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If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord. If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast. If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; because he shall in nowise be deprived thereof. If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing. If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord, who is jealous of his honor, will accept the last even as the first; he gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has wrought from the first hour.

And he shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first; and to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts. And he both accepts the deeds, and welcomes the intention, and honors the acts and praises the offering. Wherefore, enter you all into the joy of your Lord; and receive your reward, both the first, and likewise the second. You rich and poor together, hold high festival. You sober and you heedless, honor the day. Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.

Enjoy ye all the feast of faith: Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness. let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions. It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown. It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains. It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.

Phillipians 4:4-9

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice…The Lord is at hand.”

The Lord is at hand.  Indeed today as we remember the triumphal entry of our Lord into Jerusalem we realize that He is near and coming to us as well.  The triumphal entry is a prophecy of the second coming of Christ when He shall return in glory. The dead shall rise, just as Lazarus was raised from the dead; those who love Him shall rise to meet Him in the air and accompany Him as He comes, just as the people came out of the city of Jerusalem to meet Him and accompanied Him singing “Hosanna in the Highest, blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord” as He came into the city; we shall stand before Him Who is the only judge of heaven and earth just as He Himself stood before the earthly judges of the Sanhedrin; the King of All shall determine our eternal state just as He Who is the King of All was condemned by Pilate.  Yes, today we rejoice with the Apostles and those who with them welcomed our Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem for now as then, He is near and coming to us.

Seeing this, the Apostle then tells us  “Finally brethren whatever things be true … noble … just…pure…lovely…of good report…any virtue…praiseworthy – mediate on these things.” While it is a good thing that Christ draws near to us, we must respond by drawing near to Him.  How many of those who cried Hosanna and accompanied Christ into the city, later on remained silent as He was condemned – or even more were swept up in the crowd calling for the condemnation of Jesus Christ and choosing instead Barabbus.  By coming into Jerusalem, Jesus drew near to the queen of cities, the Holy City of Jerusalem, but though He drew near to them, many did not draw near to Him.  The rulers of the Jews, the Pharisees and Sadducees were too caught up in their political maneuverings and power plays to draw near to Christ.  Some of the members of the crowd were simply caught up in the emotion of the moment and when it died, they forgot Who it was they welcomed and were caught up again, calling for His death.  Some of those in the crowd that day were genuinely drawn to Jesus Christ, but remained silent loving the world more than the creator of the world and thus let His approach to them pass by without effect.  The Lord drew near, indeed was at hand – but only a few would draw near to Him.

The Lord is at hand – He draws near to us.  We must then respond and draw near to Him.  How then do we do this. The Apostle tells us quite clearly that we must clear our minds and hearts of all that would distract us from Jesus Christ and fill our souls then with those things which come from Him – that is those things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, virtuous and praiseworthy.  In order to draw near to Christ, we must do all that is possible to fill our souls with His grace.  And so we go looking for those things which are filled with the grace of God – that which is true and noble and pure and virtuous and so on.  We must not fill our hearts with those things which are bound to this earth but rather those things which bring us the grace of God.  Anything which displaces Jesus Christ in our hearts and minds impedes our ability to draw near to Him.  What a tragedy it was for those in Jerusalem – the Messiah, the One Whom they had awaited all their lives, the One that their fathers and their father’s fathers had awaited, came to them and they missed it – because they weren’t looking, they had allowed the world to displace their love of God.  What a tragedy for us if we take our eyes off of Christ and allow the things of this world to come between us and Him.  The Lord is at hand – but we have wandered off like the lost sheep and became engrossed with other things.  The Lord draws near to us, but we neglect to draw near to Him.  What a great tragedy and sadness.

