Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“’For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’”
This is St. Paul quoting from the Book of Proverbs – a notion substantiated throughout Sacred Scripture, that is, that the love of God does not withhold from us the experience of various and sundry sufferings (Dt. 8:5; Ps. 88 [89]:33-34 [32-33]; 118 [119]:67, 71; Pr. 3:11-12; 13:24 [26]; 23:13; WS 11:10). Unfortunately, what we so often hear in these words, in part, due to our brokenness as sinners, is the idea of “punishment” that God punishes us because He is angry with us – a sad product of the Protestant Reformer, John Calvin, whose influence in our culture came by way of the Puritans, aka the Pilgrims. In part, this is also due to the fact that so many fathers and mothers of the flesh, that is, our earthly parents, despite their best intentions and efforts, have failed to correct and discipline in a spirit of love, unlike our heavenly Father Whose nature is love perfected, and when He does discipline us, that is, permits us to experience suffering, it is always out love that is omniscient which always seeks to cure and heal us (1 Jn. 4:8).
Now, you might recall, I quoted the Apostle here last Sunday unbeknownst to me that we would hear these words once more. Thus, I take it to be providential that we are afforded the opportunity to hear them one more time, to reinforce in us the place of suffering in the shaping of our Christian souls to be conformed to the crucified Jesus (Rm. 8:29), that is, to become more and more like our Lord in His Great and Holy Passion which is everything in the Christian life! Remember, this is something I ask each of you at the end of your Confession as I point to the Golgotha Cross before which we stand and ask you if it is your heart’s desire to be fashioned more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.
We hear St. Paul’s words this morning in the context of the Church’s commemoration of the great earthquake at Constantinople in 740 A.D. I suspect it’s because of the shaking and sifting the Apostle speaks of at the end of this pericope, and how that divine shaking and sifting serves God’s purposes. St. Paul likens it to the time that ancient Israel withdrew in fear from the terrible burning and thundering of Mt. Sinai, leaving only Moses to face the God Whose Glory is a consuming fire (Ex. 24:17; Dt. 4:24; Hb. 12:29).
But, there is another terrible earthquake the Church commemorated just a month ago. This one also was in Constantinople in 447 A.D. this time and was reportedly continuous for nearly four months which, as you can well imagine, “shook” the people to the core. Overwhelmed with fear that the dread Day of God’s Judgment was upon them, the people, along with the Patriarch and all the clergy, held a prayer procession offering up their repentance. At one point, the earth began to shake all the more and suddenly a child was “raptured” into the Heavens at which the terrified souls cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy!” At some point the child was returned and told those gathered how he had been taken up “amid the choir of angels, who were singing, ‘Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us!,’ and that a voice commanded him to tell the Patriarch that the people ought to make their supplications to God in this way, without adding anything. After which the child gave up his soul into God’s hands” (Synaxarion, 25 September). To this day, the Church has used this divinely revealed prayer unaltered in all Her services.
Perhaps one of the points of this commemoration is to illustrate for us how God redeems our sufferings and that, oftentimes, we encounter God in ways undreamed of until we were prepared by His hand through His discipline to experience His love, mercy, grace, and compassion if we humbled ourselves in repentance (1 Pe. 5:5-11), just like the people of Constantinople. Let me ask you, beloved: How many saints are you aware of, whose lives you have read, who have not suffered, that is, been disciplined or chastised by God, in some form or fashion? I would wager you would be hard pressed to find any, despite them dying peacefully. Those whom the Lord loves as His holy children, He forms them through His own divine discipline to be conformed to the Kingdom of the age to come. This is what the Holy Tradition and Her Sacred Scriptures teach us. Such discipline is to educate us (which is what the word in Greek means) so that, as St. Paul tells us, “we may be partakers of His holiness,” that is, “partakers of His divine nature” (2 Pe. 1:4), “yield[ing] the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Ep. 4:24; Co. 3:10). Even the Lord’s Disciples, in the throes of a violent sea and gripped by fear, experience God there in the flesh of His Son, Jesus Christ, Who leads them to the waters of deeper faith in God (Mt. 8:23-27).
