St Peters Orthodox Church

In the Gospel of St. John 5, our Lord comes to the Pool of Bethesda. Many who were blind, lame, or paralyzed came to this pool to be healed; for every so often the waters would be stirred and the first one to enter the waters would be healed. Jesus comes up to a man paralyzed for 38 years and asks him a most interesting question, "Do you want to be healed?" What an important question He asks the man. It is a question our Lord poses to us every day of our lives.

In our Gospel reading from St. Matthew 2, Jesus gives the summary of the Law which is to "love God and love mankind." God is love and our salvation is the healing work He does deep within our soul, restoring us and redeeming us. The result is our becoming like our God. Today's message is a message of simplicity. We cannot become what we do not experience. Unless we allow Christ to love us and show us mercy all throughout our lives, we simply cannot respond to God with love nor love all of those around us with His love.

Today we celebrate All Saints. On this Feast Day we are given a wondrous picture of eternity with Christ for all those who are in Him. At the same time, we are given the teaching of Christ our God from St. Matthew 5. He led them up the mountain and taught them the Beatitudes which reveal to us what we were always created to be; for the Beatitudes show forth the very virtues of Christ our God. How do we become Saints? We allow Christ to transform us from within, healing us and redeeming us. For out of the transformed soul flows the virtues of God.

As we gather together as the Kingdom of Priests, today we pray for all souls. We pray for mercy, forgiveness, and the blessedness of paradise. And as we lift up each name, we visit those who have gone before us like the monastics visit their brother monastics who have gone before them. This remembrance places the gift of our mortality right before us. And mortality is a gift that thrusts us into the saving power of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today we open our eyes to have Jesus Christ as the King of Kings & Lord of Lords revealed to us. On this day, we look at three aspects of His Kingship: What is it that elevated Jesus Christ to the dignity of King of Kings & Lord of Lords? In this present age, this King has set Himself to be our deliverer. And, how will this King appear when He returns again on the last day?

In St. Luke 7, a multitude following Jesus comes to the gate of the city of Nain. At the same time, a funeral procession of a multitude of people for the burial of the dead son of a widow comes to the gate of Nain from within the city. There the procession of death is met with the procession of life, and life always wins. Our Lord is constantly the gate of our soul. Will we both come to the gate and let Him in so that He may raise us from our fallenness?

When the ten lepers came to Jesus crying out for mercy, our Lord sent them to show themselves to the priests. This is precisely what God in Leviticus 14 commanded lepers who had been healed of their leprosy to do. Today we look at the sacrifice to be done on behalf of the healed leper. We find that it is a "type" that is wonderfully fulfilled by the finished work of all. While the nine lepers who did not return had a "thankless forgetfulness" according to the Church Fathers, the one healed leper who returned had a "memory of Christ's mercy." Every liturgy done in the Church is the journey to Christ for the healing of the leprosy of our soul. We experience His healing again and again; and we keep returning to Christ living in the memory of His mercy.

Today is the Feast Day of the Dedication of St. Michael the Archangel and all Angels. Today we have revealed to us that the vastness of the Kingdom of God on earth contains both the seen and the unseen. The prayers Christ has given His Church to pray reveal truths to us; truths about God's Nature and truths about His Kingdom. Today we look at the prayers of the Church as well as Holy Scripture to see in part the angelic ministries God has ordained to assist us in our salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

A deaf and mute man is brought to Christ our God. Jesus, with fingers that can be touched, touches the man's ears so that he could hear. Christ spat on the ground and touched his tongue so that it could speak the praises of the One Who had healed him. Our faith, our healing, our salvation only comes by encountering Christ with our whole being and not just with our intellect. Today we consider how the physical touch of Christ continues through bread and wine, His body and blood; so that we may encounter the Divine and be made like unto Him.

At the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we encounter the fullness of the sufferings she endured as the chosen Mother of Christ our God. Today puts the reality of human suffering right before us; something we will all endure in this life. And today we have great hope that because Christ joined Himself to our suffering, suffering (which our Lord never desired for us) becomes a means for us to encounter Him and know Him in ways we never could before.

In our Gospel reading from St. John 12, looking ahead to His Crucifixion our Lord says these words, "Now is the judgment of this world, now the ruler of this world will be cast out." What judgment of the world and its ruler is our Lord speaking about? The judgment of Satan who deceived and wronged every soul. Tonight we hear the Church Fathers speak about Christ on the Cross being both prosecuting attorney against Satan and for us. And we hear them speak also of Christ as the judge who condemns our enemy and grants us acquittal that we may be freed.

