Lorica

As we continue to Golgotha may we be sober and circumspect. We are further aided today by the disturbing veiling of our friends and the light of Christ. The Jews tried to stone Him and He hid Himself. Our Lord Jesus, do not hide yourself from us, make yourself known! We want to be closer to God, but something unexpected happens when he takes a step toward us: we often step back away from him. This is just what happens when God shows up at the door of your heart, but if you let Him have his way, your whole house will be illumined and filled with Joy.

All other provisions in this like are secondary to the provision of the Body and Blood of Christ, which is our healing and salvation. We enjoy them, we are thankful when they are given but our very life does not depend on them like it does on the Holy Sacrifice, which will never fail, and never be taken away.

In this combat remember who you are with, you are with the stronger man- Jesus. If you are not with him, then, as he warns- you are against him, and He tells us how to recognize what side you are on: The one with him gathers, the one against him scatters. To be with Jesus, to be holy and good is to gather. It is to reconcile, to make peace, to forgive, to sympathize and understand, to come along side and defend, to remain loyal, to work through conflict with humble sincerity. It is to be loyal to those you are in the fox hole with, not to turn on them and bite and devour- we are on the same side, we have a common enemy, and it is not one another.

Don't be confused by the fact that only three of the disciples were there on the Holy Mount at the Transfiguration. We were not at his Nativity, nor did we witness his miracles or hear his teachings, we did not see Him die or the empty tomb and glorious body, we did not put our hand in the scars or have him breath on us the Holy Spirit. And yet all of these things are ours, as much as those who were there are the time. We have received them by the word of their testimony and through faith, and they are every bit as real to us as they were to them, because we have the Holy Spirit.

This is the power of God's love, that he can through our repentance even make use of our own failures to bring about our salvation and perfection. God's love and power are absolutely triumphant over every evil, He uses the Devil and He even uses our own sin for our salvation. But we have to go willingly, we have to follow the Spirit like Jesus into this wilderness and participate in the great reversal of Adam's disobedience and enslavement to the flesh, by fasting, by renunciation, by dying to self.

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between God’s loving discipline unto redemption and God’s wrath unto destruction- difficult, except for faith and trust in the love of our heavenly Father who sent His son to die that we might be made holy. And this the constant theme in all the prayers we pray tonight, an expression of confidence in God’s mercy, while we are crying out lamenting our woeful condition.

Are you ready to go with Him? We set out this Wednesday, as a family we go up together so that we can walk with him to Golgotha as he bears our sin, so that we can stand at the foot of the cross with our Mother and adore the Savior's sacrifice, so that we can meet him with Mary Magdalene at the tomb as he comes out in glorious victory.

Now the takeaway from this parable is simple. There is one good heart and three defective hearts. What makes the three defective hearts defective is not three complex problems but in the final analysis, essentially just one problem. And the good heart is described as possessing the one thing the defective hearts lack. As I said the takeaway is pretty simple, there is one thing we must avoid and if we are to be good there is one thing we must attain. The defection in each case is to lack perseverance and faithfulness and the essence of the good heart is in Jesus words to cling to the word with steadfast endurance. That word cling is katecho means to hold fast with tenacity, to bind it to oneself and possess it.

If you came and said to me, "Father, I have a passion to become a master blacksmith", and I told you that you need to be prepared for five hard years of humiliation and failure before you even begin to see much success, and then you get started, and in the first month you are shocked at how hard it is to do anything resembling skill, you will either give up, or remember what you were told, and perservere. The mystery lies in your own heart as to what you will do, but the warning should steel your resolve to fight on. The same goes for anything worth doing, including marriage, ministry, and being a Christian, in which you are invited to die on a cross.

Do you think Peter understood what awaited him when Jesus said "Follow Me" and Peter followed Him? How about Matthew, Andrew, James and John? Perhaps St. Paul had a slight indication that he wasn't going to club Med when Jesus knocked him off his horse and blinded him but it wasn't till after he said yes that Jesus showed him all the things he must suffer for Christ's sake. Your contract is not a thousand pages to be scrutinized by you and your legal counsel. It consists of one clause- Jesus is Lord, follow Him and do whatever He tells you and you will have eternal life.

