Yes, Lord — Scriptures, Church, Christ

The holy scriptures—Christ’s Church—Christ himself: how incredibly fortunate we are!

First, the scriptures. John Chrysostom says this:

Great is the profit of the holy Scriptures, and all sufficient is the aid which comes from them…for the divine words are a treasury of all manner of medicines. Whether it be needful to quench pride, to lull passion to sleep, to tread under foot the love of money, to despise pain, to inspire confidence, to gain patience—in the Scriptures we find abundant resources. For what man—of those who struggle with long poverty or who are nailed by a grievous disease—will not, when he reads the passage before us, receive much comfort? This man had been a paralytic for thirty eight years, and he saw others delivered each year, and himself bound by his disease… “Yes, Lord, he says, but I have no man…to put me in the pool.” What can be more pitiable than these words? …Do you see this heart crushed through long sickness? Do you see all violence subdued?…He did not curse his day…but replied gently … Yes, Lord. (Homily 37 on Jn 5)

“Great is the profit”, he says. “All sufficient is the aid which comes” from the scriptures. Let us seek (as St. John put it) the medicine for our pride, our love of money, our fear of pain. And instead, through the reading of the scriptures, find confidence and patience in our long sickness—maybe we are not sick of body, but we are certainly so in soul.

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Tilling the Earth

On this day, for the Church new year, the appointed gospel passage is Christ reading the scriptures in the local synagogue. What does he read?

The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to summon the acceptable year of the Lord.

“Acceptable year of the Lord”. This passage was not picked by the Fathers just because it says the word “year” in this passage. Rather: this is the idea of Christ establishing and ordering all things as they should be.

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Apply Wine and Oil

I just love the interaction between Christ and the lawyer that we see in Luke 10. Christ asks: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” The lawyer replies: “You shall love the Lord your God from all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Christ says: “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

This man is an expert in the Law; he knows his stuff, and more than that, he has a right understanding and a good interpretation of it. He understands that these two “laws”—neither of which come from the Ten Commandments, nor even from sections that we would usually consider law—that these two truly encompass the whole law of God. “Do this and you will live.” The parable that Jesus tells is to re-emphasize the rightness of what the lawyer said, but also to lead him to a full understanding of those two “laws”.

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What Is Eternal Life

If any of us were asked to define it, we likely would not give a very biblical answer…or a very Christian answer. And by “Christian” I mean, defining it as Christ does in the words of the Gospel reading this Sunday.

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Knowing God is eternal life. If eternal life were just living forever, as a matter of length of time, then those in hell, those in punishment, those outside of the grace of God, also have eternal life. That is forever, too, but obviously not what Christ means by “eternal life”. Eternal life is not about length of time.

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Zacchaeus Is Our Transition into Lenten Repentance

When looking at the gospel reading for the Sunday of Zacchaeus this past Sunday, and how it shows his repentance to be the “baptism”, the cleansing, that brings about the statement from Christ: salvation has come to this house and that Zacchaeus is revealed as a son of Abraham. Not only is this a look back at Theophany, but it is revelatory of passing into the next “stage” of our liturgical-spiritual journey…that is, into Great Lent.

This is much like the stages of the spiritual life that Father Zacharias, in Essex, talks about. He was taught by his spiritual father, St. Sophrony, who was taught by his spiritual father, St. Silouan. At the beginning of our journey toward God, we are given whatever grace is necessary to bring us into relationship with him and to set our path right, enough grace to make a start.

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