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Cloud of Witnesses Radio
How To Embrace Humility and Mercy in Orthodox Practice | Journey to Resurrection | TIO014 CWP094
What if the sacred rhythms of ancient liturgy could transform your spiritual journey today? Join us as we explore the profound convergence of Orthodox liturgical events, examining the unique overlap of the leave-taking of the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple with the onset of the Triodion period. This episode promises to unravel the rich traditions and significance of the Triodion book in pre-Lenten preparations, highlighting the rare alignment of the Feast of Pascha with Western Easter celebrations. Discover the intricate beauty of Orthodox liturgical practices, with insights into diverse hymn and service variations drawn from the tipikons of St. Sava and the Great Church of Christ.
Our conversation delves into the heart of Christ's humility and obedience to the law, presenting Him as the ultimate exemplar for humanity. We reflect on how Jesus' incarnation sanctifies and fulfills the law, teaching us that true holiness transcends rule-following and rests in our dependence on God, aided by the Holy Spirit. This episode serves as a caution against falling into the trap of modern-day Pharisaism, encouraging listeners to live as beacons of light in the world. Through the lens of the Gospel of Luke, we emphasize the transformative power of living a life that rises above mere adherence to rules.
Central to our discussion is humility, as illustrated in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. This episode encourages embracing humility, echoing Jesus’ example of setting aside His glory. The spiritual practice of prostrations during Great Lent represents a physical acknowledgment of our need for God's mercy. By focusing on self-examination and mercy, we aim to inspire listeners to offer their humble repentance as a gift to God and their community. As we celebrate the interconnectedness of faith, the role of the Virgin Mary, and the mystery of Christ's incarnation, this episode reinforces the journey towards spiritual growth and the eternal kingdom of God.
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Feasting and Liturgical Convergence
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Fulfillment of the Law and Purpose
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Humbling Ourselves Before God's Glory
Thank you for journeying w/ the Saints with us!
Brothers and sisters in Christ, children of God, christ is in our midst, he is and ever shall be. Blessed feast, blessed feast. Fiesta bendita, fiesta bendita. Eid Mubarak, eid Mubarak, Rony Pala, rony Pala, spraznikum Spraznikum. Blessed feast, blessed feast, and all most blessed Lent. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Speaker 1:You know, we have an unusual convergence of the leave-taking of the feast of the presentation or the meeting of Christ in the temple with the beginning of the Triodion. We had a small ceremony where we brought out the Triodion book, placed it at the feet of the icon of Christ and it's presented to the main chanter. Because the hymns. Now we add the hymns, the pre-Lenten hymns that will become then, when we get into full Lent, those hymns. And so we are in a very unusual situation this year, because we follow the computation of the Council of Nicaea on how to figure when we celebrate the Feast of Feasts, the great resurrection of our Lord, god and Savior, jesus Christ in the flesh, the feast as we call it, pascha all right, what the Western Church calls Easter. And that feast we calculate according to the original calendar, the Julian calendar, so that all of the Orthodox are at least on the same page during the pre-Lenten, the Lenten, the Paschal and the season of Pentecost, but this also just happens to fall that all the Western churches will be on the same calendar. Churches will be on the same calendar in that sense, almost because they will be celebrating Easter the same day we celebrate the feast of Pascha. So here we have the convergence of these two things happening.
Speaker 1:And you know, we have a very interesting thing in the Orthodox Church, just when you think you had it figured out the church and her wisdom, and there is a holy wisdom to it and I don't profess to know there's something called the Tipakan. The Tipakan is the order on how we do services and just to show you that we're not an organized religion, there is the Tipakan of St Sava, which is the oldest one, which the bulk of the world's Orthodox, especially a lot of the Slavic churches, use, and then that was modified, the tipicon of the great church of Christ, and so that is an order in terms of how the church of Antioch and some of the Greek churches end up following. So in that way that we do so, it means certain things happen when these feasts converge. We don't sing the feast of Saint Anthony, just like we didn't last Sunday for the hymn, it gets dropped out. The entrance hymn for the feast is sung, and just so you think, well, it's going to happen that way on every feast. No, it doesn't. Okay, I'm not too sure why, in the holy wisdom, when the fathers and the monasteries put these services together, why they did what they did. But we're trying to follow the instructions that are given to us. So when some of you might think, oh, when it comes to liturgy it's always the same, no, it's not Okay, there's enough just to throw us off if we're not paying attention.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to speak about the amazing connection between the presentation of Christ into the temple, this meeting of the Lord in the temple, that he who now is the God in the flesh, coming into the temple that was empty, the Holy of Holies being empty, as I said last Sunday, that God finally has come to his temple and that what he does is, brothers and sisters. He comes there to fulfill the law and the prophets so that we would become the holy temples, living temples of God. This is part of God's plan all the way back to the beginning. This is why he gave the instructions of the tabernacle. This is why he gave the instructions for the building of the temple. They're very specific and if you see what we do in the Orthodox Church, we fulfill a lot of those things and carry them into the Orthodox Church continually from the Old Testament Church, the old Israel, because now we, the church, are the new Israel, we are the true Israel. We're not talking about a secular state that was established in 1948. We're talking about that which Christ established in the church at Pentecost nearly 2,000 years ago.