It does not really matter what is going on circumstantially- If we know that we are pleasing to God, even if the waves rage, there will be peace within. But if we doubt, if we are in the throws of shame and dubiety, then even the thrill of hitting all the green lights is not going to be satisfying for long. So in times of uncertainty, and in times of ease, we must always be asking ourselves: "What pleases you Lord?" And our joy comes from pleasing Him.

Among all the things John is communicating to us in the story of the wedding at Cana, he is depicting the Woman, the Mother of the Living One in her role as confident and at peace with herself and what she had to do. And she gives a command, not just to the servants, but to us all: "Whatever he tells you, do it"

We want to live, and to live to the fullest, and if we are not pressing on toward that high calling we will never feel contentment. It is no news to us that this is not easy, that there are many distractions, assaults, and offers of Turkish delight to draw us off course. We must be alert, vigilant, watchful, thoughtful, circumspect, prudent, brave, and courageous to fight the good fight and come out with the crown. If that sounds daunting and even impossible (I can't do it! I'm too weak! Too bad! I give up!), we should remember that any kid can do it. In fact, only a kid can do it- so we have to be little Children. It takes the faith of a child, the simplicity of a Child, the trust of a Child, the utter dependence of a Child. Jesus not only told us this in plain and direct terms- You must become like a child to enter the kingdom- but He demonstrated it for us by becoming himself a little child.

The event we celebrate this day runs counter to modern sensibilities- feast of the what? Some may ask. The Roman Catholics discarded it in their liturgical reforms as they got with the times- but we still celebrate, if with a wince, the circumcision of the God Child and Savior of the Human race Jesus Christ. This is in fact the Saviors first shedding of blood in his holy sacrifice for the remission of sins and our redemption from iniquity and the curse, punishment and death. How could we not stop and worship Him on this day? He did not need to undergo the suffering and humiliation of circumcision for his own sake- He was the lawgiver he did not need to subject himself to the law. But we needed him to come to where we were and rescue us, and so ...when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Gal. 4:4-5

When we are enveloped by the power of God’s love in Christ, by what he has done for us, by our freedom and glory then all of the present sufferings will be as nothing to us. Sure, there are times to mourn and grieve in this life but it never eclipses the deep abiding presence of Joy and Peace because we know, we know deeply and feel the reality that this is all very temporary and will soon pass away as if it never existed and there will be only light and glory. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being- a Man- has been born into the world.

Christs first coming which inaugurated the age of perpetual coming, which age we are in, is the age of mercy for sinners. As long as we are in this age, there is still opportunity to respond to the Evite- the call for repentance which is the prerequisite for entry is still being sounded. The door has not been shut, get your oil now- we are in the age of longsuffering. Even though the King of Justice has come and brought Judgment- that judgement is still largely redemptive, it is for the purpose of leading us to repentance. The day will come that He will come again bodily and the time of repentance will be over, the time of redemptive judgment will be over, that will be the final judgment- the reconciling and closing judgement- when the tares are pulled and burned, when the goats are separated from the sheep.

The Forerunner prepared the way for the manifestation of the Son of God, for the gospel- for the coming Kingdom. We can think of him like we do the Blessed Virgin. God prepared her from before creation in order to cross the infinite divide and become man, without her fiat there would b no Jesus the Man. God also prepared the Forerunner to prepare the way for Christ to manifest himself and bring the Kingdom of God to us.

I suppose folks just don't want to think about the Judgment, it's so unpleasant and negative, while the birth of the Holy Babe is so sweet and joyful. But this is to misunderstand both the Judgment and the Birth. The Birth in fact begins with the great kenosis, the divine humiliation. Talk about negativity- He crossed the infinite divide, and went down. It then proceeds with the death of the Holy Innocents, moves on to exile, scandal, suffering rejection, trauma, and crucifixion. The Judgment on the other hand, while being a negative experience for some, is in reality, the great and final victory dance for those who have prepared for it. It is the consummation of the power of God poured out on those who love Him. It is their hope fulfilled, the final destruction of their enemies, and their complete and total perfection brought to completion.

