See: God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (c)

see:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (b)

Genesis 7:13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast according to its kind, and all the cattle according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every bird of every sort. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And they that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.

Noah & the Ark (Photo by Jim Forest)

The story of the flood waters is related to the theme of salvation and judgment.  It is a theme which is repeated numerous times in the Bible.  In the beginning of creation, the dry land was made to appear from the chaotic deep waters in Genesis 1.  The Hebrew people will be saved from Pharaoh by passing through the threatening waters of the Red Sea which will drown their pursuing tyrant.  And finally with the coming of Christ, baptism becomes the means of salvation for His chosen people.  Thus we can see the theme of water being related to creation, salvation, and judgment.

One of the priest’s prayers at Vespers asks God to “Guide us to the haven of Your will.”  God’s will is sometimes very demanding and difficult for us to perform, and yet it is a haven for us as well.  The Noah story is precisely about totally trusting God.  In the story Noah builds this huge ark – a huge box for a ship – even though no water is around him.    He trusts God.  He takes wild and dangerous animals into this giant box along with his family.  He trusts God.  He is sealed in the box for more than 11 months without being able to see the sunlight, and without fresh air.  He trusts God.  The ark is sent on a wild ride on a totally destructive flood over which Noah has no control.  He trusts God.  Noah trusts that God’s will is indeed a haven despite its most obvious dangers and uncertainties.  This is certainly a main part of the message of the story.

“(The animals)… went into the ark with Noah, two and two …  male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him”       As in 7:9-10, so in this version of the story, the animals follow Noah like sheep into the ark.  The animals obediently do what God commanded Noah.   There is a great emphasis on the fact that only in the moments before the cataclysmic flood do the animals suddenly have the relationship with the humans that God envisioned back in paradise.  Somehow the animals know this time, in this moment, salvation is on the line, and they need to follow Noah as if they are obeying God Himself.   The human finally has dominion over the animal kingdom!

“…the Lord shut him in…”   Again in the story God acts in an anthropomorphic fashion and is able to shut the door of the ark.  Is this a “pre-incarnation” of God?   It is at a minimum a prefiguring of God’s intervening in human history in order to save humanity from sin.  How is it possible for God to touch that which is “not God”?  “Not God” is all now part of the fallen world and yet God is still able to act in the world and even touch it; unless of course the text is only figuratively speaking.  But the exact role of God in saving the humans by closing the ark door suggests strongly God lovingly and “pre-” incarnationally acts to save humankind.  Origen in the 2^nd Century felt the anthropomorphic acts of God such as shutting the door of the ark precisely show us that we need to read the text symbolically or figuratively or otherwise we make the Creator God nothing more than one of the minor gods of paganism.  Arguing in a world awash in paganism, Origen warns Christians against too literal a read of the bible which he felt can only lead to wrong theology and to disbelief.

Next:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (d)

God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (b)

See:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (a) 

Genesis 7:13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast according to its kind, and all the cattle according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every bird of every sort. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And they that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in. 

Moses and the 10 Commandments

Reflecting on reading a text of the Bible literally.        Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38), and though he didn’t wait around for Jesus’ answer, his question is significant.  In America, most commonly when someone asks, “Is the bible true?”, they mean only is it literally (scientifically and historically) true.  But this is a very limited way to understand that question, and besides which it is usually only certain texts whose literal reading is being questioned.   John 1:17 reads, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”   Does this mean that what Moses wrote – the Torah – is not truth but only law?  That is literally what the text says, but it is not what the text means.  The Old Testament is also the scriptural record of the revelation of God.  It is truth.   But truth is more than just words on a page.  Jesus said to the Jews, “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).  One of the unintentional effects of the printing press is that it makes us think of words on a page in terms of “literal truth.”  We have a hard time reading poetry because the words are often metaphorical, figurative, symbolic, or present truth in images not in purely factual ways.  Because we have printed Bibles, we forget that in the beginning God SAID, He didn’t write anything.   And in John’s Gospel the Word of God is identified as Jesus Christ, not as the Bible!    Printed Bibles have tended to make us think about truth as something printed in words, and have in some ways narrowed our ability to understand God’s truth because we want one precise (and short!) text to quote – a sound bite.   We don’t want to have to consider the whole context of a passage, nor its place in the entire Bible.   Frequently, we are willing to take any text out of context to use it to prove our point and as a club against others.  We aren’t as interested in understanding the text as we are in using it as a weapon in a debate.  

