There is One Priest

More so than at any other time of the year, we Churches who follow the Byzantine tradition are now immersed in the Old Testament. On the weekdays of the Great Fast, we are reading Genesis and Proverbs and Isaiah. If you’re looking for some good Lenten reading, consider reading these.

It’s well known that – on the weekdays of the Great Fast – we fast from the anaphora – that is, from the Eucharistic prayer, which is why we call these “aliturgical days,” but our lectionary also fasts on these weekdays – from the gospel and the apostolic readings.

While all scripture is God-breathed, not all scripture is equal, and it’s very clear how we feel about the gospel (2 Tim 3:16). That golden book on the holy table contains only the gospels and no other scripture – because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the preeminent revelation and the lens through which we as Christians must interpret all of scripture. So, spending some days without its proclamation is kind of a shock to our system –a true deprivation.  Sometimes the absence of a person serves to remind us of how much we love them and need them. That’s what this is like.

Yet, each Sabbath and Lord’s Day – each Saturday and Sunday – are like oases in the desert. They are moments of refreshment for us in the midst of a great labor – that is if we are really doing the work of the fast. We resume the celebration of the anaphora and even our fasting is relaxed a bit on these days, which traditionally permit wine and oil and allow us to end our total fast in the morning with the Divine Liturgy rather than in the evening with Vespers or the Presanctified Divine Liturgy. Also on Saturdays and Sundays, we joyfully resume the proclamation of the gospel and the reading of the apostolic writings. Specifically, we read the Gospel of Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews.

Given our focus on the Old Testament and especially on Genesis at this time, it is quite fitting that the epistle from which we read on Saturdays and Sundays of the Great Fast is the Letter to the Hebrews – because this treatise is particularly good at showing what the Old Covenant means for us as Christians and describing for us how it is all fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It particularly focuses on priesthood and shows for us how the priesthood of the Old Covenant is fulfilled in the great high priesthood of Jesus Christ in which all believers share through their baptism into Christ.

A priest is one who offers sacrifice. We often think of a priest as a presbyter, which is an ordained elder or father of the church – and, indeed, etymologically the word “priest” circuitously derives from the word “presbyter.” These two ideas have been combined in our minds for a long time – and there are good reasons for that – the ordained presbyter has one of the essential roles in the eucharistic sacrifice – but sometimes we lose sight of important distinctions. A priest (an ἱερεύς as opposed to a πρεσβύτερος) is not just an old man (which is my favorite translation of presbyter) but is one who offers sacrifice. And it is about this priesthood that the Letter to the Hebrews is primarily concerned.

Remember that in the Old Covenant there was a complex sacrificial system. Priests were the descendants of Levi and Aaron. They sacrificed lambs and birds and various animals upon the altar in the temple and before that in the tabernacle in the wilderness. And they made offerings of grain and incense. They made different kinds of offerings for guilt, for peace, for thanksgiving, for healing, and for purity. They did all this according to the prescriptions of the law revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai at the establishment of the Lord's covenant with his people Israel.

Well, what are we as Christians to make of all of this? What does it all mean for us? Who are our priests and what is our sacrifice? 

Remember that we read the Old Testament with the eyes of the gospel.

For us, there is really only one priest – Jesus Christ, the great high priest – and there is only one sacrifice – Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God – offered upon the altar of the cross, which we especially venerate today. It is Jesus who offers and is offered. Upon the altar of the Cross, our priest Jesus Christ offers for us our thank-offering – our Eucharist, which is for the remission of our sins and the cleansing of our guilt, and which heals our infirmity and raises us from our mortality. This priesthood and this sacrifice is the fulfillment of all sacrifices offered by all priests.

Yet, how can Jesus be a priest? It is clear that Jesus is not a descendant of Aaron or of the tribe of Levi. He is, as the gospels often note and as the Messiah was prophesied to be, a descendant of David and therefore of the tribe of Judah, not Levi. A king, yes, but how can Hebrews claim that he is a priest – and not only a priest but the great high priest?