Faithfulness is the brass ring, and the thing that we so often lack. And what is critical to achieving this sturdy faithfulness in the Christian life is Knowledge and understanding of the gospel and grace, followed by obedience to what we have learned.

In the last few verses of our reading St. Paul prays that their love may abound. This is a thematic prayer of St. Paul in his epistles. Our love needs to grow and be perfected. We need to love more, and love better. One of the perennial problems we face is sluggishness in spiritual zeal, pulling up short, atrophy, lolly gagging, coasting, half hearted effort, maybe not going in for that sin whole hog but dancing around the edges, playing with fire- snooze button faith- I told my class the other day whoever invented the snooze button was probably inspired by a demon. Paul runs with vigor, fights with force, presses on towards the high calling. This is what he earnestly prays for when he prays that our love would abound. If you have been sitting on the sidelines, it’s time to get back in the race.

The whole point of fasting is to override the fleshly hunger, by ignoring it and turning to your true desire which is for God. But this can only be effectively done if you realize what is actually going on in the process, otherwise you may fall prey to the temptation. The enemy is shrewd and powerful, dangerous and threatening... only to those who are ignorant or blatantly disobedient. To those who are aware and lovers of God, he has no more power than a marshmallow.

When we say He is master and ruler to whom we owe obedience, we do not mean despot. He is a benevolent ruler who has laid down his life for us. As King he defeats our enemy and brings peace to his subjects. He then rders our life in harmonious proportion so that it is a content and beautiful life in the kingdom. He provides nurture and sustenance for his subjects. He feeds us a sumptous banquet. And not just in food but in treasure, as king He is a gift giver. Christ the King ascended on high and gave gifts to men.

The Parable of the Wedding Feast is really about the uncompromising nature of God, which is just, good, and holy. And if we're going to enjoy the wedding feast with His Son, we must be clothed with goodness and holiness. Simply because darkness has no fellowship with light. Simply, because light destroys the darkness. This is not a moralism. This is just a metaphysical reality: light destroys darkness. Would we have God become darkness, so that we might feel a little better about Him in this parable? Would that make Him kinder, gentler, more merciful? If He became a little bit dark? So that this poor old sap didn't get thrown into outer darkness? If He were to become part of the evil? Is this the kind of God we would imagine that would be more loving? Or do we cry out with the holy ones for justice, for God to destroy evil in the world, and in our hearts? To liberate us from the tyranny of sin and death, to set all things in order? To set all things rightly: that is what justice is.

Jesus' answer to the lawyer concerning which commandment was greatest does not devalue or dismiss the Law and Prophets. It actually sets them in the highest order. He says that the law and prophets are in fact all about Love. They have been sorely misunderstood and Jesus gives the key which unlocks their true meaning. It is only through the lens of love that you will understand the Law and the Prophets, the Divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. He is not depreciating the Scriptures by his statement but raising them to the highest order.

The context of our existence is time, and the very meaning of our life is revealed in the consecration of time- by making life liturgical. To fully arrive at the sabbath is to be perfected in God. That is the Sabbath over yonder, the Eternal Sabbath post Resurrection. But what is the Sabbath now, on this side? The Sabbath now is a journey to being fully alive, and we pass through times, and seasons, and cycles of life, in which this journey must be consecrated to God continuously. There are many side ramps along the way which would distract us, so we need something to hold on to that will lead us home: and that is the liturgical life. A major part of us keeping the Sabbath is to prioritize the sacrifice of the Mass and a life of prayer.