Speaker 1:So when we sing anything in a church about the Israel, we're talking about the body of Christ, and so Christ, indeed the one who gave the law to Moses out of the instructions on Mount Sinai, he condescends to become one of us and submit himself to the law. That a child at 40 days, a humble child, a defenseless child, being protected by his mother and his foster father, joseph, that they would fulfill the law and come and offer an offering on behalf of him. A very humble one, because they were poor, couldn't be the rich. Lavish one because they didn't have the money. But God made a way for those who were poor, something simple, you know, to offer a pigeon or a turtle, dove or, as they say in New York, the flying rats. Okay, those things that he would offer, because those things could be a simple, less costly sacrifice.
Speaker 1:But our lord does this, not because he needs to have a sin offering any more than he goes in the river jordan to be baptized because he is washed from sins. He comes in to brothers and sisters sanctify the river jordan and all the waters of this planet. He comes in to brothers and sisters sanctify the River Jordan and all the waters of this planet. He comes into the temple to sanctify that holy space, so that we creating this temple to be sanctified, as our former Metropolitan Joseph did a few years ago with Bishop John and all of us here, that we would then be sanctified. And what's that purpose, brothers and sisters? So that we would become holy as he is holy. To become perfect as he is perfect. That is our calling. Jesus comes to show in the flesh. It can be done and lived out, and we are called to follow him and do the same.
Speaker 1:Now we also know some of the fathers say part of the reason why God gave the law was to show to the Jews and all humanity. We cannot do this alone, lest we think by following any rules that we are somehow going to achieve sanctity, holiness, godlikeness, theosis in and of ourselves is absolutely ridiculous and instead what our Lord comes by the very humility of his condescension, by the very humility of his condescension to take on created flesh and spirit, to become so humble to be a defense, the second person of the Trinity, who created this whole universe with the Father and the Spirit, to have himself so vulnerable to everything in the world. That's why our pro-life ministry is so important, because they're the most vulnerable of God's creation, especially in the womb. He does this and even grows as a child and is subject to the things of all the world to be tempted in every way. Brothers and sisters, that we would be tempted and yet choosing not to sin, to show that we have a God who totally understands our struggle, not only back then, 2,000 years ago, but, brothers and sisters, by the power of our own baptism and chrismation, our own personal Pentecost, the Holy Spirit being placed into us, god continues to be with us in our struggle.
Speaker 1:What is the great hymn of great complying that we sing when we get into Lent? God is with us, right, that's a hymn we need to sing all year round, when we're tempted, all year round, when we're despondent all year round when we're tempted all year round, when we're despondent all year round when we're faced with any afflictions coming from family or workplace, or even from ourselves or in the world around us, brothers and sisters, and so this is a helpful reminder of Christ fulfilling the law and the prophets, but showing that we that there is a better way to than just doing and following all the rules, because we, as Orthodox brothers and sisters, could become really incredible modern-day Pharisees. Now remember, these people were following all the letter of the law, as much as they could try to do so, but they were also even some extra laws that they had put upon themselves. But they had forgot the purpose that they were created for. They were created to be a light, to lighten the world, to a witness to all the nations, even to the Gentiles. And so Jesus, in his speaking in the Gospel of Luke, he even says this. Now, by the way, I'm not too sure in your bulletin if you want to pull that out to take a look at the Gospel passage as well as the epistle. I'm not too sure why our text from the Archdiocese starts the Gospel this way, because it leads that off of a very important part In my Greek and literary Bible and then also the text that follows the received Orthodox text. In the Greek it's there. I'm not too sure why the Archdiocese dropped it out. You look in your Orthodox study Bible. You'll find it there.