Well, he is not a priest according to the order of Levi but a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. "Christ… was appointed by him who said to him..., 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek'" (Heb 5:5-6). This is what the Lord said of David – or of the Davidic and Messianic Priest-King in the Psalms (Ps 109/110:4). This connects the royal lineage of Jesus with a priestly lineage after all – but it is an altogether different kind of priesthood.

Melchizedek is a rather mysterious figure in the Book of Genesis, which, again, makes for good Lenten reading. Long before there is any Levitical priesthood – indeed, long before Levi was even born, Melchizedek appears. He is named only once in Genesis. And he is a priest! He’s a priest of God Most High and King of Salem. Salem means peace, so he is king of peace. Melek means "king" and ṣedeq means "righteousness,” so Melchizedek means the King of Righteousness. These are high titles!

He, like Jesus – and unlike the ordering of things in the Mosaic Covenant, which was yet to come – is both priest and king. So here is an order, which precedes the other order, which is both royal and priestly, and which makes a sacrificial offering, as all priests do. But Melchizedek does not offer the blood of goats or calves. He offers bread and wine. So, a priest of the order of Melchizedek will offer bread and wine.

This is the offering that the Lord Jesus makes on the night he was betrayed, but he transcends it and transfigures it, showing the bread and wine to be his own body, which he offers, and the wine to be his own blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28). This offering is one with the one sacrifice of the cross, offered by the Davidic Messianic King and the Priest of the Order of Melchizedek – Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the only priest and the cross is the only sacrifice offered once for all. Yet, listen to what Jesus says today about the cross: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34). Self-denial and losing our life for the sake of Jesus and his gospel is the cross our Lord calls us to embrace. This season of the Great Fast especially calls us to self-denial and away from self-indulgence.

There is only one saving sacrificial death upon the cross. To be saved by it we must participate in it. To rise with Christ, we must also die with him.

How? First, we must believe and be baptized into Christ. Then, if we love him, we will keep his commandments, even when it hurts. Confess our own sins to one another and not the sins of others. Pray for each other so that we may be healed (James 5:16). Fast. Pray. Show kindness and mercy and forgiveness to our neighbors, especially those we dislike. This will feel like hanging on the cross. His sacrifice must become also our sacrifice. His priesthood must become our priesthood.

His one sacrifice is re-presented also among us as often as we come together in remembrance of him and proclaim his death until he comes by eating the bread which is his body and drinking the chalice which is the new covenant in his blood (cf. 1 Cor 11:25-26). Just as Melchizedek offered bread and wine, so now does Jesus offer bread and wine become himself, our sacrificial and Paschal Lamb – in and through us who become his body by our faith, our baptism, and our communion with him. 

Mostly Water

A human body is mostly water.

The Flood of Noah
by William de Brailes, circa 1250

Only after the whole face of the ground was watered by a mist or a flood did the Lord God form a man out of dust from the ground and breathe life into his nostrils so that he became a living soul (Gen 2:6-7). So there was water in the mix and not just dust when God made Adam, which is why some people say he was made out of mud. It's hard to shape dust into anything unless you add a little water.

After the Lord God made man and woman – the man out of the earth and the woman out of the man’s flesh – and gave them the breath of life, it seems he would walk with them in the garden (3:8).[i] It’s kind of interesting to note that the Hebrew word for walking here has many senses, and one of them is to flow like a river (halak, 2:14). This is interesting because so much of us is water and water plays a role in our creation, our recreation, and our being and walking with God.

The Lord God wants to walk with us, even though “he knows of what we are made, [and] he remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 102/3: 14). He who breathes life into earth wants us – the sons of Adam and the children of dust – to walk with him. Cain walked away from him, which we are free to do, but it's not what God wants for us (4:16). He wants to be with us.

Not all the sons of Adam walked away from God. "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him" (5:24). And "Noah walked with God" (6:9). I think somehow I missed that until this year. I knew better that Enoch walked with God, but Noah also walked with God. He is righteous and blameless and so the Lord guides his steps and the Lord does not forsake him but walks with him (Gen 6:9; Ps 36/7:23,25).

