Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“And it came to pass as we went to prayer, . . . .” or said slightly differently, “Now it happened, as we went to prayer, . . . .”

One way sounds as though what occurred as the Apostles made their way to the place of prayer has purpose and meaning, while said another way could imply (not necessarily though) that what “happened” was a happenstance, a coincidence, a chance and random occurrence. For the Christian, if we believe that we live truly under the providential graces of God, those so-called coincidences or happenings or chance and random occurrences are divinely appointed moments which take faith in this God to rightly perceive.

Fr. John, of blessed memory, was famous for two sayings. In his usual no nonsense Texan candor, he could be heard telling some of us (on more than one occasion), “God doesn’t fix stupid,” and at other times he would remind us, especially during confession, “This is for your salvation.” “Your falling back into sin, David, is for your salvation.” “Your hitting seemingly insurmountable obstacles, David, is for your salvation.” I can well imagine Father telling the Apostle Paul, the Philippian jailer, the demon possessed fortuneteller and her owners, as well as those prisoners confined with the Apostles in the deep, dark inner prison cell within a prison, “This is for your salvation.” Depending on the occasion, those words full of the Holy Spirit, could nevertheless be hard to swallow at times. Such discomfort, however, doesn’t make null and void that they are true for us Christians who have been baptized into Jesus Christ, even when we do stupid and foolish things.

There is a certain sense of relief that comes with this knowledge and truth for those who love God, confessing with St. Paul who sustained unjust beatings with the Roman rod and incarceration for saving a young girl from a life of enslavement to the powers of darkness, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rm. 8:28). It is not that God wills these things, but that He as the Almighty, works through them for His purposes . . . . . for our salvation. Otherwise, how is it the badly brutalized Apostles, sitting in utter darkness awaiting the next shoe to drop, can be found praying and praising God?! And yet, it is for the salvation of the Philippian jailer and his family that Sts. Paul and Silas have experienced what they have experienced. They knew themselves to be vessels of God’s saving grace and that their lives are “hidden with Christ in God.” Thus, sustained with that faith and knowledge, they entrusted themselves into the providential care of God and “set [their] minds on things above, not on things on the earth” (Co. 3:2-3). In fact, it is the Resurrection of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ that has sealed all these things! “If then you were raised with Christ [in Baptism],” says St. Paul, “seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God” (Co. 1:1). “Trampling down death by Death,” Jesus Christ has conquered once-and-for-all-time!

“’These things I have spoken to you,’” Jesus tells His Disciples on the night of His betrayal, “’that in Me you may have peace. In the world [however] you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world’” (Jn. 16:33). It is one of those very Disciples who later bears witness in his Epistle,

For whosoever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (1 Jn. 5:4-5)?

Faith is the victory that overcomes the world – faith in what God has done in and through His only-begotten Son,

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mary, and became Man; and He was crucified . . ., and suffered, and was buried; and the third day He rose again . . ., and ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; Whose Kingdom shall have no end (Nicene Creed).

Jesus Christ is the last great word and work of God, the lens through which the baptized faithful can see and the filter through which all of life must pass. In the book entitled, The Art of Unseen Warfare: Ancient Teachings for the Modern Fighter, (which I believe has the potential to be a classic), the author quotes this: “’God did not come into the world to eradicate suffering; He did not come even to explain it. God came into the world to fill human suffering with His Presence’” (p. 171). “This is for your salvation.” How many times in our feeble attempts to explain incomprehensible suffering that we only make matters worse and souls get further hardened against our good God without Whom nothing happens, St. Gregory of Nyssa says. And, if God is “Reason, Wisdom, Perfect Goodness, and Truth,” says the Saint, then He cannot “admit . . . anything that is not good and not consistent with His Truth - . . . God’s dispensations have no element of chance or confusion . . . It befits us, then, to acknowledge that these things happen for the best” (The Way of the Fathers, 176, 177). “This is for your salvation.”

God’s Presence is a saving and sanctifying Presence wherever we may be or find ourselves. This is why the saints can bear such extraordinary witness in hardships, isolation, and death. “Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?,” the Prophet-King David wonders, “And whither shall I flee from Thy Presence? If I go up into Heaven, Thou art there; if I go down into Hades, Thou art present” (Ps. 138 [139]:7-8). In Truth, our God is “everywhere present and filleth all things.” Nothing happens outside the eye of our God Who sees even the fall of a sparrow and Who knows the hairs on our head. “’Fear ye not, therefore,’” says our Lord assuring us, “’ye are of more value than many sparrows’” (Mt. 10:29-31).

This Presence of God in all things is “the key to understanding God’s providence,” especially in sufferings, says the writer of The Art of Unseen Warfare. “By uniting our suffering to Christ, we cannot only make it through our difficulties, but we can even become purified.” St. Maximus the Confessor, himself no stranger to suffering for Jesus Christ, tells us that in such shared suffering with Jesus God “confers His Kingdom on us.” Thus, “every affliction endured for the sake of virtue is joy, of every labor rest, and of every shameful treatment glory; in short, the outcome of all sufferings for the sake of virtue is to be with God, to remain with Him forever, and to enjoy eternal rest” (p. 171). This is the very image of our crucified and risen Lord we are called to be conformed to, “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, . . . .” (Rm. 8:29; Hb. 12:2).

I commend to us all the Prayer of the Elders of Optina, found in many of our prayerbooks, and encourage us to make their prayer our own:

O Lord, grant that I may meet all that this coming day brings to me with spiritual tranquility. Grant that I may fully surrender myself to Thy holy will. At every hour of this day, direct and support me in all things. Whatever news may reach me in the course of the day, teach me to accept it with a calm soul and firm conviction that all is subject to Thy holy will. Guide my thoughts and feelings in all my words and actions. In all unexpected occurrences, let me not forget that all is sent down from Thee. . . . O Lord, grant me power to endure the fatigue of the coming day and all the events that will take place during it. Guide my will and teach me to pray, to believe, to hope, to be patient, to forgive, and to love. Amen. (Orthodox Christian Prayers, p. 54)

Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!

PROPERS:

Ac. 16:16-34

Jn. 9:1-38