From the barrenness of Sts. Joachim & Anna came the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the mercy God; prefiguring shame and sorrow being taken away by the Son she would bear and deliver into this world, our Lord Jesus Christ. Today, as always, as we gaze upon our Lord's Mother we see Christ and His salvation of us all. Our Lord came to us to remove our shame and grant us great joy.

So many Scriptures speak about the damage idolatry does in our lives and to our souls. The reality is that, while we face temptations and distractions, we are the ones that set up and attend to our idols. Idolatry is anything we attend to or love more than the Lord our God. Our idolatry divides our hearts and lessens our experience in this life with the God who desires to pour the great blessings of Himself and His Kingdom into our lives.

Why do we do all that we do in the Church? Do we fast, give alms, pray, offer ourselves to God in the Liturgy because we are told to do so? Is it a checking off of a task list or is it something more? St. Paul tells us that we are children of God, not slaves to Him. Everything we do is a response to an invitation by God to come to Him and let Him heal our lives. We do all that we do as a response of love to the love that He has offered. And, as we do these things, we cooperate with Him in the healing of our souls.

Jesus, out of His great love for us, invites us to cooperate with Him in His wondrous works of salvation. We offer Him only that which we have, no more and no less. He takes anything lacking in our offering and fills it with Himself accomplishing His great works. We see this in the testimony of Christ feeding the 4,000 men plus women and children. Here Jesus invites His disciples to cooperate with Him in the miraculous by offering the little they had. What might He do through each of us if daily we decide to participate in the great work of our Lord in the salvation of our souls and the souls of many?

Our Gospel reading today is the miraculous catch of fish in St. Luke 5. Today we look at all that transpired to see the true framework for the fulfilling of the Great Commission by Christian evangelism. Evangelism, and every good work, begins with our encounter and experience with Christ our God. There faith is born enabling us to follow Christ beyond our human reason. At the catch of fish, Christ invited Simon Peter to cooperate with Him in this wondrous miracle. Simon Peter, when asked to go into the deep waters and cast the net, said to the Lord, "At your word, I will." Christ did the rest and the miraculous catch of fish took place. Our Lord is the beginning and the end of all Christian evangelism. And we are changed as we cooperate with Him.

It can be said that the Christian life is broken down into three phases. First, the joy and excitement of conversion. Second, there is a season of struggle where God can feel very distant or absent in our lives. The third phase is the blessedness of a grown and matured faith that grants us such a deeper experience of God in our lives. Today we focus on how to best live and weather the storm of the season of our journey with Christ through the sufferings of this life. Allowing Christ to be a part of our great sufferings helps us to know Him in ways we never could before.

In 1 Peter 5 St. Peter teaches the entire Church, both Clergy and Laity, how they are to live in relationship to God and to one another. The Apostle implores all to live from Christ's Nature of Humility. Today we open our souls to see the value of this great virtue and how Christ desires to free us from the service of ourselves and the consuming thoughts we have about ourselves. May Christ set us free so that we may live in the joy of doing His will.

In the Parable of the Great Supper from St. Luke 14, our Lord reveals the heart of God and His framework for the salvation of mankind. It is God Who prepares the banquet inviting all to come in and partake of His goodness. But some who were invited make non-eternal excuses for why they cannot accept His invitation while many others come and receive the goodness of God. In this parable, our Lord wants us to see that our priorities are excellent indicators of that which our heart truly desires. May we all allow our Lord to turn our hearts to love Him above all things that we may enjoy the fullness of His banquet of salvation.

In Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" Ebeneezer Scrooge is described as a self-absorbed old miser who lives only for himself. He is devoid of any community and, in this brief life, lives only for the gain and preservation of things non-eternal with blinders on to suffering humanity all around him. This is the same description Jesus gives of the rich man in the Parable of the Rich Man & Lazarus. Both Scrooge and the rich man were on a collision course with an eternal fate that no one would desire. Today we look at how Scrooge was brought to beautiful tears of repentance which freed him to become love and be enabled to receive love in one of the most beautiful descriptions of the transformation of a very broken person. There is a little of Scrooge and the rich man in each of us, how might we come to enjoy the fullness of life that is only found in becoming the love of God for those around us?