Printing presses have contributed to us equating “the Word of God” with words on a page rather than with the Jesus who is the Word of God, the full revelation of God.  This has narrowed and limited the depth of scripture and the richness of our scriptures.  It has also often forced some to feel the need to defend the literalness of the Bible when reasonable questions are raised about the text and about what we know from science and laws of nature.   While we do claim that the Scriptures are true and that the Scripture contains truth, our Lord says that the very purpose of the Scriptures is to bear witness to Him.   Scriptures point to the truth, and point out the truth.  The truth is not limited by the Scriptures. Additionally Jesus said that He Himself is the truth (John 14:6); the Truth is not an idea for use in an argument (a proof text), but is God the Word incarnate.   

The Scriptures don’t say reading them will lead to biblical literalism, rather they are supposed to lead us to Christ.   Reading the Bible merely literally will often not lead to Christ but might lead us into conflict with the truth that God is revealing to us through His created world.  Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).  Jesus claims to be truth.   His claim is that truth is not a “what” but a “who”.    While we certainly can read Scriptures literally, and much of Scripture reads perfectly well literally, if that literal reading does not lead us to Christ, then the way we are reading the scriptures (take note:  NOT the Scriptures themselves but only the way we are reading them) causes us to fail to achieve the very point of the Scriptures in the first place.   Some fear, however, that if every word in the Bible is not literally true than the Bible is not trustworthy at all.  This is a false fear and a false belief.  The Bible contains parables and poems and stories whose purpose is to lead us to Truth even if they are not literally true themselves.  Anyone who reads Aesop’s fables knows they are fictional fables, but they teach truth.  We quickly can understand the lessons they teach about greed, arrogance, selfishness.  They do not need to be literally true to teach truth.   The story of George Washington and the cherry tree teaches a lesson about honesty and truthfulness.  Yet the story is purely fictitious.  It was originally made up to teach us about honesty – the appeal to George Washington was because he is believed to have been an honest man.  The story affirms his honesty and teaches us “not to tell a lie.”  We all can understand the lesson even if we know the story is fictional (a lie that teaches the truth!).    We can easily understand from such lessons that Truth is something more than words on a page.   Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”   But is this statement literally true?  In what way are we all equal (weight, height, intelligence, wealth, athletic ability, education, artistic talent, health)?   Self-evident to whom?   Who is the “we” that Jefferson meant?   Who do we count in the “we” today?    Only when we qualify what we mean, and explain what we mean, and define what we mean, is the truth of Jefferson’s statement revealed.   A purely literal reading of the text is possible, but it won’t reveal the fullness of the truth – what we believe today about this statement nor what he meant when he wrote it.   So is the bible true?   Yes, because we have the key – Jesus Christ – to unlock the deepest meanings of what it says.  Origen, the greatest biblical exegete of the 3^rd Century, did take note that there are in fact discrepancies and inconsistencies in the Scripture stories that cannot be explained.  He concluded that because of this truth does not lie in the literal reading of the text but rather in the meaning of the text.  He speculated that perhaps God Himself put such stumbling blocks in the Scriptures to make sure we realized there is a deeper meaning to the text.  This he felt will get us off reading the Bible merely literally and to look for the deeper, spiritual meaning of the Scriptures. 

Next:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (c)

Midfeast of Pentecost (2010)

The Feast of Mid-Pentecost which ties together the Feasts of Pascha and Pentecost is perhaps not significant in the life of many Orthodox in America, just a minor afterthought in the Post-Paschal season.   I found its Old Testament readings to be very meaningful and so reproduce portions of two of the readings here.  The readings are both “compilations,” meaning that various verses are pulled from the text and cobbled together.  It is a very specific use of Scripture done in and by the Church – reordering the canonical texts for a specific effect.  The two readings, one from the Prophet Micah and one from the Prophet Isaiah are below, in the order they are read in Vespers.  I won’t offer any comment, but wish you a blessed Feast of Mid-Pentecost.

