Archive for the 'Pascha' Category

Furniture Mover

Published on May 9, 2009 in Orthodox Life, Pascha and Podvig - Spiritual Struggle. 5 Comments

During the Sundays after Pascha, we hear about the ways people respond to the Resurrection. On Thomas Sunday, we found that some respond with doubt. In the Myrrh-bearing women, some respond by becoming servants to the Body of Christ. Today, we will find that another response is to become furniture movers.

This is the way St. Bede sees it the story of the healing of the paralytic. Thirty eight years is a long time to suffer from paralysis. Bede finds the number 38 to of interest. It is two less than perfection. How did he get that idea? Well, multiply 10 (for the Ten Commandments) by 4 (for the Four Gospels), and you get the number 40, a number  which represents the full number of virtues. We are behind by two/ What do we lack?

To find healing, we must move the furniture.

First, the Lord said “Rise!” Simply, there’s not going to be any healing if we continue to roll about in our beds. I know the bed is comfortable. We become use to it and in many ways the bed has become a part of our personality. Yet, if there is to be healing, we must throw off the covers and place our feet on the floor and stand up. Can we do it? Yes, if we have faith in the power of the Lord’s command. After all, didn’t His command still the winds and calm the seas?

Second, the Lord said “take up your bed.” St. Bede’s take on this may surprise you. He wrote that to take up your bed means that you are to “lovingly carry your neighbor, by tolerating his weakness.” I leave behind my sins by rising up and now I carry my bed by bearing the burdens of others. Well, this is different, but how else can it be? Would the Lord have me carry the bed of my old sins? If so, then I would continue to be a slave to them. St. Paul reminds us that it is by bearing the burdens of others that I fulfill the Law of Christ. I forget this truth and I believe that I must be a martyr. After all, I carry such a heavy load of my own stuff.

Third, the Lord commands that I am to “walk.” Here, St. Bede tells us that this means to love God. Therefore, walking involves loving God with the heart, mind, soul, and strength. He puts it this way: Walk…”so that you may be worthy to reach the vision of Him. Go forward by making daily strides of good works from virtue to virtue. Do not desert your brother…nor turn aside from the right direction of your path…In everything that you do, see to it that you do not fix your mind upon this world, but that you hurry to see the face of your Redeemer.”

The end result was that the man became well, took up his bed, and went on walking. Well, as always, it’s up to us. We can lie around and hope that someday, all the circumstances of life will line up and the timing will be just right. Then, we’ll get into the water and all will be well. It is a tragic attitude because we can lie on this bed for 38 years hoping to be the lottery winner. This kind of attitude reminds me of a calling card that a protestant minister once showed me. On the front was the all of the important contact information, but on the back was a picture of a man in a casket located at the front of the church. Under the picture were these words, “Well, he always said he’d get to church as soon as he got straightened out!”

We need wait no longer if we will rise, take up our bed, and walk.

Don’t you think it’s time to move some furniture?

The only thing about me is the way I walk

Published on April 19, 2009 in Pascha. 5 Comments

Its 11:30 a.m. on Sunday morning and I’ve only been awake for about half an hour. My Matushka and son are still asleep. Ah, that wonderful post-Pascha feeling where your biorhythms are all messed up.Still, I just had some cereal with milk and later we’ll eat some bacon and eggs and biscuits with gravy.

It was a glorious celebration last night. The Church was full and everyone was smiling and shouting “Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!” As I went around the church censing the people, I was aware that this celebration was going on all over the world and I truly felt a part of the universal Body of Christ.I thought of my friend Timothy serving as the Ecclesiarch at Holy Trinity in Boston (I wonder if he is still asleep); and Nijmeh who is so far from her family while standing in an Orthodox Church in Germany shouting “Christ is Risen!”; and I wondered about how Father Gabriel was doing since this was his first Paschal service and he was on his own;and I wondered about my daughter Elizabeth and her husband William celebrating in a Bulgarian Church; I thought about Nadezda in Japan, Noor in Italy, and, well, I thought about so many friends who were sharing that glorious moment.Later, when we blessed the baskets and broke the fast at our 4 a.m. trapeza, I again appreciated the fullness of life that our Holy Faith offers us.

Still, there is a sense of sadness as well this morning. In these first waking moments post-Pascha, I know that the world continues as it always has and there are so many who simply have not heard or do not know that Christ is risen. I turned on the television to check the news and things haven’t improved at all.The greatest truth of all time has once again gone unnoticed by the world.

Thomas Sunday follows upon the heels of Pascha, and we are reminded that even in the presence of the Resurrected Lord, “some doubted.”What does it take to convince an unbelieving world? Let me share a story: A Pentecostal preacher once boasted to a Baptist preacher about how excited his congregation became when the Holy Ghost fell on them. “Why, some of people get so happy, they leap into the air.” The Baptist minister responded, “Well, we find it’s not how high you leap into the air that matters. It’s how straight you walk when you land.”

During the reading of the 12 Gospels, we heard the Lord say, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13) With full gratitude for the wonderful feelings of Pascha, I know that it will not be how high I leap in joy, but how straight I walk when I land. The straightness of that walk will be the way in which I love both my brothers and sisters, and my enemies as well. By that love, the world will know that He truly came into the world, and reigns as Lord and Savior.