God wants us to walk with him like this – to "walk in the way of the good and [to] keep to the paths of the righteous" (Prov 2:20). He wants us to be with him. Walking together is a beautiful image of this. The other day, I walked with my youngest daughter to the park and she held my hand the whole way. Then, I stood by her as she swung and swung on the swings and ran all around. Then, she held my hand again the whole way home. We felt much closer to each other after this. The Lord wants to be closer to us – to walk with us in the cool of the day – simply to spend time with us, regardless of what we’re doing – to be with us – because he loves us as a father loves his child.

Much of the time we are obsessed with what we should do. There's the important question – and it is an important question: What does God want me to do? (Well, for starters, keep his commandments.) But I think ultimately even more important than the question of doing is the experience of being – just simply being with God. Walking with God is, I think, a good image of this. If we walk with God, he will order our steps, and we can worry less about what we need to do. We'll simply find we have done it – step by step as we walk with the Lord.

Yet, Noah was the only one in his generation to walk with God.

"Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth" (Gen 6:11-12).

How can the earth itself be violent and corrupt? Well, remember that we are dust. Our flesh is earth with life breathed in – and this gives us the power to bring violence upon the earth. In us and as us the earth becomes violent. The earth is filled with violence because our hearts, which are made of earth, are filled with violence.

The Lord therefore determined to "bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life" (6:17). It is remarkable and often missed that this is the second time that the Lord watered the whole face of the ground. The first time was, as I mentioned before, just before he created the first man (2:6). Before he forms earth into a human, he adds water.

Now, he is covering the whole face of the ground with water in order “to destroy all flesh.” Not only this, however, but also, in a way, to form a new human. This is a death, but it is also a resurrection – a kind of recreation of humanity. Because the Lord is not only destroying all flesh, he is also establishing his covenant with Noah (6:18). He preserves Noah and his family and two of every creature in the ark and he establishes a covenant with them that he will never again destroy the earth and all flesh with a flood.

I want you to remember another kind of death and resurrection we experience in the water: baptism. When we enter into this water, the mortal flesh of the old man is destroyed as all flesh was destroyed by the waters of the flood. When we rise up from this water, we are clothed with Christ and, even though we die, yet shall we live (John 7:25). Through this water, we are given a life that cannot be taken away, like all the descendents of Noah who can no longer be destroyed by a flood.

And the ark upon which we are delivered from the flood of the world is the Church.

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[i] Adam and Eve recognized the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden (3:8, 10).

Time Alone and Time with Others

My how we need each other! How dependent upon one another the Lord has made us!  The paralyzed man in the gospel needed his friends (Mark 2: 1-12). Through their help and because of their faith, he is forgiven and healed. 

True, we are ultimately dependent on the Lord for everything and we may rely on him to provide.

We are like helpless baby birds in a nest, unable to fly, waiting with mouths open, for our mother bird to bring us back the food that sustains us. She has left us for a time. And her absence may fill us with longing for her return. But we may hope for that return expectantly. And trust in it. And know that she is coming back and that she is bringing with her the stuff of life. And that when she comes, she will not only feed us but she will also teach us to fly.

Our Lord is like this mother bird. He does not fail us. When the Israelites were hungry in the desert, the Lord rained manna down upon them – bread from heaven. Let us never forget the care he shows for us – the good he gives us directly and personally.

We must keep a direct and personal relationship with God alive. In obedience to Jesus Christ and in imitation of him, we must go often into our room and close the door – or go away to lonely places to pray and be alone with God.

Yet, meanwhile, wherever two or three are gathered in his name, there he is in the midst of them. And also, whatever we do for the least of his brethren – that we do for him.

Our real need for solitude with God does not exclude the importance of coming together – of praying together – or of attending to each other’s needs. The truth is, we need both time together and time alone. God is with us at all times. By his grace, let us come to know and experience his ever-present presence.

Saint Gregory Palamas Fresco 
in Saints Three Church in Kastoria
15^th century

This tension between our need for solitude and our need for community has been lived out especially by monastics since the beginning. The earliest monastics were hermits and anchorites who dwelt alone in caves and huts in the desert and the wilderness. Yet, they were very soon organized into communities. Because, as St. Basil says, “If you live alone, whose feet will you wash?” There is a need to serve your brother and sister as well as a need for solitude to do battle in your own heart.