First Reading:  Micah 4:2-3, 5; 6:2-5, 8; 5:4,5 

[4:2] Many nations shall come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. [3] He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more;  [5] For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.

[6:2] Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. [3] “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! [4] For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. …  [8] He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

 [5:4] And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; [5] and he shall be the one of peace.

Second Reading:   Isaiah 55:1, 12:3-4; 55:2-13 (NRSV)

 [55:1] Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

 [12:3] With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. [4] And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted.

[55:2] Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. [3] Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. [4] See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. [5] See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. [6] Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; [7] let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. [8] For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. [9] For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. [10] For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, [11] so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. [12] For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. [13] Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (a)

See:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:11-12 (b)

Genesis 7:13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast according to its kind, and all the cattle according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every bird of every sort. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And they that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.

Christ in Glory

How did Jesus make use of the story of Noah and the ark?    In the Gospels, Jesus uses the story of the flood as a prototype and warning for the sudden end of the world and the coming judgment of God.   “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man.  For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,  and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man”  (Matthew 24:37-39; see also Luke 17:27).   Jesus mentions Noah in response to the question, “”Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?”  (Matthew 24:3)     Basically Jesus warns that as the flood suddenly came upon the unsuspecting people, so too will be His return marking the beginning of the final Judgment Day.   There will not be warning signs to be observed, it will catch everyone by surprise (Luke 17:20).   He says people will be going about their daily business as they always do and always did (like in Noah’s day) because they don’t really believe God’s Judgment will ever come nor do they believe in its finality, nor that unbelievers will be swept away in the judgment.   The Lord Jesus does not use the flood story as a test case for proving the literal truth of Genesis.  He uses the story as a prophetic warning about how the Judgment Day will come suddenly upon us and we wont’ be prepared unless we’ve heeded His warning.  The flood story is the prototype; a foreshadowing of what God is intending to do when the final Judgment Day comes.  That Day will come by total surprise just like the flood in Noah’s day. “Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming…  Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:42,44).    Jesus uses the story of Noah to teach us to be prepared, alert and vigilant for the Judgment Day.  The issue is not whether Genesis records the literal facts about the flood.  The moral of the story as the Lord Jesus says is that we need to be prepared and alert unlike the people of Noah’s day. The story has a point and a purpose whether it is legend or history; its message is “be prepared for God’s coming Judgment.”  Even if we don’t believe in the literal details, it doesn’t truly matter for the Lord Jesus Christ tells us that we have been forewarned about God’s Final Judgment by the story of the flood.   However we understand the story of the flood, we have no excuse for being unprepared if God in our lifetime suddenly ends the world for Judgment Day.  We need to act like the citizens of Nineveh when warned by Jonah that disaster was impending because God had judged the city.  Those citizens repented, they didn’t argue over the believability of the prophecy, or whether the literal details made sense.   If we use the story only to argue about the literal truth of scriptures, we lose the meaning which our Lord assigns to the story.  More important than trying to convince people the story is literally true, we need to use the tools God has revealed to us in the scriptures to teach people that there is a God and that each of us is going to have give an accounting for what he or she did in and with his or her life.  If we try to turn the prophetic warning of the Noah story into a science or history lesson, we risk never helping people have a relationship with God because we didn’t handle the scriptures well and try to turn them into a science textbook, rather than reading them as the theological revelation which they are.   What is true about the story of the flood?  It is true that we need to be prepared for the Judgment Day which Christ promises is coming.

