Perceiving, Valuing, and Ordering Christ in Our Lives

The Gospel reading for Saturday, July 22, 2023 came from St Matthew 10: 37 – 11:1.  This posting concentrates on verses 37 – 39 which read,

The one who loves father and mother more than me, is not worthy.  And the one who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy.  And who does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy.  The one who finds his life will lose it, and the one who loses his life for my sake shall find it (St Matthew 10: 37 – 39).

We are to love Christ more than family members.  This is not a hyperbolic statement!  The nearest and dearest relationships in our lives are to be subordinated to Christ.  We are to take up our own crosses.  The cross is an instrument of death, of execution.  The Christian is to sacrifice self (one’s life) which is entangled in this world system that we might gain spiritual life — life in the eternity of the Kingdom of God.  In other words, we are to make assessments and order matters from lesser to greater cost, and from lesser to greater value.  Our lives in our economic system teach us that the quality of our investments determine the amount of “interest” paid.

The next day’s Gospel (the Seventh Sunday of Matthew) comes from St Matthew 9:27 – 35.  In it we read of two blind men who as Christ to give them sight.  Jesus asked them, “Do you believe I am able to do this?”  They answer in the affirmative, and they received sight.  They saw God Incarnate, their Lord and Savior.  Then Jesus gives them one command, “See that no one knows of this!” (St Matthew 9: 30).  They did not obey Jesus’ “gag order”, but told everyone in the region of their healing by Christ.

So, are we like the two blind men?  Are we as disobedient?  Are we unwilling to deny self in the most obvious thing that is right in front of us?  Or will we do a proper accounting and accept Christ and subordinate our will to his will?  We may put up the objection, “But it’s so insignificant!”  However, the reality is that it right in front of us, and to gain Christ in this matter we are to die to self.  We are to take up this little cross and, thus, gain Christ.  These little, mundane, and seemingly insignificant things, when released to Christ always lead to incremental spiritual gains.  Our incremental deaths to self will, in time, accumulate to greater gains in our lives in Christ.  If we cannot die to self, i.e., obey, in the little things required of us, how could we die to the greater things that could be demanded of us in the future?

We need this discipline because we live in perilous times.  Events in politics and economics may very soon confront us with such choices.  What “parent” or “child” (the valued things of this world) will we be called upon to release to Christ?  What might be the crosses we may be called upon to take up, thus losing self, but gaining Christ?  We need to be prepared to be confessors in this age.

Upon receiving our sight and seeing Christ do we truly perceive him for who he is and properly heed his call?  Or, we we act like the two blind men who, upon receiving sight, looked at Christ, but did not perceive him as their God, Lord, and savior and then disobeyed.

St Paul writes this in his epistle to the Romans:  “Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 12: 3).  By the sacrament of Chrismation the Holy Spirit is received:  “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit!”  In every Divine Liturgy there is the portion called the epiclesis:  

Again we offer unto Thee this reasonable and bloodless worship, and ask Thee, and pray Thee, and supplicate Thee:  Send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these Gifts [bread and wine] here offered.

With these words the bishop / priest invokes the Holy Spirit to come upon the bread and wine to make them the Body and Blood of Christ, and that the faithful assembled that day may receive anew the Holy Spirit.  These two petitions are made that by the Holy Spirit — upon consuming Christ’s Body and Blood — Christ may be more completely formed within us.  And, thus, we may be empowered to perceive Christ with comprehending spiritual eyes, and die to ourselves that we have eternal life in Christ.

In Christ,

Fr Irenaeus