And so, my brothers and sisters, today amid the palms and the willow branches and the Hosannas, let us remember that it is all about Jesus Christ.  He is coming to us. But in order to benefit from His approach, we must also come to Him. Let us set aside every earthly care, anything that pulls us away from Christ.  Soon we will celebrate His glorious Resurrection, His victory of sin and death and the devil by which He has freed us to follow Him.  In order to follow Him out of death into life, out of sorrow into joy, out of sin and into righteousness, we must cut off anything that will hold us back when the moment of our freedom comes.  This is the time of our preparation to follow Christ when He comes to lead us out of sin and into heaven – but if we are bound up with the things of the world, we will be unable to follow him.  The prayers and services of Holy Week are the means given to us by the Church by which we fill our souls with all those grace filled things of which the Apostle spoke.  Thus we should do everything in our power to take advantage of this.  If we miss even one prayer, even one service, then we will be all the poorer for it – just that much more ill-prepared to follow Christ when He comes to us and sets us free. 

And do not forget that there will be temptations.  Our enemy and the enemy of Christ, the devil will do everything to distract us, to pull us away from Christ.  He will put all kinds of attractive distractions in our path even now – especially now – at the last minute so that he can steal away the progress we have already made and perhaps even derail our preparations altogether.  Be alert! Do not let the evil one stand in your way and prevent you from drawing near to Christ.  He stood in the way of the Pharisees and Saducees and other rulers of the Jews; he stood in the way of those who sought only the emotion of the crowd; he stood in the way of those who loved the world more than they loved Christ.  Do not let him stand in your way – but reject the temptations and distractions that he will throw in your path to keep you from prayer, to keep you from the services of Holy Week, to keep you from anything that brings to you the grace of God.

Rejoice and again I say rejoice! The Lord is at hand! He is coming to you, and you must prepare to go to Him.  Let us all pray together and prepare together so that on the bright day of Pascha – on the feast of our Lord’s Resurrection – we might run to Him and embrace Him and draw near to Him and follow Him together into His kingdom.  Rejoice for the Lord is drawing near!

On this final Sunday of Great Lent, the Church remembers Venerable Mary of Egypt. If you were here this past Wednesday Evening, you heard her life read in Church during the Matins with the Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete. For those who were not here, and who do not know about Saint Mary, I want to provide a brief account of her life. She was born in Egypt. When she was twelve years old, she ran away from her family and went to the great city of Alexandria and spent her days seeking the pleasures of this world. She spent seventeen years trying to satisfy every desire that she had, most especially sexual desires, but she also loved drinking and eating, and listening to music that fed her sensual desires.

She was not a harlot exactly, but more of a party girl. She loved any physical experience that brought her pleasure. One day she saw a group of pilgrims departing Alexandria to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Elevation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross of our Lord. She went with them, not out of religious sentiment or spiritual longing, but because she saw a bunch of young men that she could seduce and an adventure that she could go on. And sadly, she was successful in turning some of the pilgrims toward the fulfillment of her desires.

Arriving at the Church with the pilgrims, she thought she could just walk in and see what was going on, but she was held back as if by an invisible hand. As everyone entered unhindered, she realized that it was her sin that prevented her from entering, and she made a vow to the Mother of God that if she were allowed in to venerate the Holy Cross, that she would go wherever she was directed and live out her life in repentance. She was then brought into the Church as if by the same invisible hand, and after venerating the cross, she went out into the wilderness beyond the Jordan River where she spent the rest of her life. She had spent seventeen years in wanton sinfulness in Alexandria, and so she spent the next seventeen years tortured by her past sins while repenting in the desert. In all she spent 48 years in the desert and only encountered one other person, Saint Zosimas to whom she told all her sins, and all about her repentance and the life that she lived. After receiving communion from Saint Zosimas when he came again to see her, she departed this life for the heavenly mansions.

Saint Mary of Egypt is held up for us as an example of repentance, even extreme repentance, but it is not her repentance that I want to focus on today. Saint Mary, when she recounted her life to Saint Zosimas didn’t mention what kind of upbringing she had. Her story more or less begins with her leaving her parent’s house. But when she begins her repentance, she goes to the Church of the Forerunner on the banks of the Jordan and partakes of the Holy Mysteries. From this, it would seem that she was already Baptized and Chrismated. As further evidence of this, she knew about the Cross, she knew who the Mother of God was. She was likely raised in the Church to some extent. So when she left her parent’s home, she was not just rejecting them, but the Church as well. When she boarded a boat filled with pilgrims hoping to seduce them, she was aware of what that meant. Indeed she describes her behavior as “hunting” Saint Mary was not just a party girl, but she was a prodigal and at times, even an enemy of Christ, all as a baptized Christian.