We know that Jesus has overcome the power of death, he has restored life and given us a reason to live with hope. And yet he has not removed death from our experience, not yet. He has not removed the stimulus of grief and sorrow and pain in this present life- we still go through it. We still face disappointments and temptation to despair. We can get angry and resentful and accuse God of all kinds of things, or we can trust in His goodness, and justice, and love, and know that while we still exist in a place where death and sorrow must be passed through, we know through godly hope that Jesus will have the last word, He will be there to say "stop weeping and arise".

There may be other ways of diagnosing or describing our problem, but I do think that this one thing that I'm going to share with you is the underlying catalyst for all of it, and that recognizing it in all its forms would be very helpful for us. The thing that I think lies at the root of all our trouble, is a feeling of insecurity. Some might appropriately call it fear, but I think "insecurity" is more helpful, it's more relatable, and descriptive to what we are feeling. From a scriptural and theological point of view, we can actually say that this feeling of insecurity lay at the bottom of the very first sin, and at the root of every other sin that follows. Our parents were tricked into taking the forbidden fruit by the deciever because he was playing on their natural state of vulnerability.

While all will be raised, not all will be made whole. This is where we come to the second story, "the story of the one grateful leper". This is where Luke zooms in and asks us who we are: are we the one grateful leper? Or are we one of the 9 who has ignored what God and Christ has done for us? Remember, when Luke writes this, he writes this for Christians. It's to remind us of our faith and to apply to our own lives. All were healed in the story but only one was made whole. All were healed in the story but only one was saved. Jesus has healed us all by the power of His Love, but the only one who was saved was the one who had faith.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Hear that as a command. It's not as if He is saying to us that some of you have ears and others don't, so I guess it's just too bad that you can't hear. To us today when He says "he who has ears", he means you. All of us who have received Christ- we have ears, so listen. Listen carefully to the Word of the Lord, as it comes to us in the still, small voice, as it comes to us from the Scriptures and as it comes to us through our brothers and sisters' mouths.

This is our chief work: it is to pray. To cry out to God for help, to offer him thanksgiving and praise. This is what we are to be about. And if anything takes precidence over this, it is idolatry. That's what the primordial sin was, in the garden of eden when they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The essence of our sin, the sin of our parents, was basically to take control of their lives, apart from God.

St Paul is saying to the Church, you need to understand something important here- I don't want you to be unaware. There are not two different people of God, the Nation of Israel and then the Church. There is just one people of God. Israel is the Church and the Church is Israel, now some have been pruned out and others have been grafted in but there is one vine. God's work is of a whole cloth, the new is not new because it is a radical departure from the old or of a different species. The New is the Old but fulfilled. The purpose for the point in this passage is to say to the Corinthians that you are perfectly capable of repeating what they did and suffering the consequences.

A true, sacramental Christian marriage is the domestic church. It is the manifestation, between a man and a woman, of the bond of love which exists between the head and the body, between Jesus Christ and his Church. And a marriage, a godly marriage, functions and flourishes according to the same grace that governs how we, as the body of Christ, love our Head, Jesus Christ, in obedience. Authority, in the sense of servant-leadership, is foundational and necessary in all divinely appointed relationships. It even exists within the Godhead. And if a marriage is going to be godly, good, and beautiful, it will exist there as well.

The steward shrewdly uses mammon to obtain future security once he was cast out of his master's house. He made friends by reducing their debt. So that when he was thrown out he could go to them and they would give him a place to stay in return for the good deed he did for them. Jesus is saying that we should use mammon to make friends so that when we leave this world we will have an eternal home. Through the right relationship with things, we can achieve a right relationship with other people, and with God.

What we all want is to see the beauty of the Lord. But we can only see it in a state of holiness, the prophets speak of the beauty of holiness because the prophets were caught up and saw the beauty of the Lord. The pure in heart shall see God, St. John tells us. Our gradual taken from Psalm 34 says: "They had an eye unto him and were enlightened, and their faces were not ashamed". To be illumined is to gain the knowledge of God through encounter, and that encounter only comes through holiness.