As the song goes, “I can’t dance; I can’t talk; the only thing about me is the way I walk.” In the year to come, no matter what happens in the world, may we walk in love and thereby show that truly “Christ is Risen!”

Christ is Risen! Well, So What?

Published on May 8, 2008 in Pascha and Podvig - Spiritual Struggle. 3 Comments

Icon of the Resurrection

It’s the greatest message that humanity has ever heard.

Its also the most ignored message in the world.

I look out in the post-Pascha world and little has changed. The war goes on, gas prices continue to rise, and the rats are still running the race. A poor woman was just found in a basement with her children, and she had been a prisoner there for 25 years. Christ is risen. You might think it impious of me, but I must ask: Well, so what?

It’s one of the most amazing and perplexing passages of Scripture. “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.” (Matthew 28:16-17, NKJV)

“Some doubted.” Doubted? How in the world could this be possible? It’s like some of them are actually looking at the Resurrected Lord and asking, “Well, so what?” I am absolutely sure that if I saw the Resurrected Lord with my own eyes, I would believe. After all, I’ve heard that “seeing is believing.” I’m sure that I would believe and I would change. I would be faithful. Wouldn’t I?

Maybe not.

After all, despite the glory of Pascha, I am still an unrepentant sinner. I am worse than St. Thomas because he touched the Lord’s flesh once and proclaimed, “My Lord and my God.” Eventually, Thomas made it all the way to India. I touch the Lord’s Body and Blood every Sunday and have done so for over 12 years, and I’ve hardly made it out of my house.

So, maybe the world ignores the greatest message of all time because the witness of my life is that He is still dead and I remain a slave to sin. Why does the stone remain over the tomb for me? What power keeps the stone from rolling away?

In Hebrews, chapter 2, it says, “…through death He (Jesus) might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

Now, this is interesting. So, it is the fear of death that binds me and blinds me and makes me a slave to sin. Well, I don’t spend most of my day worrying about my physical death, but I do worry about a lot of things. Yet, I thought it was the fact that sin was fun or pleasurable that bound me to it. No, to be honest, beneath it all is fear. As I think about the Lord’s life, how many times did the angels say, “don’t be afraid?” How many times did the Lord Himself say, “Be not afraid?” Am I afraid, really?

Yes, I am.

For example, I live to eat, not eat to live. Why do I eat so much? Am I afraid that I won’t get enough to eat? Perhaps, its because deep in my heart I am afraid-maybe I’m not really loved; maybe I’m ugly; maybe I really am a failure. I find I can eat and kill the this hunger and pain in a carbohydrate haze. After all, a bag of Oreo cookies and a tall glass of cold milk can make me feel real good.

Another example is that I judge others because it makes me feel superior to them. I need to feel superior because I am afraid that people will see what an utter fool I really am. I know exactly why the Pharisee was glad that he was not “like that man.” I’m glad too because it eases the fear that I am a fool and hypocrite. Afterall, I can’t be too bad when there are so many people who are obviously more sinful and more foolish than I.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Fear permeates every aspect of life and it lies at the foundation of every habitual sin that plagues us. It was that way for our Parents. When Adam and Eve broke God’s commandment, they hid in the bushes because they were afraid. When you think that previously they had “walked with God in the cool of the evening”, how sad that they hid themselves from their Father. In the Icon of the Resurrection, Adam and Eve come from the shadows with great joy. Yet, some still hide in the semi-darkness.

Like Adam and Eve, I’m hiding because of fear, and it’s fear that binds me. Even though I proclaim with my lips, Christ is Risen, my heart is wrapped in chains. Is there no help?

Orthodoxy proclaims that Christ “trampled down death by death and upon those in the tombs, He bestowed life.” By trampling down death, he destroys the binding power of death, which is fear. He defeated the one who wields this power, the devil. This means that my fears, though real to me, have no real power. To know this, I have to be willing to open the dark corners of my soul to the light of the Resurrection. One way that I begin to do this is by confession which allows me to begin to come out from my hiding place in the bushes.

I remember hearing this story when I was young. Apparently, almost 10 years after World War II had ended, a lone Japanese soldier was found on a small island in the Pacific Ocean. He had spent a decade believing that the war was still going on, and so he stood his post and every day watched for the enemy.

I’m just like that poor soldier. Christ has won the war and the enemy has been defeated. The problem is, I haven’t heard the good news yet. Well, I’ve heard it, but I just don’t believe it. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

Maybe next Pascha, I will truly hear the Good News. The grave will open for me and the Risen Lord will stand before me and I will worship Him and not doubt. Maybe then I will know the glorious freedom of Christ. Maybe I will take the same hand that he extends to Adam and Eve and to the whole world. Then, I will proclaim the great message “Christ is Risen”, and those who hear it will believe because they will see that the message has transformed the messenger from a slave to fear into a slave of God.

The President was right-”There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” John the Revelator heard it from the Lord- “Be not afraid…I hold the keys of Death and Hell.”

Truly He is Risen!