In fairness, we don’t know what kind of parents she had. Maybe they took her to every service, maybe they prayed together everyday, maybe they kept all the fasts of the Church, maybe they explained to her the gospel and told her about saints’ lives. But maybe they got her baptized and then neglected to take her to Church, maybe they lived their lives disconnected from the rhythms and cycles of the Church and she was starved of the grace of God because of their lack of zeal. We don’t know because she only tells us what she did wrong. She doesn’t blame anyone but herself, even if there was plenty of blame to go around.

Those of us who are parents, or godparents, or spiritual fathers, or even brothers in sisters in Christ, should wonder what makes a person drift so far from the Church that such extraordinary repentance would be necessary. But we also shouldn’t be surprised. Every one of us is a sinner in need of repentance, and we are also the examples that others see of what the Christian life is.

When we pray, we are so distracted by every little thought, by a movement in the corner of our eyes, by a sound from the other room. We stand in the presence of God, but we are somewhere else, or everywhere else in our thoughts. And while this is not good for us, it can also show others that we don’t really think God is there. If a toddler or an attractive person or an over- or under-zealous parishioner can so distract us, why would anyone deduce that we are in the presence of the Creator of All?

When we fast and it’s all about what ingredients are in our food, or how it was prepared, and not about relying on God for our sustenance, we show that He is not a part of our fasting. When we look at fasting as something to be delivered from instead of a way of being delivered from our passions, we are telling people that none of this is real.

When we don’t help others who are in need, when we ignore suffering and consider compassion to be weakness, we deny the image of Christ in others. We not only fail to encounter Christ, but we show others that Christ is not found in either the beggar or the Christian.

When we give all our attention to work, sports, social activities, a constant stream of news reports and social media posts, but struggle to read a couple verses of Scripture or the life of a Saint, we show everyone else what we think really matters.

The good news from the life of Saint Mary of Egypt is that until we die, we always have the opportunity to repent, and God will pursue us all of our days. The bad news is that so often we don’t really encounter God, and we fail to help others encounter Him. If you want your children and godchildren, your brothers and sisters in Christ to remain in the Church, you need to move past the distractions of this life, you need to move past formalities, you need to live lives of active virtue and actually encounter God yourself.

There’s one more part of the story of Saint Mary of Egypt that I want to point out. At one point, before Saint Zosimas knows anything about the life of Saint Mary and only sees the sanctified woman that she had become, he asked Saint Mary to pray for the world. She began to pray and Saint Zosimas cast his eyes toward the ground. She prayed for such a long time that Saint Zosimas, a monk of many years who prayed a lot himself, was surprised at the length of her prayer and looked up to see her about an arm’s-length above the ground and he was astonished.

This is for the kids especially, but probably needed for a lot of us adults. We get tired sometimes; we get bored; at home in our icon corners, or here in Church. This is normal. But when we actually encounter Christ and have real communion with Him, He starts to grab our attention and raise us up to Himself. The Church is not about suffering in this life so that we can have happiness after we die. The Church is about what we do with our attention, where we focus, what we work towards. And when we truly seek God, He lets us find Him.

Perhaps we haven’t given you an example of what that looks like because we’re all struggling with that ourselves. God became man so that we could see Him. But if you look at all the pretty and distracting things of this world, you’ll miss Him. He wants to be heard, but if you spend all your time listening to music or gossip you’ll never hear His voice. He wants to feed us with His own body and blood, but we are too distracted by the food and drink in the world to prepare ourselves for that heavenly food.

Seek God, He wants to be found. Take our bad examples as warnings; take our good examples as encouragement. Don’t be trapped by the world into thinking that having fun is all that life is about. And don’t think that the Christian life is about being miserable. Seek God and you will have joy even in the greatest sorrows. Seek the things of this world, and you will have sorrow even while experiencing life’s greatest pleasures.