Speaker 1:In the Gospel of St Luke, chapter 18, starting, verse 9. Verse 9 it says and he spake this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. This is the purpose why he's doing this. Our God comes in the flesh, love incarnate, full of compassion and mercy, and imagine how he feels to see what he's given to these people who struggled for centuries and millennia, that they filled the letter of the law but have forgotten the whole purpose and intent. And so he's trying to call them to something greater, something more complete. And that's why he is encouraging us, brothers and sisters, that if we are to follow him, we are to pick up our cross. If we are to follow him, we absolutely must humble ourselves. Humble ourselves. He humbled himself to leave, set aside his glory and come and live among us and even take in the most meanest of situations, not even being able to be born in a normal home. But born, he did have a home, but at the time he was temporary homeless. Be born in a manger, to be born in a cave, to be born in a stable. You know, my folks used to tell me, you know they used to say if we didn't shut the door, shut the door, were you born in a barn. And I wanted to tell them yeah, jesus and I were both born in a barn.
Speaker 1:We have an understanding that this humility is what our God wants us to do. One of the Old Testament scriptures says to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord. This is why, for us, as Orthodox Christians, we are constantly, when you see us coming in, we're humbling ourselves by touching the ground, knowing that from dirt we have been created and to ashes and dirt we'll go again. That we're humbling, recognizing we've fallen into sin but that we are being raised up by Christ because of his salvation for us and the power of his holy resurrection. That's why we make the matanyas, that's why we make the prostrations, especially during Great and Holy Lent. We don't do that, the prostrations, on a Sunday, because a Sunday, every Sunday, is the feast of the resurrection. But when we get into the Lent times, we'll see that happen. A lot more Lent times we'll see that happen a lot more.
Speaker 1:You know, we're seeking to be able to follow our Lord and our God and Savior, jesus Christ, and worshiping Him. And part of our way of doing that is humbling ourself first, and that's a recognition that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that I cannot do this life by myself, but I can do all things through Christ Jesus, who strengthens me. And the reason the fathers tell us, the reason why the safest place we can go to humble ourselves, is to go down in that humility, because that's the only place the devil won't go. You want to stay safe from the devil. Humble yourself because he will not follow in that. He lifted himself up to ascend to the most high, to overthrow God off his throne in his rebellion, and he does not do any humility. But that's why that's always the safest place for us to go, brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1:And by humbling ourselves we also humble ourselves to look within the great prayer of the Holy Prophet, st David Search my heart, o God, and see if there be any wicked way within me. That's why, for every single prayer rule almost, we have Psalm 50, 51 during the liturgy, when the priest is sensing, except during the apostle season, he will be saying that Psalm because it's the constant reminder that I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that I am asking for God's mercy. Like this publican who comes into the temple, he's seeking to pray. He's coming to the holy place praying, a temple, the same temple Jesus would have been going to, and he recognizes his sin is so great that he can't even look up but instead says have mercy on me. Oh God, be gracious unto me, a sinner.
Speaker 1:This is what the priest says multiple times just during the liturgy, before we go to venerate the altar, before we go to touch the holy things, before we go to receive communion. Because we know God, I have sinned and fallen short, but you call me and you make me worthy by your compassion and love, to overlook my sin, to overlook my brokenness, to overlook these things instead, to see the wonder and the beauty that's within us and that's where God loves us. That's so much the point, brothers and sisters. He'll go through this in the incarnation. He'll go through this all the way on the cross. He'll go all the way to the howling of hell for us that we would eternally be set free from sin, sickness, the devil and death. And so we, coming humbly, then, come also boldly before the throne of God, not proudly like the Pharisee did in this, but instead we come seeking to recognize that God has made a way for us, and we are so grateful for that mercy, we are so grateful for that compassion, we are so grateful for that forgiveness that how could we not offer that mercy to those around us, how could we not be compassionate to those who have sinned against us? How can we not be loving to those even if they don't love us?
