How Did Jesus Change Our Way of Life?

A most significant act was Jesus's birth from the womb of a most holy woman, the Incarnation of God Himself.  This was an act that transformed human life.

Metropolitan Bloom says,

How, through what acts of His life, did our Savior change the whole essence of our souls, or our lives?

First of all, by His very Nativity. That transformation of the human soul and life which He accomplished in Himself, was reflected in all its clarity in the town of Bethlehem. This little town in those days reflected the entire life of the whole human race. The life of man is a universal struggle for comfort and earthly advantages. The multitude of people who had gathered in Bethlehem was crowded into various dwellings on a cold night; probably the poor envied the rich in their comfort, the rich harshly drove unwanted lodgers out of their homes, and became angry when the overcrowding forced them unwillingly to share their accommodation with others. At least, that is how it always is when a lot of people are crowded together.

Looks what happens according to the customs of the new life. He to Whom all the houses, all the towns, and the whole universe belong, deprives Himself of the last human dwellings and takes up His abode together with beasts, committing Himself to an irrational manger instead of the throne of cherubim. O people! Is it for you to struggle and torment each other for preference in honor, cleanliness and comfort, when God does not spurn not being allowed in to where people are and is satisfied with an animal shed!

The Nativity of our Lord Himself shows us so much. First, we have the very act of the Incarnation of a man being born of woman with the seed of Spirit––without the normal sexual intercourse of man and woman.  This is combined with humility that surrounds the circumstances of his birth.  From the time of the first breath, He is showing us a new life––one that demands humility.  He did not come as a king decked out in riches and cared for in a lavish palace.  He came without the need for any special earthly goods, satisfied with the place of the animals for His first bed.

Metropolitan Anthony says,

And so, the new life in Christ consists in willingly renouncing worldly goods and not grieving when they are taken away by force. Perhaps you cannot direct your mind this way at once. But to the extent that you willingly deprive yourself of earthly enjoyments, however reluctantly: fast, offend yourself by giving to the poor or giving way to others, do not become angry or take revenge for oppression, but bear offenses in silence; -- to the extent that you crucify the old man in yourself -- to this extent will a new fount of grace-filled life flow out of your heart. "He that believeth on Me," says the Lord, "out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water: (Jn. 7,38). It is no longer either riches, or health, or glory, or the destruction of enemies that will make you rejoice, but, just as a farmer rejoices over a ripening field, or a hunter over a lot of wild fowl fluttering about, or an artist over the beauty of a sunset -- so you will rejoice over prayer, spiritual reading and the opportunity to be kind to your neighbor, either by giving, or consoling one who is grieving, calming one who is angry, or bringing a villain to his senses. The impious Jews did not want to accept this new life: they wanted earthly happiness, and the destruction of enemies, and human glory, and vain riches. It is the same thing which their foolish pupils want even now, Europeans of various nationalities, and many here in Russia. They have forgotten Christ, have come to hate Christ's abasement and love the treasures of the land of Egypt, not like the great Moses (Heb. 11:26), but "like the ancient foolish people in the wilderness".

In the Nativity we find the whole message of His life.

Metropolitan Anthony says,

Christ God taught us, brothers, to teach others not to seek for rights, but to renounce them, not to demand equality with the gentry, but self-abasement, not to fight, but to give way, not to commit crimes, but to bear offenses. This is how the manifest Sun of Righteousness "hath given us light and understanding" (1 Jn. 5:20), has opened for us the path to eternal and blessed life; this is what all righteousness in human society is based on. 

Let's prepare and rejoice in the Nativity of Jesus Christ.  Let's seek to learn from this most significant event.  Let us glorify Him and rejoice in His coming.


Reference: SERMON ON THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST by Blessed Metropolitan Anthony, 1906

What Did the Incarnation Bring Us?

For the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us (1 John, 1,2).

What is this life in Christ that we say we participate in?  Why do so many seek this way of life? It is because we find ourselves separated from God and long to be united with Him.  Yet, we strive to fulfill our earthly desires thinking that this will satisfy what is a deep longing within us––to be united with Him.

