Archbishop George (Wagner)
Every Sunday, every day celebrating the Resurrection, reminds us again and again of God’s love for people.
On the first page of the first book of the Bible, we read that God created light in this world on the first day. Farther on, we read that He created the rest of Creation on other days, and that finally, on the seventh day, He rested from all of His works, and that he blessed that day as the day of rest for man. Thus it was in the time of the Old Testament: God’s chosen people celebrated Saturday, the seventh day of the week, the day of rest, the Sabbath.
In the New Testament, we are told that the Son of God, living on earth, and taking on Himself death on the Cross for us, lay in the tomb on the Sabbath, on the day of rest, and that on the first day of the week (the day God created light in this world), He rose up out of the tomb, resurrected from the dead. For that reason, we, the New Testament Church of Christ, now celebrate not Saturday, the seventh day, but rather Sunday, the first day of the week, the Day of Resurrection, the day Christ rose from the dead.
It is on that day that we Christians gather together to give thanks to God for His good works, first and foremost for the sacrifice (death) and Resurrection of His Son. It is primarily on that day that the Church gathers together before God to conduct its service to God, its "communal matter,"with the entire Church offering the bloodless sacrifice of the Liturgy. On that day, when we gather together in His Name, the Lord’s close proximity to us and His Second Coming again, which is to be the culmination of our salvation, become especially clear to us.
If we look at the world around us, we sense again and again how true are the words of the Apostle St. John the Theologian, that "…the whole world lieth in wickedness..."(I John 5: 19). If we look at ourselves, we sense our own weakness. If someone has committed a sin against the Lord God, if he has but once agreed to fall into the pit of untruth, he cannot of his own accord climb out, no matter how earnestly he might try. But one hope remains to him: hope in the saving hand of God, hope in receiving help from His grace. That grace has entered into the world. The Son of God took our human flesh upon Himself; He died and was Resurrected in order to make His life incarnate in us, to give us, despite all of our weaknesses, an opportunity for holy life in Him. In our gloomy days, the possibility of such new life is the sole true joy. Every seven days, we are reminded of that joy given us by Christ on Sunday, the first day of the week, the day of Resurrection. We receive the joy of new life through the Holy Church of Christ, through its mysteries. It is given to all – to sinners and the righteous, poor and rich, young and old alike - to whoever has the desire, the thirst for spiritual renewal.
However, that grace of new life is given to those who unite with one another in the bond of mutual love. Christ does not come to individuals who are in conflict with one another. Christ wants to come to everyone, wants to unite everyone in one Body, Whose Head He Himself is.
This is why our association with one another in love, in prayer, in the Mysteries, and in the Liturgy, is so important. This is why it is so important that every Sunday be a day when we gather together to thank God for His love and to strengthen our bond of mutual love in Christ. The earliest Christians lived by one principal rule – to always be together: "And all that believed were together, and had all things common…"(Acts 2: 44). Let us keep that rule in mind as well. Without such mutual sharing in all circumstances, in spiritual benefits and, where necessary, in material ones as well, everything falls apart, and we are left with nothing but the general gloominess we see in the world. May that not be so among us. Amen.
"God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him…"(I John 4: 16). It is only because of God’s love that the entire world exists. It was through love and for the sake of love that God created everything out of nothing. And it is only by obeying the Law of love that the world can approach God and in God find the goal for which it exists. Only by abiding in love can we abide in God, can we achieve that eternal life in God for which God created us.
In order to bear witness to His love for us and make us communicants of that love, God Himself came to earth, appeared in the flesh, and gave us in Himself, in human life immaculately assumed in holiness, the perfect image of His Divine love.
The Apostles were the heralds and preachers of that appearance of eternal love on earth. They bore witness to him not only in word, but also in the power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit imparted to the Apostles the power not only to bring the Good News to their audience, but to truly and mystically renew their souls, for their sake to even endure the real maternal labor of spiritual birth, until Christ Himself should be imaged in them.
Love can spread on earth only through love. Christ Himself, the One in essence with and the only-begotten, beloved Son of God the Father, lives in complete unity with His Father. Christ’s Disciples, the Apostles, had to emulate their Divine Teacher’s love. It was by emulating Christ’s love that the Apostles in their turn could call their disciples to emulate them. On that subject, the Apostle Paul writes, "I beseech you, be ye followers of me…even as I also am of Christ…”(I Corinthians 4: 16; 11: 1). Thus does the mystical purpose of the continuity of love spread throughout the world, from Christ Himself, and through Him to God the Father. For anyone who wants to come nearer to God, it is essential to join in pursuing the goal and purpose of love.
