Sermons & Homilies
Our present feast is not just a feast of the victory of truth over falsehood in the abstract—but of truth’s triumph in public sphere, of its open proclamation, its universal acknowledgment, and its sanction by the earthly authorities. Orthodoxy, we see, is a thoroughly public affair.
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There is no one who comes to Christ in repentance, who will not receive forgiveness, therefore how can it be amongst us that if we have been forgiven that we cannot find the ability to forgive others?
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Today is the fortieth day since we celebrated the Nativity of Christ. On this day, we celebrate the Meeting of the Lord. In the book of Exodus, the Lord gave the command to Moses: “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.” (13.1-2, cf. Luke 2.23). Today, we celebrate this event, as Christ is brought into the Temple by his parents and we note their obedience to the Law, and this particular law which acknowledges God’s beneficence.
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The carnal and Jewish-minded man, says St. John of the Ladder, prepares for Feasts by arranging what foods he can enjoy on them; but the spiritual Israelite, the true Christian, seeks the spiritual recompenses which are bestowed on the Feast Days. The Jewish-minded man paints within his mind with great expectation all the dishes he can glut himself with and all the dainties he can gulp down; but the spiritual man seeks how he can slake his spiritual thirst and sate his spiritual starvation.
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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.
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