St Peters Orthodox Church

St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, says that love does not parade itself. It does not self-exalt. Rather, love is the self-emptying of one on behalf of another and for their great benefit. Tonight we gaze upon the Cross to witness the self-emptying love of God in its most full and purest form. And we ask our Lord to grace us by that experience to become His self-emptying love toward one another as we are refashioned in His likeness.

Tonight our Lord washes the feet of His disciples. Our reflection this evening focuses on the interaction between our Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter. When Jesus goes to wash Peter's feet, he is disturbed by this and says, "No Lord, You shall never wash me." Peter was overwhelmed with his unworthiness that the Lord do this for Him. Yet this is precisely Who Jesus is and what He came to do for mankind. How often are we like Peter as Jesus offers His healing and cleansing to us? How often do we not allow Christ to be Who He is toward us? The sermon explores the broken reasons for this and exhorts us to hear the words of Christ which He spoke to Peter, "Unless I wash you, you have no part in me."

The Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53 said, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." In the Hebrew language, "griefs" means illness, malady, and sickness. In that same language "sorrows" means the symptoms of the illness, the suffering that comes from the illness. Our Lord carried in Himself the illness of the condition of man after the Fall as well as the sufferings that come from that far lesser condition that we were ever created to be. But then, the greatest news; the Gospel that resounds from the Cross: "By His stripes, we are healed!" Tonight, we look at the healing work of Christ afforded us because of the Holy Cross.

The Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 50 voices the disposition of Christ going to His sufferings saying, "I gave My back to those who struck Me, My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide Myself from the shame and spitting." onight we embrace the reality that no one took the life of Christ. Our Lord was in command the entire time. He willed to take all of this suffering upon Himself; even the suffering of death. Tonight we see the mystery and wonder of the love of a God Who would partake in human suffering and death so that we might be could become partakers of Him.

On Holy Monday, as the Cross continues to be placed before us, we remember that the greatest virtue is love. And it is manifest upon the Cross. St. Paul tells us to leave the milk and grow to maturity. True maturity is becoming love as God is love.

God's people rejoiced and celebrated Christ's entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday crying out for the very reason He entered the city that day; "Hosanna" which means Lord save us! Later that week they would call for this same one whom they called Rabbi to be crucified, a means of capital punishment detestable to all Jews. They denied Him and abandoned Him even crying out, "Let the blood of the man be on our heads and on our children." This week we set our souls not to deny Him, but to follow Him to the Cross that we might experience Him in the Resurrection.

Self-examination is the opening of the door of our hearts to the Holy Spirit in such a way that He might reveal to us anything that works against our experiential union with Christ our God. Today we look at a method of self-examination through which the Holy Spirit can reveal those particular vices and move us toward Christ where He can exchange those devastating vices for the beauty and peace of His virtues.

There are two truths or tensions that must be kept in place for Christ to be revealed to us from the Holy Cross. One truth is the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross. We must always encounter His suffering and the volumes it speaks that He willingly did so out of His abounding love for us. The other truth is the glory of all that Christ won for us through the Cross and what He became for us because of the Cross. Today we focus on Christ our High Priest and Mediator as we see in Hebrews 9. We find the Church's teaching that everything the High Priest of the Old Covenant did on the Day of Atonement was a shadow that would be fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonder regarding how far God has gone through Jesus Christ to stack the deck in our favor for our salvation.

There are so many reasons that should cause the soul to well up with joy and rejoice in the Lord. But have we considered that simply being a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ should be a source of great joy? What is a disciple? It is one who follows another like sheep to a shepherd. Today we look at two testimonies where Christ invited His disciples to be an active part in His ministry to humanity and the joy that came from those experiences. Those who follow Christ desiring that His will be done, they are the ones who will be filled with great joy and rejoicing in their lives.

When we look at the narrative of the Archangel Gabriel's announcement to the Blessed Virgin Mary of God's intention, we see so much about both Christ our God ourselves. At the conception of Christ in the womb of this most blessed woman, we see the re-creation and refashioning of mankind for all time. We also see the prefiguring of our Baptism. And, because of the prefiguring of our Baptism, we see our new identity in Christ bestowed upon us.