Saint John of the Ladder was the abbot of the Monastery on Mt Sinai. At the request of one of his disciples, who was himself an abbot, St John wrote a manual of monastic and ascetic life called, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”.  In this book he describes 30 steps of the spiritual life which lead to heaven.  This book is often considered to be profitable Lenten reading, even for laymen. 

Today, however, let us look at St John himself.  From a young age he loved the Lord Jesus Christ above all else and as a youth forsook his home and family and entered a cenobitic monastery as a novice.  In the monastery, labored in all the various obediences of monastic life and he also was placed under the guidance of a spiritual father whom he obeyed without question, trusting his elder to lead him well in the spiritual life. This life of complete obedience to his elder enabled him to conquer self will and self confidence which prevent one from placing himself completely within the will of God. When his elder departed this life, John had already been in the monastery many years.  Seeking to intensify his spiritual life, he departed for Mt Sinai and there found a cave that was removed from the monastery by about 3 or 4 miles.  There he struggled for 40 years in silence and prayer drawing near to God and acquiring a wealth of God’s grace.  At the end of this time, by the will of God he left the silence of his cave and began to labor as a spiritual father and finally as abbot of the main monastery on Mt Sinai.

(It is said that while he was abbot, on one of the great feasts there were many pilgrims who came to the monastery and at the festal meal everyone noticed a youngish man dressed as an ancient Hebrew going about directing the servers and all the details of the meal.  Later when asked who this was and how, as a seeming Hebrew, it was he had such authority in the Monastery.  St John answered that it was no surprise to him that the Holy Prophet Moses would come to serve his guests on his own mountain.)

In any case, when we look at St John’s life, which we summarized very briefly, we can see three stages of his spiritual development that provide for us a simple pattern to follow in our own lives.  First, he left his worldly life behind – he voluntarily withdrew from the world – in order to follow Christ.  Our Lord Himself told us that no man can serve two masters and St John taking this instruction, left behind the “master” of the world and entered the monastery.  This is the first stage – to leave the world behind, to cut it off from ourselves.  Secondly, he mastered his own self will and passions by a life of strict and complete obedience – never giving way to his own will, but always submitting to the will of his spiritual father.  This then is the second stage – obedience which results in death of self (i.e. the “old man”). Thirdly he entered into a life of silence – a life of complete focus on prayer and the contemplation of God.  Having left behind the world and having accomplished the death of the self, this third stage of silence brings one into the presence of God and obtains for us the life of Christ which we live as the “new man”.  These three stages of spiritual life provide for us a path to salvation.

We have today an example of others who followed this path – the Holy 40 Martyrs.  These 40 Martyrs were a company of Christians in the army of the Roman Empire.  When the co-emperor of the eastern empire – Licinius – betrayed the trust of his benefactor – St Constantine who at that time ruled the western part of the empire from old Rome, and renounced Christ and returned to the worship of idols and began a persecution of Christians in the east, sending out instructions to all his governors and commanders to torture and put to death any who would not sacrifice to idols.  The commander of these 40 Christian soldiers discovered that they would not obey the emperor’s command and first brought them to trial where they each and every one renounced the worship of idols and boldly confessed Christ.  The commander threw them into prison and called the governor to try them and put them to severe torture and if necessary to death. First the soldiers were subjected to beatings and other similar tortures, but they remained steadfast in their confession.  The governor, seeing that there was no hope in convincing these soldiers to turn away from Christ sent them back to prison while he devised a torturous death for them.  While in prison, these soldiers, under the leadership of one of their own who was well versed in the scripture, chanted and sang Psalms to the glory of God, continually offering a sacrifice of praise to our Lord Jesus Christ.  When the governor brought them out of prison he sent them all to the middle of a lake to stand in the waist deep water without any protection. The soldiers continued to praise God with psalms and spiritual songs.  It was the middle of winter and as night fell ice formed on the bodies of the soldiers.  The governor lit a bonfire and built a sauna on the shore, inviting any who would renounce Christ and sacrifice to idols to come and warm themselves.  One of the soldiers weakened and left the lake, however, as soon as he entered the sauna, he fell dead – losing both his earthly life and his eternal reward.  In the middle of the night when all were asleep but the jailer, a great light shone from heaven on the martyrs in the lake and a vision of crowns descended from heaven to rest on the heads of the martyrs.  The 40^th crown remained empty as the one soldier had forsaken Christ.  The jailer seeing this wondrous vision, threw off his own military clothing and ran into the lake crying out “I am a Christian” joining himself to the company of martyrs and claiming the 40^th crown.  In the morning, all the martyrs survived the cold night and they were taken to the prison where their bones were shattered with sledgehammers and they all finally gave their souls into the hand of God.