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom says,

All those who separate themselves from Christ are dissatisfied; they are dissatisfied because earthly life does not correspond to their desires. They want to be healthy and full, but life burdens them with sicknesses and hunger; they want riches and high ranks, but poverty and dishonor goad them, and if they do not fall into these disasters, they still remain dissatisfied with what they have, and desire more good things.

With the Incarnation of God that we celebrate in a few days, we were brought a new way of life. What was the nature of this life?  Did the Apostles and Jesus pursue earthly riches? Did they seek out ways to enhance their usual pleasures through various forms of entertainment?  Did they seek fame and glory by following Christ?  No!  

Metropolitan Anthony tells us,

They turned their hearts away from everything towards which people had formerly striven, except for virtue, and came to love everything, were reconciled with everything that people had formerly considered to be their greatest sorrow, except sin and vice. And when they disposed their hearts like this, sin ceased to be so alluring, virtue ceased to be burdensome; on the contrary, they began gradually to find in it that source of joy which the pagans had found only in earthly pleasures. This is the meaning of the Lord's words: "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek ... But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness" (Mt. 6:31-33).

The coming of God as fully man brought to us a new way of life that mankind previously was unable to live.  He showed this new way to the Apostles and though them He established the Church so all of us could learn to live this new way of life with the fire of the Holy Spirit burning within us.

In this time as we prepare for the feast of the Incarnation, let's reflect on what Jesus did give us though His Incarnation.  Let's give thanks for this new way of life.  Let's also double our efforts to actually live this life taught by His Church.  This is a life based on daily prayer, fasting, repentance, worship and participation in the sacraments, and study of the Scriptures and the writings of the Holy Fathers.  It is a life where we constantly prepare ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit just as the Apostles did at Pentecost so we can live a new life of virtue. When Jesus left this earth, He left us His Church and sent the Holy Spirit for our salvation. So, rejoice!

Sunday of the Blind Man

Metropolitan  Anthony  of  Sourozh
SUNDAY OF THE MAN BORN BLIND14 May 1972

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In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. At the end of today's reading, words stand that we pass by very often. The blind man says to Christ, "And who is the Son of God?" and Christ answers, "You have seen Him and He is speaking to you". For us, the first words are so natural; the first event of our life, the first event of a meeting is that we see a person, but what was this wonder of this man who had never seen anything in the world and who, touched by the life-giving hand of Christ, of a sudden saw! And the first person he saw was his Lord and his God, Christ, the Son of Man. I remember a Romanian writer telling us in his biography what definitive, what profound impression the face of the first man he remembers made. He remembers himself as a child, and over him - the inexpressibly beautiful face of his father who was a priest, looking at him, with all human love, with all the tenderness, and all the depth of a human gaze. And he says that this was a first vision for him in the icon which a human face can be when it is lit from inside by love and by understanding, by depth and by eternity, a vision of God. Here this man saw God in the features of Him who was God and who had become the Son of Man. I would like to attract your attention also to something different. On another occasion we read the story of a paralytic healed by Christ; and the Church, singing the praises of God on that occasion says, "As this man found no one to show mercy on him, the Son of Mary, God Himself, stooped down and met his need". Because this man had not found another man to show mercy, to show compassion, to show concern, God has come down to him. Now we live in another time, we live in the time with God truly having become man in our midst, and more than this: He has made us to be living members of His body, an incarnate, concrete presence of His Incarnation, the temples of the Spirit, the place of the Presence. Now any man who is in need should at the same time find in each of us a man stirred to compassion, taught mercy and understanding by God become Man, and at the same time, simultaneously, meeting with us, he should be able to see the love of God in our eyes and to perceive the active, imaginative, creative action of divine charity in our words and in our deeds. Since Christ has come into the world, the time of man has come; but not of man as severed from God, separated from Him, alien to Him, but a wonderful time when in man, in those who have discovered Christ, who have believed in Him, who have become one with Him - those men to whom God has entrusted the care of His world - people can both receive divine and human mercy and see human compassion, human love, human joy. Is not this a great call, is not that something which should make us capable of great things? The time of God and the time of man is one, not only in the incarnate Son of God, but in this mysterious incarnate presence which each of us represents, the presence of God in the flesh, in human compassion, in human love, and this is an earnest claim and a challenge which the Gospel presents us with. Are we to one another and to those further afield that kind of humanity? New humanity, new creatures, new men with the newness of a renewed life, the life of God. This is what we are called to be. Let us then reflect on it, make a decision, make a move and become an icon, a vision of God, not only in the shining of love in our eyes, not only in the words we speak, but also in every action and deed, so that the time of man should have become the day of the Son of Man, the day of the Lord. Amen. CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! Source