It is not good for man to be alone- that is a practical and metaphysical declaration that God made clear from the very beginning of our existence. It is not good to be alone- and one can be alone even in a crowd. It is not good to go it alone. it is good to be in the sheepfold among the flock. The enemy of our soul is the divider of the brethren, he plots and schemes as to how he can divide and fracture and tear asunder the unity of the brethren, this is his primary goal, if he can do this he has set the stage for the kill. We must be wise to his schemes, and not allow ourselves to be drawn into this trap, to be lured away from the sheepfold.

There are enemies all around whose sole purpose is to steal our peace by destroying our gentle and tranquil spirit. They have all kinds of tricks and weapons to incite us to anger and agitation. But the truth is, we are our own worst enemies because they can do nothing to us without our cooperation. At the end of the day our enemy does not take our peace away, we give forfeit it. We must not engage in things that will disturb that peace. Not only must we avoid doing things that trouble our tranquility be must also actively guard it. We are in fact engaged in a war to maintain peace.

Someone who fears the Lord is someone who is not playing games with reality. To fear the Lord is to face reality with humility and respect, this is the beginning of Wisdom- We cannot rightly see the truth if we are trapped in the deceit of desire and irrational emotion. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because it is only after we face the bald truth of things only when we see things as they are that we can align our lives with that truth- that is wisdom made possible by the fear of the Lord. I suppose there is no greater fool than the one who knows the truth and does not love the truth by living according to the truth.

We have work to do. We have come a long way, God has been so gracious to us, but we have work to do. The absolute meaning of our life, our very existence is to feed on god by offering the sacrifice, by offering ourselves in the sacrifice of the lamb, and then going out into the world in the spirit of power to live holy lives and to draw all men to god. Todays Feast of the Body of Christ, Corpus Christie, this is the feast of great joy and satiation, because our hunger has been satisfied with angels food, the bread of heaven, the flesh of God made Man, there should be no greater joy for us. This is how we feast, we should pull out all the stops. We need to learn how to feast. We need to learn how to rejoice and give thanks. And it's not just something that happens spontaneously, you realize that feasting requires asceticism and discipline every bit as much as fasting does? We fast so that we can offer the sacrifice with purity of heart, we feast so that we can offer the sacrifice in joy. But they're both so that we can offer the sacrifice.

The knowledge of God, and of the fulness of life, and truth, and joy, and love, comes to man at Pentecost because that is when we received the Holy Spirit, and that is why we celebrate the dogma of the Trinity in association with the feast of Pentecost- which is the culmination of Pascha. Today, this very particular Sunday is the octave day of Pentecost, and the capstone of Pascha, and on this day we celebrate the knowledge of God who is Father, Son and Spirit because we have received the Holy Spirit into our very selves.

This 50 day revelry comes to fruition today and what is His is now ours, the Spirit who is the love between the Father and Son is ours and we are His. His power is ours, His peace is ours, His victory is ours, His Majesty, and scepter, and throne, and confidence that all will be well is ours even in this world which is still trying to kill us. Let it try, let it spit and spurt it’s dying threats- it is no consequence for us because we have received The Spirit of life and power, we have been enflamed with Holiness and cannot die.

When Jesus said on the Cross that "it is finished", He did not mean that there is not still a lot to be done. It is finished, but there is stil much to be brought to fulfilment. Death is dead- sin is broken- but we still contend with death and sin in this world. He warned them repeatedly of what they would face even though He was glorified and said it was finished. So where does that leave us, 2000 years later? Where did it leave the disciples huddled together in an upper room praying and waiting for God knows what- something that Jesus told them to wait for. It leaves us desperate and hungry for the one thing, the only thing, the absolute one thing in the in-between time while we prepare for his return, while we contend with our enemies, while we are being made perfect and Christified. And that one thing is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus makes the wild promise to the disciples when he tells them that whatever they ask the Father in the name of Jesus, he will give it to them, a little common sense tells us that Jesus is not talking about power ball, a reservation at Noma, a high IQ or even a miracle of healing. He refused that to Paul, and I'm pretty certain that Paul, being a good baptist, must have ended his prayer with "In Jesus' Name". He still didn't get what He asked for. Neither did Job. I'll tell you who got their prayer answered: it was Satan, when he asked for access to attack Job. God granted Satan his request and refused both Paul and Job. He refused their prayer requests unto their salvation, and granted Satan's request unto his condemnation.