The holy Hesychasts strongly emphasize this need for solitude – but they do find a balance. Our holy father Gregory Palamas, who devoted much of his life to the defense of the holy Hesychasts, lived alone and practiced great askesis usually for five days out of the week, coming down to celebrate the Eucharist and to have fellowship with the brothers only on Saturday and Sunday and on great feast days.

In prayerful time alone with God, we can really experience God, who communicates himself to us in our whole being – spirit and body. As St. Gregory teaches us, God allows us really to experience himself in his energies  – to see his uncreated light in our hearts. He gives us himself – reveals himself to us – not just a created thing like himself, but his own uncreated energies. Grace is not a thing God gives us but is really himself – his own life – life in the Spirit, and life in Christ – which he enables us to live.

Our real experience of God in solitary and silent prayer in no way excludes the experience of God we have through others. We need both. St. Gregory sees the Hesychasts’ experiences of God through their solitary practice of the Jesus prayer united to their breathing (which is one means, but not the only means toward experiencing God) as possible for them because of the grace of baptism, which is a holy mystery of the Church and only possible through others. God is always working through his people. 

So it is with the paralyzed man. God provides forgiveness and healing, and he does it through the intercession of the man’s friends. We are dependent on God for everything, but he has also made us dependent on each other.

Those of us who are healthy and strong in body sometimes pretend that we are independent individuals, but this paralytic does not have that option. He is able to do nothing with his body but lie upon his bed. He is dependent upon his friends, who feed him and wash him and clothe him while he waits for the Lord to come – like a helpless baby bird crying out for the return of the mother bird.

But in this case, the Lord waits for the friends of the paralyzed man to help him – and to go to great lengths – climbing onto a roof, dismantling it, and lowering their friend on his pallet before Jesus. Only then and under these circumstances, does Jesus forgive and heal the man. 

In this way, the Lord shows us that, as good and important as it is, solitary prayer alone is not enough. This isn’t a “Jesus-and-me” spirituality that he’s revealing to us. We also need the prayer, action, and intercession of others, just as the paralyzed man needed his friends. Because of their faith, Jesus forgives the man’s sins and heals his paralysis.  

The blessed Theophylact suggests that the Lord forgives and heals many not only on account of their faith but also on account of the faith of those who bring them to the Lord for healing.[i] The gospel says, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "My son, your sins are forgiven.” It does not say, “when Jesus saw his faith” but “their faith.” It’s in the plural.

Think of this the next time someone asks you “Why can’t I just confess my sins to Jesus in prayer? Why do I need to go to a priest?” Jesus does want us to come to him alone in prayer, but he also made us to need each other. We are not individuals in division from one another with private pipelines to God. We are persons in relationship with one another with a communal connection to the Lord which is what we know as the Church.

The friends of the paralytic are like priests to him. They bring him to Jesus for forgiveness and healing. When we confess or when the priest anoints us, this is what happens. The priest lays us before Jesus for healing. We confess to Christ before His icon with the priest at our side – as a necessary witness to the confession. Because it is when Jesus sees our faith – not just the faith of one but the faith of more than one – that he says “your sins are forgiven.”

The paralytic’s useless body reveals his dependence on others – a dependence we all share spiritually, even if our bodies are strong. Spiritually, we are lost without others, without community, without the Church. Even the good and necessary experience of God we have when we are alone is made possible by the faith of others and the mysteries of the Church.

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[i] Theophylactus, Bl. Theophylact's Explanation of the New Testament, trans. Christopher Stade, vol. 2, The Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to Mark (House Springs, MO: Chrysostom Press, 1993), 24.

Listen to Palamas

Our holy father Gregory Palamas is one reason I became a Byzantine Catholic. I wrote a paper about him when I was a student of Dr. Stephen Webb at Wabash College and I became convinced of his holiness and began to pray to him. I think he personally led me into an Eastern Church.