Now we can see how these martyrs followed the same path as St John of the Ladder.  First they renounced the world by putting off their military belts and choosing to follow Christ rather than the impious emperor.  They then took the path of obedience to Christ by refusing to sacrifice to idols and boldly confessing Christ before the governor and their commander.  Thirdly, they entered the stage of silence and prayer spending their time in prison constantly offering praise to God by singing psalms and spiritual songs, focusing themselves entirely on the worship of the One True God.  These steps enabled them to “complete the course”, to “endure to the end” and so they received not only the Kingdom of God but were also awarded the crown of martyrs.

How then do we, living in the modern world, follow the life of St John and of these 40 Martyrs?  First we take the step of withdrawing from the world by cutting off the hold that the world has on us.  Every aspect of our lives we take out of the context of the world and dedicate it to Christ.  We hold our assets, such as our earnings, our savings, our possessions not as our own but as gifts given to us by God to be used for His glory.  Then we also perform all our tasks – whether it be as an employee, as a parent or child, as a husband or wife, as a citizen of our society – not for our own benefit, but to the glory of God.  In this way we detach ourselves from the world and turn our steps towards Christ.

Next we undertake a life of obedience, cutting off our own self will by obeying another.  That One Whom we obey is Christ.  We do this at a very basic level by simply obeying the laws and expectations of our society according to our place therein – cutting off our own self will in this way.  Most of us do this on a regular basis – we obey the speed limit (mostly), we don’t commit any (major) crimes, we fulfill our “civic duty” when called upon and so on. But our obedience goes deeper than this – we must also obey the law of God as given to us in the Gospel and in the life of the Church.  Again we cut off our own desires to follow the lead of Christ – we strive to avoid sin, to live righteously, to order our lives according to the traditions of the Church. We submit ourselves to the guidance of our spiritual elders – god parents, spiritual fathers, pastors and hierarchs.  One way in which we can implement this in our lives is to do nothing without a blessing – get a blessing from the priest for “big” things, major changes in your life and so on, but also get a blessing from your parents, godparents or spouse for the “small” things, all those little daily decisions that we make.  This is the obedience that over time crucifies our self will.

Thirdly we live a life of “silence” that is a life of prayer and of living constantly in the presence of God.  This is accomplished by keeping our regular prayer rule, by participating in the prayer life of the Church (i.e. the services of the Church), by asking for God’s help with every little task and thanking Him for every little event in our lives as we go through the day.  It is also helpful to learn a few short prayers – like the Jesus Prayer, the “Our Father”, the prayers for 24  hours of the day by St John Chrysostom, verses from the Psalter, or any other short prayers that you can hold in your memory.  These prayers, said frequently, even continually, serve as the background of your entire life, bringing you every moment into the presence of God.

We can all do these things in our daily lives – there is nothing excessively heroic or difficult about any of it.  We don’t have to be ascetic desert monks or martyrs, or spiritual giants – we just have to be ourselves uncompromisingly dedicated to Jesus Christ.

Let us therefore, set out on this way of life demonstrated for us by St John, the 40 martyrs and countless other saints.  We can all separate ourselves from the world and join ourselves to Christ.  We can all submit to the life of the Church. We can all fill our lives with prayer.  It is all doable – but it is not always going to be easy.  The Christian life is a labor, a struggle, even a running battle – but in the end it leads to the Kingdom of God and the crowns that He has prepared for us as we follow Him.

NOTICE:  Due to the changes in yahoogroups, I have moved my sermons onto a blog on wordpress called "Pastoral Thoughts: Musings of a Village Priest" https://homilies2020.wordpress.com/  If you would like to get the sermons via email (and other random thoughts I might have), please subscribe to my blog. - Fr. David