Sermons & Homilies
Today, as we stand at the threshold of Great Lent, the Holy Church gives to us in the Gospel story of Zaccheus an icon of the Lenten journey which lies ahead. It is precisely an icon, because everything happens as it were in a flash, in one single image passing before our eyes. We hear nothing of Zaccheus’ past, and after these few short verses he never again appears on the pages of the New Testament. In fact, it is only in St. Luke’s Gospel that we hear of him at all. Yet for all its brevity, this Gospel passage contains within itself the entire narrative of salvation.
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Of all the feasts of the church year, Theophany is one of the most ancient and important. In the early church, Theophany and Nativity were celebrated together on January 6. And they are both still intimately connected, as we can see in the similarity of the structure of the two services today. These two feasts are connected because both feasts call to mind the manifestation of Jesus Christ as the the Incarnate Son of God. At Nativity we behold Christ as a new born babe, lying in a manager, helpless and weak, yet still the Incarnate Word of God and Creator of all things.
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Today we celebrate the Circumcision of the Lord. It might seem strange to us to commemorate this event; after all, the old covenant has been abrogated, and St. Paul and the New Testament Church took great pains to eradicate the belief that circumcision was required of Christian people of the new covenant. If anything, we might think that the significance of this feast is essentially the fulfillment by Jesus Christ of the Old Testament law. And of course, this is true. But it is all too easy to lapse into the unspoken idea that once something has been fulfilled, it is therefore meaningless. This is a grievous error. Every single moment, every word and every act of our Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly life was absolutely filled with meaning, purpose and significance. And this particular act was so great and contained so much meaning that today’s feast is accounted among the great feasts of the Church.
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There is a quote by Elder Aimilianos that I think is so appropriate for this Feast of the Nativity. The quote is this:
“That which we lack is precisely faith, not in the existence of God, but in the fact that He can do anything and does indeed do everything!”
This quote strikes right at the heart of our modern post Christian society and raises all sorts of questions:
Is God really involved in our daily lives? Can God really heal diseases? Does God care about my sufferings? Can God reverse the elements of nature?
Today, all the Saints who shone forth—both before the Law and under the Law—in Old Testament times, those times before grace and truth shone forth from our Incarnate God and Savior Christ; today, all these Saints are commemorated by the Church as co-heirs of Christ, co-equal with all the New Testament Saints—Apostles, Martyrs, Hierarchs, Monastics and Righteous Ones.
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