Sometimes we are afraid that that purpose can be disrupted, that the continuity of love can come to an end, that in our awful times love can dissipate. Did not Christ Himself say that in the last days "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold…"(Matthew 24: 12) ?. We often feel personally impoverished, and recognize that we are not sufficiently good representatives of Christ’s works, the works of love.
However, we have no reason to fear: for while love can dissipate among men, God’s love will not. Even in our world God’s love is always ready, with the power of good, the power of the Holy Spirit "to heal what is weak and to fill what is becoming sparse"- whenever on our part there is a readiness and desire to respond to God’s love with love as well. As pledges of God’s inexhaustible love for us, we are given the Holy Mysteries; in them it is not we, the poor and unworthy, who act, but Christ Himself acts through us. Most important of all, we are given the greatest of all Mysteries, the Most-holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, the Mystery in which daily, Christ Himself offers Himself up among us and for us in the sacrifice of love.
We have but to respond to that Love with our own! "We love him because He first loved us… (I John 4: 19).
1956
"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you…"(John 13: 34) - that is what Christ told his disciples before going to His sacrificial death on the Cross. Love for one another must be the distinguishing characteristic for Christians in this world. "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another…"says the Lord Himself (John 13: 35). According to Christ’s will, the rule of truth and love [caritas, charity] is the sole basis upon which the life of His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church may order Its life. The rule of truth and the rule of love must also determine the life of each individual member of the Holy Church of God, founded on Christ’s sacrificial love, for Truth and Love are one in God, and they are a sign that we belong to Him.
When in the ’50s of the first Christian century, the Church of Corinth was suffering from internal dissension, the Apostle Paul reminded those Christians of Christ’s fundamental Commandment to love, and in his Epistle sang an entire hymn devoted to Christian love:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vauteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away…
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity…"(I Corinthians 13).
From patristic literature, we know that much later, at the end of the 1st Century AD, when the Apostles Peter and Paul had already been glorified through martyrdom, the very same Corinthian Church suffered another disturbance that seriously threatened the unity and safety of its Christian faithful. In a letter written on behalf of the Church of Rome, St. Clement, a disciple of the Apostles who at that time headed the Roman Church, addressed the Corinthians with a lengthy exhortation to repent. He reminded them of that old Epistle from the Apostle Paul, reminded them of the eternally new Commandment to love, and sang them a new song about It.
Today, beloved brothers and sisters, I too would like to bring to your attention that new song by St. Clement, which scholars tell us was written in about 96 AD, a hymn that is one of the most rapturously delightful and admirable pages in all of patristic literature. It sings of the power of Christ’s love, of the victory of that love over sin and death. Here it is:
"Let him that hath the love which is in Christ keep the commandments of Christ. Who can describe sufficiently the bond of the love of God? Who is sufficient to speak as he ought of the excellence of its beauty? The height to which love leads up is unspeakable. Love joineth us unto God; love hideth a multitude of sins; love beareth all things; is long suffering in all things. In love there is nothing illiberal, nothing haughty. Love hath no schism; love maketh not sedition; love doth all things in harmony; in love all the elect of God have been made perfect. Without love nothing is acceptable unto God. In love, our Master hath taken us to himself. Through the love that he hath for us, Jesus Christ our Lord hath given his blood for us, by the will of God, his flesh for our flesh, his soul for our soul…” [First Clement, 49:1-6]
Do you see, beloved, how great and marvelous is love, how inexpressible is its perfection? Who can possess it unless God Himself should make him worthy to have it? Thus, let us ask and implore God’s mercy, so that we might live in love, incorrupt and without human dissensions.
All of the generations from Adam up to the present day have passed away but those who by the grace of God have become perfect in love are in the place of the pious: they shall be revealed with the coming of Christ’s Kingdom. As it is written, "Enter into your chambers for a little time until – until my anger and indignation is passed away, and I remember a good day, and I resurrect you from your tombs.”
Blessed are we, beloved, if we obey God’s Commandments in one-minded love, for through love our sins were forgiven us. As it is written, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile…" That promise pertains to those who are chosen by God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to Whom be glory unto ages of ages. Amen.
1960