Next:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (b)

God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:11-12 (b)

See:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:11-12 (a)

Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

“all the fountains of the deep burst forth…”   Not only is there a deluge of rain but all the waters beneath the earth spring forth to the surface,   The abyss which God tamed and ordered in Genesis 1 to allow the dry land to emerge is permitted to reclaim the earth.  On the 2^nd day of creation in Genesis 1 God created a great vault to separate the waters above the heaven from the waters beneath the heaven.   All of these waters of chaos were pushed back into their place and contained by God until this moment when God decided to no longer hold back the great waters of the abyss.   The Psalmist says, “You did cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.  The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place which you did appoint for them.  You did set a bound which they should not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth” (Psalm 104:6-9).   The Psalmist claims God set a permanent boundary for the waters.  But though he claims the waters were prevented from ever covering the earth again, in the Genesis flood this is precisely what is said to happen.  The permanent boundaries of the waters above and below the earth were removed and the waters rushed in to reclaim the territory from which they had been driven by the orderly creation which God enacted.   The cosmology in the Old Testament envisions the heavens as a great ceiling above which are the storehouses of God – where He keeps the waters of chaos and all the extra water, snow, etc, that He might use at some time.   But these storehouses of the heavens hold other things as well – “Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; and he rained down upon them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven. Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance” (Psalm 78:23-25).   In Psalm 78 the heavens are also the storehouse for the manna that rained down on the Israelites in the wilderness.  The cosmology certainly envisions a very physical heaven which is well stocked with all kinds of materials.  The ancients did not have an idea of the outer space, or the vast reaches of a mostly empty universe.  To them the sky was a solid wall holding back physical items.

God does not use some supernatural means to accomplish His will.  God uses what already exists in creation – water – to accomplish His plan for the cosmos.   Chaotic water upon which God imposed order in the beginning to bring forth dry land and life on earth is now to be used to cleanse the earth.  Part of the revelation of the flood story is that God is Lord even over the flood waters, over the abyss, over chaos itself and over all evil.   God’s Lordship remains unchallenged by the forces of nature, even when these forces overwhelm the entire earth.  God shows His Lordship over nature and the abyss by being able to save Noah and his family and the animals in the ark.  However forceful and destructive these powers are, God is able to shield and protect his chosen ones from their might, because He is even more powerful.   In the baptismal exorcism, it is claimed that Satan does not even have power over the swine.   God in the flood story asserts His authority over human evil, over all the powers of nature and over the powers of chaos.   These malevolent forces cannot do anymore to God’s creatures than God allows.   In Psalm 93:3-5, God’s Lordship is established over all of nature, even over the most destructive floods imaginable. 

St. Augustine says that like Noah we Christians are today building an ark – the Church – for the salvation of the world.  Others are going about their business and ignoring us, but we should all learn from the people in Noah’s day and take seriously the respite God has provided us before the awesome and terrible day on which His judgment will occur.   For Augustine the Church is the ark which will carry us through God’s judgment when it like the floodwaters bursts upon the world with a destructive force.

The 100 years that it takes Noah to build the ark suggests that God’s decision is not passionate vengeance, but a plan.  And since the plan has to do with God’s revelation, Noah working at the ark for 100 years would be a way of saying that plenty of people had opportunity to ask the prophet what he was doing and why.   Punishing people by drowning them would do nothing for those folk as they would be dead without having changed human behavior.   As it is the wicked are given a chance by God to come to their senses and to ask God what they should do to prevent the flood.   No one apparently asks.

If we follow the insight of Source Theory we realize it is in the J-Source that the rains causing the flood lasts 40 days and 40 nights.   The P-Source has the flood waters rising for 150 days from the time the waters burst forth upon the earth.   By separating the Genesis 6-9 into the two versions of the same story, we can make sense of the different numbers of days, 40 or 150, being used in Genesis.  For our reading of the Genesis Flood account, the length of the flood is not as important as the lessons we learn from the story.  It is a story with a moral after all, and it is the lesson learned, not the literal facts which are important for modern believers.

Next:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:13-16 (a)

Sunday of the Paralytic (2010) Sermon Notes

GOSPEL:   John 5:1-15        

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethzatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked. Now that day was the sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk.'” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had  withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.  Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 

 Sermon notes

 Jesus asks the sick man, “Do you want to be healed?”

 The sick man does not answer the question.

 Instead he offers a litany of reasons why he never gets healed at the pool.  In doing so he is asking Jesus to become his servant.  “Will you be the man to put me into the water?  I need someone to serve me”

 Jesus ignores his comment and its implication.

