St. Matthew 10:32-36; 11:1 (7/4) Gospel for Friday of the Third Week after Pentecost
God bestows His ultimate gift on us when we submit all that we are and have to Christ “as King and God.” Such surrender heals us - brings the inestimable, ultimate gift of God, His Holy and Life-giving Spirit to indwell, guide, and enrich us heart, soul, and body.
Discipleship Requirements IV ~ God’s Ultimate Provision: St. Matthew 10:32-36; 11:1, especially vs. 32: “Whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father Who is in heaven.” The Holy and Life-giving Spirit of God, indwelling our heart, soul, and body, is the ultimate gift that every Christian requires if he would rightly remain united to Christ Jesus our Savior. God the Holy Trinity provides the gift of the Holy Spirit to each of us, sealing His Presence in us - as the inestimable Divine gift within - when we submit all that we are and all that we have to Christ “as King and God.”
This provision of the Holy Spirit occurred at our initiation into the Christian Mystery, at which time we are required to declare: “I believe in [Christ] as King and God.” In that declaration, we hand over - we deliver - to the Lord Jesus full, unqualified rule over our life. St. Nikolai of Zica describes the implications of this submission thus: “What, then, my brethren, follows from the Holy Spirit’s taking up His abode in us? It follows that we are no longer our own. When the Holy Spirit takes up His abode in our bodies, then He becomes Lord over us, and not we over ourselves. Then, my brethren, we are the property of God the Holy Spirit.”
Note: the unqualified surrender of primary control over one’s life runs totally against the grain of the “great American value” - against independence, against “doing one’s own thing,” against self-actualization, against self-expression. How many of us Orthodox Christians - having long ago committed our self to Christ - fail to remember that we are submitted to Him and hence have little regard for His total claim over our lives! So often, this means that we mindlessly live with vague or no awareness of the inestimable value of complete submission. So, we rarely place our decisions, activities, and relationships under the deliberate scrutiny and direction of God the Holy Spirit Who waits - yes, Who yearns - to guide us to the very highest and best that could be ours.
Is it not obvious that most of us who confess Christ as Lord often default in our confession? Listen again to St. Nikolai: “the Holy Spirit is not constrained to remain with us, but does so according to our disposition. If we sin against Him, He leaves us and Satan comes in His place, and our bodily temple turns into a pigsty.” May God sound an alarm in our hearts before He withdraws, for the departure of the Holy Spirit takes away the true “gyro-control system” of one’s life, and control passes into the enemy’s hands. Truly, we become the “play thing” of the Devil, and though we say, “Our Father Who art in Heaven,” Christ denies us before the Father (Mt. 10:33). We are bereft and victimized as Satan wishes us to be.
What then? St. Symeon the New Theologian, reveals how the gift of the Holy Spirit may be restored: “let us not deceive ourselves: before we have experienced inward grief and tears there is no true repentance or change of mind in us, nor is there any fear of God in our hearts, nor have we passed sentence on ourselves, nor has our soul become conscious of the coming judgment and eternal torments. Had we accused ourselves...we would have immediately shed tears; for without tears our hardened hearts cannot be mollified, our souls cannot acquire spiritual humility, and we cannot be humble. If we do not attain such a state we cannot be united with the Holy Spirit. And if we have not been united with the Holy Spirit through purification, we cannot have either vision or knowledge of God, or be initiated into the hidden virtues of humility.”
There it is! The path homeward begins with a determined turning about, with full and hearty repentance. Then God the Holy Spirit will guide and enrich us heart, soul, and body.
Open to me the doors of repentance, O Life-giver; for my soul goeth early to the temple of Thy holiness, coming in my body, wholly polluted. Purify me by the compassion of Thy mercies!
St. John 15:17-16:2 (7/4) Gospel for the Feast of the Holy, Royal Martyrs of Russia
Pray to remain on the love side of the equation and not rejoin the world in the hate which we renounced along with Satan, and all his angels, and all his works; for having received “the Spirit of truth Who proceeds from the Father,” please, never turn back!
Love and Hate: St. John 15:17-16:2, especially vs. 24:
“'If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.'” On the night He was betrayed, Christ Jesus our Savior was acutely aware of the violent, imminent storm of hatred rushing toward Him - the terrible things we know as His Passion. This furious enmity He attributes to those whom He identifies simply as “the world” (vss. 18,19). Further, to all of us whom He has chosen “out of the world” (vs. 19), He adds another, solemn warning: “'...they will also persecute you'” (vs. 20). He earnestly desires that you and I be prepared for like fury. Why? “'...that you should not be made to stumble'” (vs. 1), for “'the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service'” (vs. 2).
Beloved, do not shrug off His warning because you have lived in a momentary lull. Our God has the vantage point above all history. He sees every bit of the hatreds, persecutions, and martyrdoms aimed at Him, His Father, and at us - His servants - through all time.
So, how does He begin this counsel? He commands us to “love one another” (vs. 17). Yes, from His vantage point, He has shown us how it really is: that we are not “of the world,” and that we urgently need to be kind, thoughtful, supportive, and loving to one another. Think about it: love is especially what we must have in the face of the sort of naked, implacable hatred of which He speaks and that will be ours because we “bear witness,” having been with Him “from the beginning” (vs. 27 ). Very simple: the world has “'seen and also hated both Me and My Father'” (vs. 24); and never forget that “the time is coming” for us (vs. 2). This is insider information that we are being given from the reliable One Who truly knows.
Oh, pray God that we will remain on the love side of the equation and not rejoin the world in the hate that we renounced along with “Satan, and all his angels, and all his works, and all his service, and all his pride.” Having received the seal of the gift of “1...the Spirit of truth Who proceeds from the Father...'” (vs. 26), please, may we never turn back. Listen to St. Seraphim of Sarov: “One must not nurse in one’s heart malice or hatred toward a neighbor who bears ill-will, but we must strive to love him and, as much as possible, do good, following the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ: Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you” (see Mt. 5:44).
You do not feel very loving? That is all right. It is not God’s highest and best, but the condition need not be fatal, principally because love is not foremost feelings, but choices, decisions, actions we can take whether or not we feel like doing them. Your eternal life and mine are at stake in this world. Listen, therefore, to the caution of St. Maximos the Confessor who had his tongue cut out for sticking by the truth: “strive to cleanse the nous (which the Lord calls ‘heart’) from hatred and dissipation. For these defile the nous and do not allow it to see Christ, who dwells in it by the grace of Holy Baptism.”
Love may be cultivated and nursed in a determined way just as hatred is harbored by those whom St. John of the Ladder identifies as the spiteful and slanderous: “they are piteously plunged in the spirit of hatred; and with pleasure and without a qualm, they slander the teaching or affairs or achievements of their neighbor.” St. John also knew that “a banquet of love dispels hatred, and sincere gifts soothe a soul.” We can choose to take our place at that banquet table of the Lord Jesus, feast on love, and share platters of kindness and bowls of support to those around us in their hunger. You have seen the Lord’s works. You have received the Heavenly Spirit. Now is the time. Sleepers, let us awake! Christ shall give us light! (see Eph. 5:14).
O loving Christ, by Thy Holy Spirit reveal to us the mystery of the ways of salvation.