He is "the trumpet of theology" and "the unshakable pillar of the Church" - the one Church.

He is "the invincible support of devotion" and "the zealous defender of the faith" - the one faith.

He is "the teacher of the Church and the herald of the divine light." May the whole Church listen to his teaching because he is "immersed in the Trinity."  His voice is "always ready to teach" and his words are "inspired."

- all quotes from Vespers of the Second Sunday of the Great Fast 

in memory of our holy father Gregory Palamas

Nodding in the Presence of the Lord

Kain – unstet und flüchtig
by Wilhelm Groß, 1956/57

"Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, east of Eden" (Genesis 4:16). “Nod” means wandering, so this means that Cain became a wanderer, just as the Lord had said he would (4:12). Note here that Cain had been in the presence of the Lord. Otherwise, how could he go away from it?

Cain was a sinner and a son of those cast out from the Garden of Eden, yet he had been in the presence of the Lord. It is interesting to note that the first time the word "sin" is used in Scripture, it is not used in reference to Adam and Eve – the oft-called original sinners – but to their son Cain. Before Cain sins, he is angry and jealous of his brother Abel, whose offering the Lord had accepted while rejecting the offering of Cain (4:4-5). Seeing this anger, the Lord says to Cain, "Sin is lurking at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it" (4:7). We would do well to remember this when we are angry.

The Psalmist says, "Be angry and do not sin," so the feeling of anger is not a sin (Ps 4:4). And, in fact, it has a good purpose. St Isaiah the Solitary writes, as recorded in the first text on the first page of the Philokalia, "Without anger, a man cannot attain purity: he has to feel angry with all that is sown in him by the enemy." This is the right use of our anger – and our incensive power, as many fathers call it. Our anger is to be used against the demons and our evil thoughts and our own sins. The Psalmist says, "Be angry and do not sin; commune with your own hearts on your beds and be silent" (4:4). You see, it is against the evil powers in our own hearts that we must be angry. If we are able to be silent and still and at peace, it is because we are waging war in our own hearts.

Our anger is useful but it is also dangerous. When we are angry, sin is lurking at the door – and also when we are hungry or lonely or tired or in any other way weakened. We must be watchful because these things will lead us into sin if we have no self-control – if we have not mastered our passions but they have mastered us.

Today, anger also leads Lamech into sin. A young man strikes him and vengefully he kills him for it (Gen 4:23). An unmastered anger blinds us to all justice and proportion and turns us into monsters.

Before Lamech, anger led Cain into sin, just as the Lord warned him it would if he did not master it, and he killed his own brother. Yet despite all this, note again that it was Cain who went away from the presence of the Lord. It was not the presence of the Lord that went away from Cain.

The Lord had cast his parents out of the Garden and away from the Tree of Life for breaking his commandment, but still the Lord was present to Cain. The Lord did not regard the offering of Cain, which Cain had offered only in the course of time rather than from the firstlings as did Abel[i], but still the Lord was present to Cain and spoke to him and warned him and told him how he was to avoid sin by mastering his anger. Even after Cain failed to do this and murdered his brother, the Lord continued to speak to him. He punished him,[ii] but he tempered his punishment and would not let Cain be killed for what he had done, even though this is what he deserved. In the end, it was Cain who went away from the presence of the Lord. It was not the presence of the Lord that went away from Cain.

Do not turn away from the presence of the Lord. No matter what sins you may have, turn to the Lord. That's what conversion means – to turn to the Lord. When you turn to him, you will find that he has not turned away from you.

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[i] “Honor the Lord… with the first fruits of all your produce” (Prov 3:9).

[ii] “The Lord reproves him whom he loves” (Prov 3:12).

Seeing and Being Seen

A holy icon is an image. That's what the word icon means - image. And an image is something that you see. Today, Philip says to Nathanael, "Come and see" (John 1:46).

Come and see what? Well, come and see something good. Nathanael had asked, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Instead of answering this dismissive question, Philip says patiently, "Come and see." We know that the answer is yes.