Speaker 1:The epistle is not an easy one to look to, because it does warn us. It says that if we seek right, if we seek to follow Christ, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Jesus Christ will be persecuted, while evil men and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. But he says in you, for you continue in what you have learned and what you have believed. We have been part of that, but now we've been changed. And so what we are seeking to do, brothers and sisters, as we come into this holy place and have an experience with the living God, we're seeking to look at our own sin to deal with our own brokenness that still remains, not the sin and brokenness and the splinters that are anyone else God will deal with that. That is not our purpose. What we do by our own repentance will be huge to help to heal other people around us. We don't need to say anything, we just need to do Okay.
Speaker 1:There's a story about these, the monks, during Great and Holy Lent, in which the chapel, a monk, comes in and he makes 10 prostrations before the holy altar here before the holy altar, and Lord Jesus Christ, I have mercy on me, a sinner every time. And then, heavy sigh, he continues to pray the Jesus prayer. Then, right after him, comes the second monk that comes in and he ends up doing 40 prostrations, right, and then heavy sigh, lord jesus christ, oh god, have mercy on me, a sinner. And then a third monk comes in right next to the first two and he does a hundred prostrations and with a heavy sigh, lord jesus christ, oh god, have mercy on me, a sinner. And the first monk looks up to the second monk and says look, who thinks he's a sinner. We want to be careful that we don't fall into that trap. That's the trap of the publican. He tithed we're called to tithe. He prayed. We're called to pray. He made offerings. We're called to offer ourselves unto God. But his problem is, once again, is his notion of understanding of his relationship with God? Is that he's got this? He's got this done, he's arrived? In his prayer he said this is tragic. Jesus is even saying here, he's not praying to god, he's only praying to himself. And when she says god, I thank thee that I am not like other men, all these sinners here, including the one that's right there, lord, have mercy.
Speaker 1:I fast twice a week. It was called a fast. We're going to be fasting more than twice a week Now this coming week no fast. So we don't fall into the trap of being Pharisees. The church dispenses with all fasting on Wednesday and Friday. Okay, I can have bacon on Wednesday and Friday. Yes, we also want to clean out the larder. Okay, to be able to utilize those things that are there, but it's not an excuse for Mardi Gras. We don't do that in the Orthodox Church. Okay, all right, I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all I get.
Speaker 1:But if you look at this prayer of the Pharisee, it's all about I, I, I, I, I, five, i's there right, and God from heaven saying I, I, I, I, I. He's not justified in that. But, brothers and sisters, when we come knowing that God has done a great work in us, he's done and is working his wonders in us by the fact that many of us are healed. There's so many of you that are here that have come from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of experiences, and God has brought and wrought a great wonder and a healing in you already.
Speaker 1:But we don't say that God, look at all that I have done.
Speaker 1:We rather say God, have mercy on me, because as we draw closer to Christ, there's still those things lacking in us and that we need help with.
Speaker 1:And so we come as the prodigal, recognizing that our God, who has humbled himself to sanctify that temple.
Speaker 1:We come into this sanctified temple, brothers, in this holy liturgy and as we go forward, especially as we move toward Lent, knowing that as we humble ourselves, we follow the very example of God, but especially that what we can do, the greatest gift we can give, the greatest word we can offer to our brothers and sisters in Christ, is our own humble example of repentance.
Speaker 1:We don't need to correct anyone else, brothers and sisters, because that's not in our control, but we can control the correction of ourselves. And when we do that and I've seen that in so many of you you've come a long way, baby. Okay, you have, but that encourages me and that encourages one another in this community, in the community of saints, because we do this for the eternal kingdom of God, for his glory. Yes, it will be for our salvation. In the community of saints, because we do this for the eternal kingdom of God, for his glory, yes, it will be for our salvation, but it will aid in the salvation of others around us. We ask this in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy.
Speaker 2:Spirit, amen, blessed feast. Glory to the Father and to the Son, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Who shall not beatify thee? Most holy Virgin Forgiving, free of troubling and pain, worthy, worthy soul, rising tirelessly from the water In the self, did he come in the corner from the deep, from thee, in an inexplicable way. He, o well-given nature, he came for our sakes. Man by nature not divided into two persons, sons, but known by two natures, without mixture or confusion. To him, who noble and close To him, who knows and goes blessed, one Plead for the salvation of our souls.