 Instead Jesus commands the sick man:  “Get up and walk.”

 Now it is up to the sick man to decide if he will obey Christ.  He must decide whether he will be a disciple and do what the master commands.

 Jesus is not our personal servant.  We agree to be His disciples and to serve Him. 

 The issue for us is as the issue for this sick man:  will we keep making excuse for ourselves in our dilemmas, or will we make ourselves His disciples and serve Him? 

Jesus as Servant washing His disciples' feet

 We can think of things Christ commands us to do:  Repent, believe, love one another as He has loved us, forgive if we want God to forgive us, be servants one to another as Christ was to His disciples,  love our enemies.

 Yes, Christ says, “love your enemies.”  And like the sick man at the beginning of the Gospel lesson, we offer our litany of excuses as to why we don’t do this:  “our enemies are terrible, their mean, I don’t like them, it’s too hard, there is no one to help me do this thing!”  

 Or we can be like the man in today’s Gospel lesson, who is healed and obeys Christ.  We can obey him to do things we don’t think are possible for us today, things that we have a thousand excuses and reasons why we don’t do them.

 And when the man obeys Christ, and behaves like a disciple, others challenge him – you shouldn’t be doing that right now!   But we have to respond, the Man who healed me, the Man who forgave my sins, the Man who died for me, He told me to do these things.   He is the master and I must obey Him rather than you or religious laws.

 As disciples we must be prepared to obey Christ, and to do what He is telling us to do.    Throughout the Divine Liturgy we can practice the obedience of the paralyzed man healed by Christ, who heard the Master’s voice and got up and walked.   In the Liturgy we are told:  “Let us pray to the Lord.”  “Let us lift up our hearts.”  “Let us love one another.”  “Let us pay attention.”  “Let us listen to the Holy Gospel.”   “Let us draw near in faith and love.”  

 The Liturgy is the place for us to practice our faith and recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord.   We can be the healed man of the Gospel and obey the voice of Christ.

Go and Sin No More

Sunday of the Paralytic  2010       Gospel:   John 5:1-15

“After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethzatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. …  Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.'”  

St. Mark the Ascetic (5th Century disciple of St. John Chrysostom)  writes: 

He who does not understand God’s judgments walks on a ridge like a knife-edge and is easily unbalanced by every puff of wind. When praised, he exults; when criticized, he feels bitter. When he feasts, he makes a pig of himself; and when he suffers hardship, he moans and groans. When he understands, he shows off; and when he does not understand, he pretends that he does. When rich, he is boastful; and when in poverty, he plays the hypocrite. Gorged, he grows brazen; and when he fasts, he becomes arrogant. He quarrels with those who reprove him; and those who forgive him he regards as fools.”         ( The Philokalia  Vol 1, pg 142)

The Bethzatha Invalids, Blind, Lame and Paralyzed

Sunday of the Paralytic 2010           Gospel: John 5:1-15

“After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethzatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed….”  (John 5:1-2)

Saint and Bishop Nikolai Velimirović  writes about this Gospel:  

“What a strange and dramatic scene! Imagine the five porches filled to overflowing with the most desperate, suffering people from the whole nation! Imagine five store-houses of human pains and griefs, tears and pus! Around this is a city teeming with men, who court ease, grasp at riches and strive for honour and power, who act out a comedy with both their bodies and their souls…Five porches crowded with life-long invalids – what a strange training-ground for patience and hope in God!”     (Homilies, pg. 242-243)

God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:11-12 (a)

See:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:5-10 (b)

Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

With almost scientific precision and disinterested objectivity we are told exactly to the day when the flood began.  For the modern reader this lends historical accuracy to the story.  The ancients were often interested in numerology, and the numbers may have symbolic value lost on us.  But using the calendar historians believe was in effect when the story was written,after Noah’s building the ark for 100 years,  the flood begins on a Thursday.   It will end according to this version of the flood story on a Monday.