Actually, Philip had already told Nathanael how good Jesus of Nazareth is. He is, says Philip, "him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote" (1:45). Now, from this alone, it's clear that Philip regards Jesus as someone good. He'd already answered the question before it was asked. It's just that Nathanael couldn't believe that anyone good could come from so backwater a place as Nazareth.

It bears thinking about the goodness of the Lord Jesus here for a moment. Again, Philip describes him as the one of whom Moses and the prophets wrote. Of whom did Moses and the prophets write? It's pretty clear that Philip likely has in mind here the coming Messiah – the Christ – the savior of Israel. And Jesus is that – that and more. Of course, Moses and the prophets also wrote about the Lord our God – more so even than they did about the coming Messiah. And Jesus of Nazareth is also this. He is someone good out of Nazareth. He is goodness himself. He is God out of Nazareth.

So, when Philip tells Nathanael to come and see, he may not fully understand himself, but he is telling Nathanael to come and see the Lord – to lay his eyes on God himself, on the image of the Father, Jesus Christ.  As Jesus says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (14:9). Now this is indeed a holy icon. 

But this is not the only image of God in this story.

After Nathanael comes and sees the Lord Jesus, Jesus says to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you" (1:48). So, not only does Nathanael see Jesus but Jesus also sees Nathanael.

Let's consider for a moment a possible meaning of where Jesus sees him – under the fig tree. Fig trees appear elsewhere in scripture. 

After eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve hid themselves – covered themselves in their shame – with fig leaves (Gen 3:7). It's possible – and some have supposed – that the forbidden fruit itself was a fig, thus making the fig leaves quite handy after the Fall. It was also a fig tree that Jesus cursed for bearing no fruit (Mark 11:1-14). Therefore, some of the fathers suggest that this fig tree that Nathanael was under may represent a curse or sin or death.

Yet, when Jesus sees Nathanael, he says nothing condemnatory, but rather, "Behold, a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile!" (John 1:47). This is high praise for someone under the fig tree in his sins who was moments ago expressing doubt about the goodness of Jesus.

But it is true, what Jesus says about Nathanael. “It is guile to say one thing and think another. So, if there is no guile in Nathanael, it is because, if he sinned, he confessed his sin; whereas if a man, being a sinner, pretends to be righteous, there is guile in his mouth" (Augustine). It's pretty clear that if Nathanael had a thought, it came out of his mouth. There was all honesty and no deception in him. This, then, is the source of the Lord's praise of him: that he was honest and confessed his sins.

This places him in stark contrast to that other man under a fig tree – Adam, who tried to hide his sins, blaming Eve for them, and covering his shame with fig leaves. Yet this association between Nathanael and Adam brings to my mind something they have in common, as well as this distinction between them. And that is that the Lord went looking for them. At least that's how I see it.

Jesus goes to Galilee to find Philip. Philip doesn't seek and find Jesus. Jesus seeks and finds Philip and says to him "Follow me," which Philip does. Then, Philip seeks and finds Nathanael. I think this is the work of the Lord. I think it is really the Lord who finds Nathanael, through Philip. I think that's clear in the way that the Lord is with Nathanael spiritually under the fig tree before Philip calls him. He sees him and so he is with him seeking him and finding him through Philip.

This reminds me of when God went looking for Adam in the garden in the cool of the day, calling out to him, "Where are you?" (Gen 3:8-9). From the very beginning, God seeks us and finds us. We do not choose him. He chooses us (John 15:16).

Why? What does he see in us? I believe this, too, is there from the beginning. As I said, Jesus isn't the only image of God in this story. Image has more than one sense. Adam is made in the image of God. And Nathanael. And each of us. God sees in us his own image. That’s how he sees us – as we really are. We are images of God – altogether lovable. God made us in his own image. God is an image maker – the creator of his own image. God is an iconographer and we are his icons.

It is good to be seen by God as an image of God. What could be better than that? Nathaniel believed and saw Jesus to be the Son of God and king of Israel because Jesus saw him under the fig tree (John 1:50). That's how great it is to be seen by the Lord! It's enough to give us faith – especially to know that the Lord sees us as his own image, as revealed from the beginning. Well, Jesus says to Nathanael, "You shall see greater things than these." It will be even better, he says, to see "heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man" (1:51).