It's Never too Late

The life of St Mary of Egypt teaches us that we should never judge who will be saved. Her life demonstrates that it is never too late to repent. Knowing the sinfulness of her life, who would have thought that she would become a Saint that is celebrated on one of the Sunday in Lent.

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom sees her as an image of what each of our lives could become. He writes,

" Each of us is called to commune with God in such a way, that God and each of us should become one, that each of us should become partaker of the Divine nature, a living member, a brother, a sister, a limb of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a son and a daughter of the Living God! This is our vocation; but can that be achieved by our own strength? No, it cannot! But it can be achieved by God in us if we only turn to Him with all our mind, all our heart, all our longing, determinably, yes: it is determination, and it is longing, a passionate, desperate longing... And then - and then all things become possible."   

When Saint Paul asked God for strength to fulfil his mission, the Lord said to him, My grace suffitheth unto thee, My power deploys itself in weakness... And at the end of his life, having fulfilled his vocation, Paul, who knew what he was saying, said, all things are possible unto me in the power of Christ Who sustains me... All things are possible, because God does not call us to more than can be achieved by Him with us and in us.

Link to the complete story of the Life of Mary of Egypt as told to us by Saint Sophronius.

Living the "Triumph of Orthodoxy"

"Today we must thank God with all our hearts that He has revealed Himself to us, that He has dispelled darkness in the minds and hearts of thousands and thousands of people, that He who is the Truth has shared the knowledge of the perfect Truth Divine with us.

The occasion of this feast was the recognition of the legitimacy of venerating icons. By doing this we proclaim that God – invisible, ineffable, the God whom we cannot comprehend, has truly become man, that God has taken flesh, that He has lived in our midst full of humility, of simplicity, but of glory also.

And proclaiming this we venerate the icons not as idols, but as a declaration of the Truth of the Incarnation.

By doing this we must not forget that it is not the icons of wood and of paint, but God who reveals Himself in the world. Each of us, all men, were created in the image of God. We are all living icons, and this lays upon us a great responsibility because an icon may be defaced, an icon may be turned into a caricature and into a blasphemy. And we must think of ourselves and ask ourselves: are we worthy, are we capable of being called “icons”, images of God?

A western writer has said that meeting a Christian, those who surround him should see him as a vision, a revelation of something they have never perceived before, that the difference between a non-Christian and a Christian is as great, as radical, as striking, as the difference there is between a statue and a living person.

A statue may be beautiful, but it is made of stone or of wood, and it is dead.

A human being may not at first appear as possessed of such a beauty, but those who meet him should be able, as those who venerate an icon – blessed, consecrated by the Church – should see in him the shining of the presence of the Holy Spirit, see God revealing Himself in the humble form of a human being.

As long as we are not capable of being such a vision to those who surround us, we fail in our duty, we do not proclaim the Triumph of Orthodoxy through our life, we give a lie to what we proclaim. And therefore each of us, and all of us collectively, bear every responsibility for the fact that the world meeting Christians by the million is not converted by the vision of God’s presence in their midst, carried indeed in earthen vessels, but glorious, saintly, transfiguring the world."

Excerpt from Homily on Orthodox Sunday by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh