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2 Corinthians 4:7-15

“For we have this treasure in earthen vessels…”

This is an amazing statement of the Apostle Paul which is given to bring to our mind the awesome miracle of God’s love for us.  The treasure of which he speaks is the uncreated divine energy, the grace of God and it has been placed by God in vessels made of created earth – that is within us.  That which is immortal is contained in that which is mortal and a great mystery, the container is not destroyed!  We recall this sentiment in one of the prayers that we say in preparation to receive the Holy Mysteries, “…rejoicing and trembling at once, I partake of fire, I that am grass.  And strange wonder! I am bedewed without being consumed…”  God, the creator of all has come to us and has entered into us, we, who are created vessels of the dust of the earth; and behold, a great wonder, we are not overcome and destroyed by the great holiness of God, we are not burnt and consumed by the divine Fire, but instead we are illumined and participate in the uncreated energies of God.  This is our destiny – this is God’s purpose and desire for us.  O glory to God in the highest, who in His great love for mankind has descended from the heavens that he mightest gather us up and join us to Himself.

This is a great miracle and by itself is enough for a lifetime of contemplation and wonder.  However, the Apostle does not stop here but continues on to describe the effect that this “great treasure” has upon the frail “earthen vessel” in which it is contained.  He then tells us that “we are pressed from all sides, and yet not crushed; we are perplexed but do not despair; we are persecuted but not forsaken; we are struck down but not destroyed.”  This wonderful set of contradictions describes for us the effect that the indwelling grace of God has upon us.  Although we are surrounded by all these various forces and attackers, still we are preserved by the grace of God. 

“We are pressed from all sides…” Indeed this is true for as Christians we are constantly being pressured from every possible angle to compromise our faith or to turn our backs on Christ.  The values and expectations of our society are constantly moving further and further from the standards of the life of Christ.  We are constantly pressured to replace our love of God with something else – with work, recreation, pleasures, school, activities (sports, clubs & organizations, politics, etc), food and drink, and so on.  We are pressured not only by interests but also by difficulties: sickness, sorrows, loss, tragedies, misfortunes, etc.  We are even pressured from within by our own passions – our pride, vanity, vain-glory, self esteem (and all the other “selfs”), greed, gluttony, love of pleasure.  We could go on and on pointing out all the various sources of pressure “from all sides”.  But, despite all of these pressures, by the power of God’s grace within us, we are not crushed.  No matter what pressures we face, the grace of God is stronger and will preserve us.  No matter how great the temptation, if we rely upon God’s strength and help, that temptation will be unable to overcome us.  Whenever we feel that pressure, all we need to do is to reach out to God, crying out as did Peter, “Lord save me”, and He will take our hand and lift us up.  He does not remove the pressure, but He provides us with the strength to resist and to hold firm in order that we are not crushed.

“We are perplexed…”  So many times we face the limitations of our human understanding.  We are creatures who are destined to live in intimate union and communion with our Creator.  There are many times when we do not see or grasp the ways of God.  So often we just don’t understand.  We come face to face with our own limitations and realize that we cannot and do not control the world around us.  At that moment we are tempted to despair – to fall into the error of the rich man of the parable and give ourselves over to whatever physical pleasures are within our grasp, thinking we “deserve” at least a little happiness, even if it is false, fleeting and based on deception.  With that rich man we say to ourselves, “eat, drink, be merry” but with added dark note, “for tomorrow we die”.  We despair of hope and give up – falling prey to the error that death is the end (it’s not, it’s the beginning), that this life is the best there is (it’s not, this life is only the preparation for the best life – eternal life in Christ).  But this can only be true if we do not place all our hope and confidence upon God.  If we are filled with His grace, if we depend upon Him for all things, then no matter how much we don’t understand, no matter how little “sense” everything makes, no matter how out of control things may seem, we can have confidence that God loves us and arranges our lives so as to acquire eternal riches and joys which are infinitely above and beyond the value of worldly wealth and pleasure.

“We are persecuted…”  The enemy of mankind, the devil, constantly pursues us, seeking to negate all the spiritual benefit that we have acquired.  He and his demons constantly pursue us and try to pull us away from God.  They use every possible avenue including the pressure from all sides of the world to crush us and the perplexity that leads to despair.  They harass us, lie to us, cause doubt, entice us to pride with flattery and deception.  They use those in the world that are amenable to their suggestion to press their attack, whether emotionally, intellectually or sometimes even physically.  Their pursuit is relentless – but by God’s grace we are not forsaken, but are constantly surrounded by our brethren, by the choir of the saints, by the heavenly host and by the power of God.  We are never alone for God Himself is with us and if He is with us who then can stand against us.  The saints are ever near us, anticipating and awaiting our own salvation that we might enter together into our reward.  At our baptism we are joined to a guardian angel, the protector of our soul and body who is quick to defend us from the attacks of the evil one and indeed by all the ranks of angels.  We are never alone; we are not forsaken as long as we live within the grace that God bestows upon us.

“We are struck down…” And yet with all this help, sometimes, in our weakness, we fall, we sin.  But God, even while we were yet sinners, loved us and so provides for us a way of healing, a way of return.  If we confess our sins, if we admit that we erred, that we are weak, that we have fallen; if we repent and turn from our sins and turn again towards God; then God will embrace us, flood us with His healing grace and restore us again to the path of salvation.  We are struck down – but not destroyed. 

Then there is one final paradox that the apostle gives us, “…Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”  We are instructed by our Lord to “take up the cross” and to follow Him.  In our worldly life, we take up the cross and so enter into His death.  Step by step we sacrifice the life of this world so that we might obtain something better.  That which we seek to obtain is the life of Jesus Christ.  And now we come full circle: we have a great treasure, that is, the divine life of Christ, in an earthen vessel and it is by giving up our earthly life that we have obtained that divine life.  By dying to the world, we now live to Christ.  By losing our lives, we have been given Life.  We make that great exchange by choosing Christ, by placing all our hope in Him, by depending completely upon Him.  We are indeed “earthen vessels” but by a great miracle we have been filled with the great treasure of the Life of the incarnate God and far from being destroyed we are preserved and transformed by it in order that we might be brought into His Kingdom and live in the glory of His Life eternally.

Saint Constantine, having found victory against his pagan enemies by the sign of the Cross, not once, not twice, but three times charged his mother, the Empress Helen, with finding the true Cross of our Lord. Having been led to the site of the Holy Sepulcher and Golgotha, three crosses were uncovered which had long ago been buried by the Jews after the Resurrection. With the finding of these three crosses, there was still no indication of which one might be the Cross of our Lord. It was at this time that a cart came past carrying a corpse for burial. The three crosses were placed on the corpse, and when the Cross on which our Lord suffered and died was placed on this dead man, he was raised to life again.

In the gospel reading this morning, we heard our Lord say, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” He does not say “let him choose a cross,” rather the cross is there already and we are to take it up and follow him. This life is filled with crosses, and a great many people, even those who are not Christian, are faced with very heavy crosses. All around the world, people suffer from death, disease, injury, hunger and thirst, betrayal, and loss. The crosses are there for every single person, but will we take up ours?

Our Lord died on the cross between two thieves. Having died, our Lord descended into Hades and destroyed the might of death and granted life to those in the tombs. The same abundant life that over-filled Hades and burst its bars and gates raised up the dead man upon whom the cross was placed. But even from his own cross, Saint Dismas, the good thief, was granted paradise and given life. He did this by denying himself, by repenting of his sin and directing his thoughts away from the self-centered thoughts which had brought him to this place. “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” He saw the righteousness of Christ and in contrast to that, saw that his own actions had made him worthy of the punishment that he was receiving, and he sought to join his suffering to the Lord’s suffering. The wise thief participated in our Lord’s life-giving death by voluntarily accepting his suffering in imitation of Christ. The other thief could only focus on his own self-preservation, saying “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” He sought to escape the cross and so found his cross to merely be an instrument of death.

So we already have a cross (or crosses) prepared for us. We can’t escape them, but we can choose whether they will bring life or death, blessing or curse. We must deny ourselves and all our earthly wishes and desires, and follow Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

So often we look for escape from suffering, whether that is through food, drink, alcohol, drugs, entertainment, imagination, or lustful pleasure. It is not so much that we seek to sin, but rather we seek to not have to think about the cross that is waiting for us – to avoid taking it up, at least for now. But the problem is that the cross does not go away. And every time that we avoid it, the cross seems heavier. So we try harder to pretend that it isn’t there.

Sometimes rather than avoiding our cross, we bear it but in a way that brings no benefit to us. Sure, we accept that life is hard, but we spend most of our time complaining about our lot in life. We say, “why me?” Why now” “Why not someone else?” We don’t see Christ in his suffering because we see only ourselves.

We are faced with the necessity that we must take the cross presented to us, and choose to die on it along side our Lord. Our Lord says to us this morning, “whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it.” And Saint Paul says “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

So when we are faced with a cross, we don’t deny the cross, we deny ourselves, and choose to be crucified on it, knowing that we will not find death, but life through it. But just as Christ descended into Hades before raising the dead from their tombs, we must look squarely at the suffering we face, and consider the cost of it all compared to the rewards of the Kingdom to come. This is no easy task. Saint Innocent of Alaska says “If in the face of all the pain and inner suffering which these thoughts will cause you, you will firmly resolve to endure them rather than seek consolation in anything of this world, and will pray fervently to the Lord for your salvation, surrendering completely to His will – He in turn will begin to reveal to you precisely the condition of your soul, thus allowing you more and more to sow and nourish fear, affliction, and sorrow in yourself – and thereby purify yourself all the more.”

This gets us to the hardest part. We hear words like this, and the truth resounds in our hearts. We know that we are called to this, but it’s all so scary so we say, “I’ll give it a shot. I’ll try.” And in doing so, we don’t accept the cross, just the idea of the cross. We don’t die to ourselves, we suffer but without the joy that comes from the Cross.

The Saints are those who didn’t just accept their cross, but who sought more crosses to bear because they saw the joy of Christ living in them. So they labored in asceticism, they loved their neighbor even when it was difficult or required deprivation, They did things that we would call extreme not because they liked suffering, but because it brought joy. One of the wonderful things about our modern world is that we now have photographs of some of the more recent Saints. Look how often they have the most joyous smiles, and then read their lives and see if you can find anything material to explain them. They smile because through the Cross joy is come into all the world.

Saint Helen found three crosses buried in the earth. One of them was an instrument of cruel torture. One of them was the means by which a repentant sinner was saved. One of them was the precious and life-giving cross of our Lord. The cross that you find planted in your life can join you to that cross, it can bring you joy in the midst of the greatest sorrow, or it can just be torture. Understand that it will not go away, resolve to avoid the consolation this world offers in order to keep you from it, ascend that cross, endure that cross, and begin to experience the Joy of the Resurrection.

Yesterday we celebrated the great feast of the birth of the Virgin Mary.  From before the ages, God labored to prepare for her birth as she was to be the instrument of His incarnation.  From the time of our first parents Adam and Eve, God chose generation after generation those who would become the ancestors of the Virgin Mary.  He chose Seth and Noah and Abraham and David the King and finally He chose Joachim and Anna.  Joachim was of the line of David signifying the royalty of Christ and Anna was of the high priestly line of Aaron showing the divinity and salvific nature of Christ. From these two righteous ones was born the most perfect product of the human race.  There was never before nor has there ever been since anyone as perfect as she. She was crafted  by God throughout the centuries to be the temple in which He would come to dwell with us.

Just as the Old Testament temple was no common dwelling composed of ordinary or common materials, so also the temple of Christ was conceived by no common people, but by those who were rich in the spiritual life. In the Old Testament temple (whether the tent of the tabernacle or the temple of Solomon which replaced it) there were only the finest materials used.  The parents of the virgin were prefigured by the tabernacle’s purple, scarlet and twisted linen.  Just as the temple was adorned with this rich and royal cloth, so the parents of the Virgin were themselves adorned with the purple of chastity and the scarlet of abstinence.  While they were wealthy in worldly goods, more importantly they were wealthy in spiritual goods.  They prayed and fasted and gave alms generously; they lived according to the law of God, looking to Him for every blessing.  They lacked only one thing – a child.  Despite 50 years of marriage, they remained childless. 

Today’s society does not see childlessness in the same light as it was viewed in the time of Joachim and Anna.  Children were seen as a blessing from God – it was clearly understood that God is the One who gives children.  Today we have all kinds of scientific and medical knowledge about the ins and outs of conception and childbirth, but that still does not change the truth that only God can give life.  In ancient times, childlessness was seen as a sign of God’s displeasure – that somehow the couple had transgressed the law and had not properly repented. Joachim and Anna carried this stigma with them, the suspicion that no matter how pious and spiritual they were that somehow they were lacking in the sight of God.  But this view was short-sighted.  Their childlessness was not a curse, but a blessing.  Through their struggle with childlessness, they developed their life of prayer and fasting and almsgiving to a high spiritual level and became by this the one’s who would be chosen for the birth of the Virgin Mary.

Consider how we look at such trials and difficulties in our own lives.  When things are difficult, when we struggle with temptation and the contrary circumstances of life, we see this as something undesirable.  But it is through these temptations, these struggles, these contrary circumstances that the Holy Spirit develops in us the virtues of patience, humility, compassion and trust in God.  It is in this manner that we become ever stronger spiritually.  When we see our lives from this perspective then we can reach out and embrace these difficult situations with joy, knowing that God is working in us.  Rather than something to be despised, these trials become our treasures.

To return to Joachim and Anna, let us see how they worked with this burden.  They greatly desired to have a child as a sign of God’s love for them.  They were not shy about expressing this desire to God.  Finally the day came when Joachim was reproached in the temple and his sacrifice set aside by the priest because he was considered unworthy to approach God due to his childlessness.  Joachim left the temple in a state of mourning and rather than returning home, he went into the wilderness where the flocks were being grazed.  There he began to beg God with tears that he might be granted a child, calling to mind Abraham who was given the child of promise, Isaac, in his old age.  To his fervent prayer he added fasting and resolved to remain in the desert without any food for 40 days.  Likewise Anna, when she was told of what had happened wept inconsolably both from her barrenness and her abandonment.  She likewise called to mind the examples of Sarah and Hannah (the mother of the prophet Samuel), who both conceived miraculously by the hand of God.  In the midst of this great feat of weeping, prayer and ascetic labor, both Joachim and Anna were visited by the archangel Gabriel who gave them the news that their prayers had been heard and that Anna would bear “a daughter, most blessed, by whom all the tribes of the earth would be blessed and through whom salvation would be granted to the whole world.” Joachim and Anna both rose up in rejoicing at the news and hurried to the temple in order to give an offering of thanks unto God for His mercy to them.

Here is an example of how we too should respond to the difficulties that assail us in life.  We should make our desires known to God with persistence with tears, with offerings of voluntary asceticism (fasting and exile in this case).  How often in the lives of the saints do we read of how as a youth this or that saint was ill or injured and was near death and his parents would go to the Church or to a monastery or on a pilgrimage to a holy place in order to offer their prayers to God.  They would promise fasts, almsgiving, ascetic labors, pilgrimages and so on.  God heard the prayers of these parents and brought healing to the one near death who then followed a path of dedication to God and life of sanctity.  When we are faced with a difficult situation, all too often we use this as an excuse to pamper ourselves, to take it a little easy, to slack off on our spiritual life – after all we’re only human and we have our limits.  But if we take the example of Joachim and Anna, we will increase our spiritual effort, increase our prayers, increase our fast, increase our almsgiving, crying out to God without pause (as the persistent widow in our Lord’s parable).  We should respond with greater spiritual effort, not less. 

Additionally we should never lose hope in God’s providence and care.  Sts Joachim and Anna did not turn away from God, they did not complain that God had mistreated them or neglected them.  They held fast to their trust in God’s love and care for them, turning only to Him.  He was the sole source of their hope and they had unshaking trust in Him.  And God honored their trust, He heard their prayers and in due time He revealed to them His purpose for their lives – that they had been prepared especially to bring into the world this very special child, the Virgin Mary. 

And again we look at their example – having seen God’s purpose and provision they hurried first and foremost to the temple to give thanks.  Let us also give thanks to God – not only when we see His answer to our prayers, but even before that, acting by faith that although we do not understand how or why God uses difficulty in our lives, we trust that He is taking care of us, that He does have a plan and purpose for all that happens to us and, as the Apostle writes, that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord.  Indeed this is our faith, that our God (Our Father as we are taught to pray) loves us and cares for us and gives us every good thing that is needful for us to build up treasure in Heaven and to enter into His Kingdom.

Let us therefore remember not only the glorious and all praised Virgin Mary today, but also her parents, Joachim and Anna who were found worthy to be called the “Ancestors of God” by reason of their faith and their unshakable belief in the provision of God.  Let us increase our faith, increase our prayers, increase our spiritual labor that we might also be found worthy to be called the children of God.

In the gospel this morning, our Lord encountered a rich man asking what good thing he must do to inherit eternal life. Our Lord tells the man that he must keep the commandments, specifically -- don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself. So the man replies that he has done these things, even from childhood, and wants to know what more he has to do.

This exchange is interesting because we often react the same way. We want to know what we have to do in exchange for eternal life, besides what we’re already doing. For the most part we look at ourselves as pretty decent people. Confronted with the commandments our Lord pointed to, most of us can say that we keep most of them most of the time. Maybe I don’t love my neighbor completely, I might not honor Mom and Dad like I ought to, maybe I’ve even had a more serious moral lapse in the distant or even relatively recent past, but for the most part I do well enough.