The last thing Satan wants is for us to cooperate with God in self-examination. Self-examination opens the soul to God. It is in self-examination that Christ reveals Himself to us which illuminates all that is within the soul that He longs to heal and mend. Without that illumination, we have no hope to be made whole again. Today we discuss how to approach this self-examination and the encouragement regarding all that Christ does for us when we cooperate with Him in this discipline.

Just as Christ's prescription of fasting and increased prayer grows the fruit of the Holy Spirit, self-control, in our lives; prayer and fasting does even more by His grace. When we fast and pray the very virtues of Christ and His nature blossom in our lives. Today we look at the greatest of all virtues, love. As the love of God grows in our lives, our vices diminish and fade away. Today is an exploration of how God grants liberty to the soul of His people as His love grows within us.

When we engage in the Lenten Fast, we fast in body as we deny our cravings for food bringing those cravings into submission to Christ our God and His directions for us. But we must also fast in spirit. When Satan brings temptations our way, in the same way as we do with food, we subject those temptations and our cravings to the will of God. We are called to stand firm and, as St. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4, "possess our vessel in sanctification and honor." Today we look at what it means for the Christian to stand firm in times of temptation that we might experience Christ and His victory over Satan in our own lives.

Everything Jesus did through the Incarnation, He did to clear a path for us to return to Him and to Paradise. Jesus fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, then being tempted by Satan, and His overcoming of his adversary is no exception. In doing so, He gave us the grace-filled path that leads us to overcome the deceiver in our lives and be finally freed from our besetting sins. Today we look at what Christ is doing in us if we will follow Him in the fast of Great Lent.

The last thing Satan wants is for the people of God to experience the fullness of heaven and earth joining together with Christ in our midst. And this is precisely what happens every time we gather to offer ourselves to God and for God to offer Himself to us. Today we examine the ways our enemy sneaks in to keep us from this experience. And we look at the wonder of what the Lord our God is doing for us as He is present with us and we present ourselves to Him.

In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 18, we hear the testimony of the healing of the blind man named Bartimaeus. As our Lord approached Jericho with the multitude, the blind man cried out, "Son of David, have mercy on me." Some tried to quiet him, but he dismissed them and cried out all the more for mercy. Bartimaeus would not stop calling out to Jesus for mercy until Jesus acted on his behalf. Our Lord calls this great faith. Today we examine the faith of this blind man; a faith that Jesus wants to grow within us as He continues His healing work in our lives.

These last four weeks we have taken a close look at the strategies Satan and the demonic use to distract and separate us from the Lord our God. In Peter Kreeft's book, The Snakebite Letters, he points out that Satan fights fiercely to keep us from experiencing Christ in two Sacraments: Eucharist & Confession. Today we look at Satan's strategies to keep us from Christ in the Sacrament of Confession. We also examine why he does not want us to experience our Savior in that blessed Sacrament. And, it has everything to do with Christ's profound ministry for our deliverance, healing, and salvation.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 8, tell the Parable of the Sower; also known as the Parable of the Soils. Any farmer or gardener will tell you that the fullness of the growth of that which is planted is infinitely dependent on the health of the soil in which the seed has been sown. In this parable, Jesus is both the sower and the seed. Today, as we hear our Lord describe to His disciples the various conditions of soil that have a direct impact on the seed that has been planted, our role is to hear Him and let Him discern the condition of the soil of our soul. The cultivation of the soil of our soul with the help of our Lord is essential to the fullness of His life and His Kingdom blossoming forth in and from our lives.

Today is an examination of many false teachings that Satan has managed to get into the fabric of American Christianity. These lies that have crept into our culture of spirituality makes us so very easily exploited by our enemy. Today we examine these so that we see clearly what could be weak links in our spiritual armor.

As an introduction to this series, today we face the reality of spiritual warfare. This is no mere ideology or intellectualized thinking. The demonic, the principalities, the powers, the rulers of this dark age, and hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (as St. Paul says in Ephesians 6); they are all real and they all war against the Christian soul. St. Peter tells us that we must live sober and vigilant lives in our war that overcomes them all. Today the purpose of this series and our approach to learning the strategies of our enemy are revealed so that we may all the more recognize them; so that we may live in Christ's victory over them.