Beloved, all of this is to say that our God Who is our loving heavenly Father, is ever-present to us to work His good in our lives. We should not assume nor make the mistake of equating everything we experience in terms of suffering as God’s angry punishment for misdeeds or sins on our part. Jesus pointed out in the Gospels that there may be times when what we’re experiencing may be the direct consequence of our sin (Jn. 5:14), but there are plenty of times when what we’re experiencing as painful is a natural part of living as a broken creature in a fallen world (Jn. 9:1-5). On this side of eternity, faith doesn’t guarantee exemption. But, as our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ once told some others, “’I tell you, . . .; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish’” (Lk. 13:1-5).
It is presumed Biblically that we all will experience in this sin-fractured and fragmented world chastisement in a variety of forms which, if we will work with God, will lead to fruitfulness in virtue, greater humility, and deeper faith. Things such as trials, tribulations, persecutions, reproachments, ridicule, needs, distresses, maladies of both soul and body, temptations, and repetitive sins that harass, haunt, and dog us regardless of how hard we try to get a handle on them. This doesn’t imply God is giving us the green light to go ahead and sin – God forbid! – but it does say that God’s grace will not be defeated by such and will abound toward us and in us, even as we heard St. Paul assure us last Sunday (Rm. 6:1-2, 15-23; 1 Cr. 12:7-10)! If we think we can escape from sufferings in this life, then let me remind you of what St. Paul said to others whom he was exhorting to remain steadfast and faithful in the Faith after he himself had been stoned and left for dead: “’We must through many tribulations enter the Kingdom of God’” (Ac. 14:22). Of course, let’s not forget the Beatitudes we sang just moments ago nor what St. Peter likewise has to say:
Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the Name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of Glory and of God rests upon you. . . . But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters. Yet, if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter. For the time has come for judgment to begin at the House of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the Gospel of God? . . . Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator (1 Pe. 4:12-19).
The things we are called upon by God to endure are for our salvation and the healing of our souls. In these, we can either fight God or lean into Him. They are intended and designed by Him under His providential will to purify us in preparation for His Kingdom “which cannot be shaken” (Hb. 2:10; 5:8; 12:28). For those whom God loves, He prunes, Jesus says, so that we might be even more fruitful and not be condemned with the world (Jn. 15:1-17; 1 Cr. 11:32)! The world, beloved, in which we live is both a forge and a furnace of our salvation and sanctification and, ultimately, our glorification as heirs of God and joint heirs with our Brother and Master, Jesus Christ (Rm. 8:17-39; Pp. 1:29-30; 3:7-11).
“’You should know in your heart,’” Moses tells Israel, “’that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you’” (Dt. 8:5). The Prophet and King David accepted the chastisements of God as a re-direction and benefit for his soul. “Before I was humbled,” he says, “I transgressed; therefore have I kept Thy saying,” even giving thanks for God’s life-changing discipline: “It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me, that I might learn Thy statutes” (Ps. 118 [119]:67, 71). In all of this, God assures His wayward sons and daughters, “[N]ever shall I scatter My mercy away from them nor wrong them in My Truth. Neither will I profane My Covenant, nor will I set aside the things that proceed out of My lips” (Ps. 88 [89]:33-34). In the confidence of St. Paul, we can accept this divine promise as trustworthy and sure by which we may live our lives because God cannot lie nor deny Himself (Nm. 23:19; 2 Tm. 2:11-13; Ts. 1:2; Hb. 6:18). Therefore, beloved, “let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hb. 12:28).
Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
VIGIL PROPERS: PROPERS:
Is. 63:15-64:5, 8-9 Hb. 12:6-13, 25-27
Jr. 2:2-12 Mt. 8:23-27
WS 4:7-15