But if we’re really honest with ourselves, we get angry to the point that we murder others in our thoughts, we look on others with lust in our hearts and commit adultery in our minds, we seek to acquire what others have through envy and covetousness, we lie to others and even to ourselves in order to look better or gain favor, we honor our parents with our lips but harbor resentment and bitterness in our hearts, and we do good to our neighbor for appearances while talking evil about him behind his back. Never mind that we don’t truly love God because we consistently choose the things of this world over Him.

But let us assume that this rich young man was being honest in saying he has kept the commandments from his youth. Our Lord doesn’t argue with him, but rather points out to him one further good thing. He challenges the young man, not with a new commandment, but rather with a call to remove the barrier to a truly holy life. And related to this, Christ invites the young man to follow Him into this holy life.

This is what we are all faced with. Even if you are that pretty good person, you still have need of the holiness that only comes from turning away from the attachment to worldly things, and from following Christ in humility, virtue, and voluntary suffering. We might think that this passage is about wealth, about money, about greed and avarice, and it is; but it is about all of the attachments we have to this world and its enticements.

Even if we are not living in a blatantly sinful manner, breaking the commandments, we still need to break away from the things that seek to draw us to that end. A rich man like the one in the gospel might be tempted to murder in order to protect his wealth, he might be enticed to acquire more than just money by lusting after women, he might steal or defraud others, he might deny honor to father and mother because he doesn’t want to part with his riches, and he might use his neighbor for material gain. So he is told to sell everything and give it to the poor. Cut off that temptation and replace it with a virtuous way of living.

One of our great enticements is pleasure. We seek pleasure at every opportunity and in every arena of our lives. Our food and drink must be the finest tasting food and drink, our houses and cars should be pleasing to the eye, comfortable, and the envy of others, our circle of friends and even our families should only be filled with people that make us feel good, other people then are reduced to their utility in making me happy, or in satisfying an urge or desire.

One of our greatest enticements in this world today is the desire for “rightness.” In our personal relationships we have trouble humbling ourselves enough to even apologize when we know we are wrong because we have to maintain the illusion that we are right. In our professional relationships, we struggle to take correction because we don’t want to admit that someone knows better than us. In politics, we justify such anger and resentment because we only hate the bad people who do bad things. Even in Church, we argue over what is correct theology even though we usually don’t live according to the Church’s teachings anyway. We even argue with God about whether He is treating us the right way or being unfair with us.

Whatever it is that keeps us from Christ, we must take drastic measures to remove it from our lives, and not simply to cast away the bad, but to replace it with a good thing. So the rich man was told not just to get rid of what he had, but to give it to the poor that he might have treasure in heaven. So if we want to be freed from the desire for pleasure, we must fast; but we should also be merciful to others. By fasting and living for others we learn that there will be joy, happiness, even pleasure in this life; but that it is not to be sought for itself. If we want to be freed from the desire to be right all the time, we must humble ourselves by not defending ourselves, and by submitting our will in obedience to others. We will still be right sometimes, but we will not be enslaved to the need to always establish our rightness.

Saint Paul tells us this morning that he is the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle. He was one of the more intellectually gifted of the apostles, we are told that he labored more than the rest, but he was more pleased to be seen as the least of all because he had persecuted the Church. He did not give into pride or boasting, but embraced humility for the sake of his salvation.

This morning we also remember Saints Peter and Febronia. Saint Peter was a prince in Murom who was miraculously healed by Febronia a young peasant woman. In gratitude for his healing and with great love for one another the two were married. There were some who opposed the union, and because of this, Peter and Febronia left the throne and their city. In addition, they used their wealth for charitable purposes. They gave up what they were entitled to have for the sake of a greater Kingdom than the one they possessed. They show us a model of what marriage is, a mutual struggle against the things of this world for the Kingdom of Heaven.

So we must give up everything that we think we are entitled to, we must even be willing to give up everything we have, if we are to follow Christ. When we begin to follow Christ, however, we recognize that everything we have given up has been gain and not deprivation. So the Saints, like Christ, were humble and He exalts them with Himself. The Saints give everything away, but receive riches in the Kingdom. The Saints suffer for Christ but are given such joys that they count them as light afflictions. And they don’t receive this gain just in the Kingdom which is to come, but they receive these things in the present life. Life in Christ is not one of misery and depression so that when we die we can finally be happy. It is a life of joy that comes from things eternal instead of from things which are fleeting.

Look at what is keeping you from following Christ, see the effects that it has, and get rid of it, replacing it with good things, with virtues and a life of repentance, and then follow Christ, finding joy in His presence which only increases as you seek Him more faithfully and diligently.

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