Sermons & Homilies

The Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy has everything to do with Great Lent, it has everything to do with repentance, and it by all means must come first out of all the Sundays – because without it all the other Sundays become impossible. This Sunday we celebrate the absolutely necessary foundation of all asceticism, of all repentance, and of all Christianity: humble and trusting obedience to our fathers in Christ.

That God was with Elias is obvious, but how did Elias live; how did he live so as not to drive God away from him, to live as one who pleased God and in whom God was pleased to dwell? In answering this question, we will understand why he is a model for Christians and especially a model for ascetics and monastics.

Last week, we commemorated the ancestors of Christ which helps us to understand the earthly lineage from which Christ came and through which it was prophesied that He would come. Today, they are included along with those others who have found favor in the eyes of the Lord, showing that grace overflows the bounds of the lineage of the Messiah to engulf not only the Jews but the Gentiles also. Soon that grace will flood the earth, and we will hear the angels speak to the shepherds, and say, “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people (Luke 2.10) and understand that the love of God was and is, not only for Christ’s ancestors or the righteous of the Old Testament, but for all people.