“..the great deep burst forth… and rain fell…”   After 100 years of building and preparing the ark according to the P-Source, the flood seems to almost suddenly and unexpectedly burst forth.  Our Lord Jesus himself interprets the advent of the flood as a humanly unanticipated and completely unexpected judgment being visited upon the world:  “Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”  …  For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of man be in his day. …  As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of man.  They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all’” (Luke 17:20-27).  Christ uses the Genesis story of the flood to warn that with an equally unexpected force the Kingdom of God will suddenly appear.  We won’t have to go looking in the Holy Land or Jerusalem, for the coming of the Lord will be a cosmic event; the news of it will not spread slowly but rather the world will be instantly transfigured by its happening – which is what happened to the world when the flood burst forth upon it.   And in the end of the world, those chosen to be saved by God will be in the ark of salvation – the Church where they will ride out the final storm.   One hundred years of warning and preparation are not enough alarm and time for the earth to be ready for God’s judgment.  “When people say, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).   This is the lesson we are to learn from the flood, and we are to learn it well.

Photo by Jim Forest

One interesting aspect of the flood is that while God certainly promises to unleash the cataclysm, His role in this chapter is mostly that of the sustainer and protector of Noah and all aboard the ark.  The storm that rages is described in mostly naturalistic terms with little reference to God’s own involvement – the deep bursts forth, the rain fell, the windows of heaven were opened but none of these things are directly attributed to God.  The text is amazingly careful to avoid saying God did these events that brought about the destruction of the world.  God promised the destruction, but then the cataclysm seems to “just happen.”    God as Creator, Sustainer and Protector of life is very much emphasized in the story rather than God as destroyer.  Noah and his family and the animals on the ark are central to what is happening – they are being saved by God’s providential warning and grace.  All that really is being destroyed is wickedness.  The story carefully avoids any idea that God is a wicked, mean, petty, vengeful, capricious, cranky, purposeless or immoral destroyer.   God’s goal is not to destroy, but to rid the world of evil.  God is not evil, He is destroyer of evil.   God is not destroying life; He is preserving life on the ark and only destroying wickedness.  And all of this comes out of God’s heart which is full of grief and sorrow because of the wickedness of the world.  The story is not emphasizing God as angry judge, but one who is brought to grief by evil, and destroys the evil to preserve and save that which is good in His creation.   The flood itself is not life-giving, rather it is purifying.  The flood is not enriching the soil so that it can be more productive, it is cleansing the earth of evil.  The story upholds God as holy, Creator and Savior.

Next:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 7:11-12 (b)

Church Members: You are the Holy Ones of God

Some of God's Holy Ones

In Acts 9:32-42, Peter visits the Christians at Lydda – in Acts the Christians are called “saints.”   “Saints” is another way of saying “holy ones.”  Unfortunately in the English language we have separated the idea of the saint from one who is holy.  We say in English, “the Holy Spirit” and “Saint Paul.”    The Greek word we translate as “Holy” and “Saint” is actually the same word.   To help us keep the connection we sometimes need to think in terms of “the Saint Spirit” and the “Holy Paul.”    Or, we might pray, “Saint God, Saint Mighty, Saint immortal, have mercy on us.”   It sounds totally wrong in English but that is because we have two separate words (saint and holy) that we are using to translate the one Greek word (agios). 

When we minister to God’s “saints” – our fellow church members – we serve God Himself.

“Let no one say to me, How can I love God whom I do not see?…You do not see God, but you see created realities, you see his works, heaven and earth and sea…You do not see God, but you see his servants, his friends – I mean, holy men who enjoy his trust. Attend on them, and you will have no little easing of your desire; in the case of human beings we normally love not only our friends but also those loved by them.”      (St. John Chrysostom, Old Testament Homilies, Volume 3, pg. 74)

By referring to his fellow Christians as saints,  the Holy Peter, is reminding all of us that holiness is to be a normative part of the Christian’s life.  Holiness does belong to God and to those saints whom we honor in the icons of our churches.  It is supposed to be also a normal element of the life of every Christian.  Christian holiness includes imitating our Lord and Master Jesus Christ who came  not to be served but to serve others (Matthew 20:28).

“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them:

You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy”

(Leviticus 19:2).