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Religion
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Christ on the Cross
Today was a special day in the life of the church. Today we celebrated the cross. It is an interesting time of the year to do this. It is the third Sunday of Lent. We have four weeks left until Pascha. The text for today comes from Jesus’ discussions about following Him:
Third Sunday of Great Lent / Veneration of the Cross
Mark 8:34-9:1 (Gospel)34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.
1 And He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”
There are a number of things about this that strike me as “interesting” in some fashion. However, I want to focus on two things from here:
34 ...Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
There are a few things here that I am drawn to in the first passage…
“take up his cross”
“loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it”
I am drawn here due to historical context.
1) Christ has not gone to the cross (yet), thus they do not have that event as a perspective; However, the cross was used regularly at that time as a form of capital punishment. It was, I would think, effective in several ways.
a. it always worked - they made sure you were dead, there was never any sneaking off alive like many of the modern day movies and TV shows indicate are possible in today’s world;
b. it was public - I suppose to entice others not to do that thing you did - or at least not to get caught - like the two thieves did;
I suppose one could make an argument that in following Christ you were intentionally going about to have yourself killed. This is not the same a suicide, however it is very sobering once you understand the choice they were making.
2) What is this gospel he is referring to - it certainly wasn’t the New Testament as it had not been written yet. I’ll need some help with this one..
Anyway, this is what I am contemplating this week.
--Moose
Saturday, April 02, 2005
2:37 p.m. EST Time… Bishop of Rome’s demise
About 5 hours before his death, I had sent him an e-mail asking that the grace of the Lord be upon him and that He would bring the Pontif peace. I believe that God has granted this.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
The ministry of pain
"Sending out a message of dignity, courage and acceptance of the trials of life. “ This is the message that the ailing 84-year-old Bishop of Rome is sending out to the world as he suffers through his agony for all the world to see.
On January 16, my wife gave me a print out of the icon “Veneration of the Precious Chains of the Holy and All-Glorious Apostle Peter” I taped to to the left side of my monitor in my home office.
I have learned a little about this icon, and I’ll share…
Event occurred around 42.
Event ordered by Harod Agrippa
Event was:
Peter was thrown into prison for preaching about Christ the Savior. In prision he was held by two chains made of iron. During the night before the trial, an angel of the Lord removed these chains and led him out of the prison.
Event recorded: Acts 12:1-11
Additional Information: Christians who learned of the miracle took the chains and kept them as precious keepsakes. For three centuries the chains were kept in Jerusalem, and those afflicted with illness and approached them with faith received healing. Patriarch Juvenal (July 2) presented the chains to Eudokia, wife of the emperor Theodosius the Younger, and she in turn transferred them from Jerusalem to Constantinople in either the year 437 or 439.
Eudokia sent one chain to Rome to her daughter Eudoxia (the wife of Valentinian), who built a church on the Esquiline hill dedicated to the Apostle Peter and placed the chain in it. There were other chains in Rome, with which the Apostle Peter was shackled before his martyrdom under the emperor Nero. These were also placed in the church.
On January 16, the chains of St. Peter are brought out for public veneration.
Troparian - Tone 4
You came to us without leaving Rome
through the precious chains that you wore.
First-enthroned of the apostles,
we bow down to them in faith and pray:
“Through your prayers to God grant us great mercy.”
Kontakion - Tone 2
Christ the Rock radiantly glorifies the Rock of Faith,
the first-enthroned of the disciples;
He calls us to honor the miracles wrought through Peter’s chains,
so that He may grant us forgiveness of our sins.
I’m new to Orthodoxy. I am new to “Classical Christianity”. I’ve had trouble with these chains and with this idea of suffering.
I look at the Pope in Rome and see his suffering and the “Ministry of Suffering” that he bears. I look at the wonderful Alana Sheldahl, and I see the suffering that she bears. I look at my lovely wife with her Muscular Dystrophy (Dermatomyositis), I look at me with my constant pains. I look at the deaths and humiliation that surrounded the dying process with my Mother and Grandmother. I look at the pain of the deaths of my Uncle and Grandfather.
I hate sin, death, and the devil!
I used to not care about any of the three. I think this is where the devil would have us. But, with life comes suffering. With life comes death, and with life comes sin.
Ours is a Ministry of Suffering.
It is hard to ask a sufferer how they are doing. What are they going to say? As Alana put it on her blog:
So what do I say when people ask me: “How are you doing?” Do I say, well, my hips, and a spot on the back of my head, and my forearms are hurting right now, and my left bicep is burning unnaturally as if I were lifting weights, and my tongue and lips are slightly numb this morning, not to mention the ache in my left quad and my UTTER lack of energy?
Do I say all that? Or do I just smile and say: “Fine, thanks”? Or should I shrug my shoulders and give a rueful glance and not say anything?
The other day I asked Dana, “How are you doing today compared to yesterday?” I think I like this question better, as I know how she was yesterday. But I have intimate knowledge of how she was yesterday. Most people cannot ask it that way.