The only way we can be solidly fixed and find the joy we desire is if we are all fixed on the same desire and commandment. In our life in the here and now, there is something at the center which holds us all together as one: there is a power to unite that works though our faculties. Our individual faculties, of love and desire, when we share the same love and desire within a community of persons, then, we will share one mind, and one will.

How important were these days for the future of the Church and the mission of the apostles. It was in these 40 days that Jesus instructed the apostles concerning the kingdom of God, He gave them commandments and commissioned them to build His Church. In these sweet days of light and happiness their cups run over with joy even as he was preparing them to die- but they could not be sorrowful because he had Risen from the dead and they would die no more- in these days even death was a joy to them because in the Risen Lord they were witnessing the net result of a holy death- eternal glory.

The Good Shepherd knows his sheep and they know him. He has come to give abundant life for the sheep. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, while the hireling is only concerned for himself and when he sees the wolf coming he abandons the sheep and runs away. The sheep are left defenseless, the sheepfold is broken apart, the sheep flee and are separated from one another and dispersed into the wild. There are many lessons to be learned from this but I want to emphasize one thing which is necessary for our perpetual gladness. In all the passages about bad shepherds and good shepherds there are three aspects which come up again and again, three things which the bad shepherds fail to do and three things which The Good Shepherd does. The Good Shepherd feeds the sheep, protects the sheep and gathers the sheep together into one flock. That is the last line of our gospel lesson today, Jesus says: "and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."

It seems to me that we know how to fast better than we know how to feast. Which is odd, if you think about it, I mean who would not rather feast than fast? Why would we do a better job at fasting than feasting? I think perhaps we have a a much better idea of the tools or instruments of fasting, and we are a bit fuzzy on the means of feasting. We simply don't know how to feast properly.

The crucifixion took place near a busy road for maximum impact on the populace. And there were many passing by. The Jews vehemently hated Jesus, they thought he was a blasphemer, unclean, possessed by an evil spirit, one who wanted to defile their temple. They wag their heads in derision as they revile him with taunts and ridicule. There were three categories of mockery which resembled the three satanic temptations of Jesus, this is a return of Satan to try and torment him.

Ultimately, Jesus washing the disciples' feet was a prophetic act predicting His death. That is why they did not yet understand, that is also why Jesus said if I don't do this, you have no heritage with me. If you do not embrace the scandal of the cross, you are none of mine. In addition to a prophetic act, the foot washing also has the symbolic power of demonstrating humble servitude as the norm amongst his family. But it is a humble servitude rooted in the willingness to die for one another because Christ has died for us. It is not just about servitude, it is about dying.

There was no noble motivation for Judas' betrayal, no deeper logic to it. It is a dire warning to all Christians that Judas fell into such depths of wickedness, his heart was utterly blackened as a culmination of repeated petty sin. It shows the power and danger of sin if it is not dealt with. How many people have betrayed Christ, perhaps not as famously as Judas, but nevertheless they have walked away one small step at a time, ever so slowly, just as John tells us they did in his day.

The Collect for Holy Monday mass says: "...that we who amidst so many adversities do fail by reason of our weakness; may be renewed through the pleading of the Passion of thy Only- Begotten Son." But the phrase in last night's collect rendered in English: "may be renewed..." is far more powerful and startling in the Latin. What it says in the original Latin is: "That we... may breathe in the suffering of your Only-Begotten Son." The physical act of taking fresh clean air into our lungs, moment by moment, as a natural, life sustaining rhythm of assimilation is a very good metaphor for what this collect says we are to be doing, and this is how we avail ourselves of God's pardon, this is how it becomes real, and immediate in our life, prayer is breath.