This is a reference to the ladder seen by Jacob in a dream in Bethel – the ladder that connects heaven and earth (Gen 28:12). And Jesus identifies himself with that ladder. He is the connection between heaven and earth – because he alone is God and man – creator and creation – being and the image of being.

We who are creatures and finite and circumscribable need Jesus. Only in Jesus can we connect humanly to God because only Jesus is both human and God. No one has ever seen God. But we have seen that the Father has sent his Son into the world (1 John 4:12, 14). Jesus Christ – God in his humanity – we humans can now see. Only now can we paint a picture – a holy image – an icon of the Lord. To deny it is to deny that he is really man, which is to deny us of our salvation. Let none deny it, but venerate the holy images of God all around us, in wood and paint, in fresco and mosaic, and in our neighbors. 

Beginning in the Beginning

Abba Dorotheos of Gaza tells of a wheel,
rather like a wagon wheel.

The Great Fast begins in the beginning. It is a good time to stop and reorient ourselves toward the Lord – to go back to the beginning and to remember what we humans really are and why we were created.

In our lectionary, we begin the Great Fast at the beginning of three books – at Terce-sext or Sixth Hour, we begin at the beginning of the prophecy of Isaiah. And at Vespers and the Presanctified Divine Liturgy, we begin at the beginning of Proverbs and, of course, we also begin at the beginning of it all – at the beginning of Genesis.

The beginning of Genesis in particular is a wellspring for theological reflection. Someone said that all of scripture can be regarded as a footnote to Genesis 1. Today, I would like to focus on our creation – on the beginning of us.

Because, without some understanding of who we are, all of our ascetical efforts during this penitential time may seem vain and pointless. What are we reaching for, anyway? The story of our creation gives profound insights into our created nature – of which we often lose sight and which the Great Fast may help us to see again more clearly.

So let's look at our beginning: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Now, if we listen closely, we’ll notice some very interesting grammar and syntax going on here. The direct object is "man" – "God created man.” And then this one noun – “man” – is referred back to by two pronouns – first, "him," and, secondly, "them" – first singular and then plural.

Now, the second creation story, which we read tomorrow and the next day at Vespers, gets rather explicit about how this takes place, and it's really beautiful if you think about it. God creates one human – a man. And he takes out of this man a part of himself – his rib – and fashions this into a woman. Now, God, being God, could have made two people out of the earth instead of just the one, and then man would never have been alone even for a moment, but that's not how Gods chose to proceed and I think it's meaningful.

Humanity begins as one person. Whatever you may think of this biologically, it is theologically and anthropologically meaningful. The idea that we are all made out of one person, rather than two, shows how deeply and completely we are meant to be in communion with one another. There's no room left for individualism when we look at it this way. We are, in the story of our beginning, quite literally one. Think of the image: all humanity is in one person – one Adam – one man taken out of the ground.

The one God made this one man in his own image. Note this: God is an image maker – a creator of his own image. God is an iconographer and we are his icons. And his first created human is somehow mysteriously both singular and plural – both "he" and "they." That we humans are both many and one – that we are persons and also a community of persons sharing one human nature is an icon of God who is one God and also three Persons. God himself is a community of persons and, inasmuch as we are united to one another by the bonds love and by the grace of God, we are an image of that community and of God.

This is one thing we strive to realize through our prayer and fasting and almsgiving. That is, we are trying to be healed of our infirmities and strengthened out of our weaknesses so that the divisions and rifts between us can be closed. If we will draw near to God, we must draw near to one another.

Abba Dorotheos of Gaza tells of a wheel, rather like a wagon wheel. The center – the axis – is God, and each of us are somewhere along the spokes of the wheel. You see the closer we get to each other, the closer we get to God. To be a true and perfect image of God, we must become one community of persons and not a confederacy of individuals.

Let there be no divisions or hatreds or animosities between us, but let us forgive everything and love one another. If we fast and pray and do works of mercy for one another, it will help us put an end to all division and strife.