Jesus says that wherever this Gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will be told as a memorial to her." The Church Fathers teach us that one of the interpretations we must know is that the very valuable alabaster jar of oil represents the soul. True repentance is the broken soul poured out upon Jesus in blessed repentance. In return, Christ our God pours out the oil of His mercy and healing restoring the condition of the souls of mankind.

Today is Passion Sunday. As our Lord Jesus Christ declares Himself publically to be the "I AM" in the Gospel of St. John 8, they took up stones to kill Him for His blasphemy. We are told that Jesus hid from them and passed right through the crowd without them seeing Him. Jesus was hidden from those who had set themselves by their own will against Him, not wanting to see Him for His true identity. But to those who came to Jesus with an open soul knowing their need and crying out for mercy, to them He revealed Himself and healed them. The damage done to the human person from hiding from God goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Today we explore the great downfall of hiding from Christ our God compared to the great blessing of presenting ourselves in all of our brokenness to Him.

Today's Mass is entitled and bears the theme, "Rejoice!" Here in the middle of Lent we are reminded that the life of the Christian is a life of rejoicing in the good works of Christ our God. With this theme, today we consider the role we play in one another's lives by lifting one another up as we share all that God is doing for us. The community of faith, most certainly, shares struggles and bears one another up during times of hardship. But it must equally strengthen each member of the Body of Christ by sharing the wonders God is doing in our lives out of His great love for us.

Every year on March 25th, the Orthodox Church all around the world celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation, for in nine months we will all join together celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ conceived this day. Today we focus on three aspects of the wonder of the Annunciation. We see an Archangel in awe and wonder at the Blessed Virgin Mary. We behold our recreation in the waters of Baptism prefigured this day. And, we see the salvation that occurs as the will of a human is joined to the divine will of God.

In Luke 11, after Jesus casts out a demon that had rendered a man mute, He taught "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils." Jesus was speaking of Satan being the strong man. Then our Lord speaks of Himself as the stronger man that breaks in and steals what the strong man had. From the Fall of mankind to the Incarnation, Satan had been robbing God of what belonged to Him; all of us. But when Jesus came, He rendered the strong man powerless and robbed the robber of what rightfully belonged to God from the beginning. He continues to do this in the soul of everyone who welcomes Christ there. And He let's us be joined to Him and participate in His robbing the robber.

In Lent, as we fast from food we are to also fast with the assistance of God's grace from the sin that so easily entangles us. St. Paul communicates in 1 Thessalonians 4 that the will of God is our sanctification. His paramount will for each of us is that we are transformed, becoming holy as He is holy. As we seek to fast from our sin, how do we approach moments of temptation by Satan and the demonic? Why do we so easily fall when Satan has been robbed of his power and we have been endued with power from on high? Today we reflect upon these matters.

We consider two teachings from the Rule of St. Benedict today, on the first Sunday of Lent. First, "All of our life should be a continual Lent." Secondly, "Practice now the virtues that will serve thee for all eternity." In Lent we strive to simplify our lives and get back to the basics. So many distractions have limited the greatest experience of fellowship we are offered with the Lord our God. And, so, in Lent we allow God to reorder our lives so that our souls may be reordered toward our Savior. We do this so that, after Lent, our lives will continue to ascend out of our disorders and into the blessed order of God that He has truly created us to enjoy.

Today we begin the 40-day fast of Great Lent. But what is the fullness of the fasting that our Lord has prescribed for us. Is it just to limit our food intake and abstain from types of foods? Today we look to the repentance of the people of Nineveh as they put on sackcloth and ashes. But these physical actions were accompanied by turning away from their wicked ways and turning to God. This is true repentance. And the result is that they were spared what they truly deserved and given what they could never earn; the mercy of God. The fullness of Christian fasting is the same. We fast from food, yes. But at the same time we turn from our fallen ways and put on Christ to be about His good works of righteousness. And in that fullness of the fast, He grants His Divine mercy and heals the souls of HIs beloved.