Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!
In the name of God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, One True God. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus
As the Church and its faithful basks in the glory of the festival of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the first week after Pascha is commemorated as the days of brightness. During ancient times, the catechumens who had prepared themselves were baptized in the name of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and brought into the fold of the church. In our current times, these days have more importance for the faithful as they remodel their life according to the true Christian faith and remodel their life with Christ as their role model.
In trying to understand the Bible readings suggested by the Holy Fathers of the Indian Orthodox Church, we first learnt that we are called to be the instruments of righteousness of God, where we understood that our struggle to say ‘No’ to sin is a constant and life-long struggle by continuously saying ‘Yes’ to God and offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God. We then, through the previous blog, after learning that our struggle is not against “enemies of blood and flesh” but against “spiritual forces of evil”, understood that in our struggle we are called to wear the whole armor of God. We learnt that our weapons and armor is not of the physical nature, but they consist of truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.
As we move onward in the week, let us look at Pauline letter prescribed for the Bright Wednesday (Hevoro Wednesday). The portion prescribed is from the letter of St. Paul to the Hebrews 3:1-13, wherein St. Paul calls his readers to be partakers of the heavenly calling. But what is our heavenly calling? Is our heavenly calling to be just a namesake Christian? Is it to follow all norms as what is prevalent in the world today? But before that, let us try to find similarities in our life with the Hebrews whom St. Paul is addressing.
Hebrews seems to be written to Greek-speaking Jewish Christians of the first century, who were doubting their decision of accepting Christ in their lives and being called as Christians. Many were also considering to return back to Judaism, some had indeed done so, partly due to a low view of Jesus and were doubting whether Jesus could really be the prophesied Messiah for whom they were waiting. In light of this background, are we able to draw similarities between ourselves and the Hebrews?
In our constant struggle against sin in our lives and against the various powers of darkness, do we start doubting our call to follow Christ? Do we doubt whether Jesus is really the Son of God as He proclaimed to be? Do we doubt our faith in the face of trials and temptations? Do we forget the promise that’s given to us and follow the ways of the world? When our trials and temptations are too much to bear, do we question ourselves to follow the Christian faith? Among all these questions and doubts in our mind, St. Paul exhorts us to be faithful to Christ, to resist the rebelliousness shown by our Jewish ancestors of the Old Testament, and to fear God who fully comprehends the wavering allegiance of the inner person.
Holding onto the Confidence & Rejoicing in Hope
Firstly, St. Paul reminds us of the position of Jesus in our lives, for He is both an Apostle and High Priest – the Sent One and the One who appeals to God on our behalf. We are to fix our thoughts on Him alone. In this world, there are many thoughts fighting to gain our attention. Any thought that disturbs our attention makes us lose our focus from Jesus is a distracting thought.
Similar to our increasingly secular world, where many differing religious viewpoints are constantly struggling to gain our attention, the readers of Hebrews were struggling to decide on who is worthy of greater honor between Moses and Jesus. St. Paul, comparing Jesus to Moses says that both were “faithful”, that is “worthy of belief or trust, trustworthy, faithful, dependable, inspiring faith/trust.” But “Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses” (3:3). Why? Moses acted as a servant/steward over God’s house or household, while Jesus was the Son.
Just like the Jewish Christians who were tempted to go back to Judaism, we too in our struggles to understand Christ are tempted to leave the Christian faith and accept a seemingly novel faith in our life. But St. Paul exhorts us that we can only continue to be called the household of Christ if we “hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” St. Paul uses four words here which he uses repeatedly across his letter – hold fast, in confidence, rejoice and hope. The message to us is clear, that in all of our struggles –
- We must take the truths of the gospel into our heads and hearts.
- We must build our hopes of happiness upon those truths.
- We must make an open profession of those truths.
- We must live so up to them as to keep our evidences clear, so that we may rejoice in hope, and then we must in all persevere to the end.
In a line, we must walk closely, consistently, courageously, and constantly, in the faith and practice of the gospel, that our Master, when He comes, may own and approve us.
A Call to Faith
In the following verses from verse 7-11, St. Paul after exhorting the faithful to remain in confidence and hold onto the faith, gives them a stark example of the people of Israel who rebelled against God and Moses during their exodus from Egypt. Even though the people of Israel were delivered from the hands of the Egyptians through many miracles and were provided food and water as per their requirement, they were constantly complaining against God. Their rebellion came to the point that they were fearful of conquering the lands that were promised to their forefathers. Of the twelve spies sent to spy out the land of Canaan, only two – Joshua and Caleb – reported that they would be able to overcome their opponents through trust in God. The people of Israel were filled with fear after hearing the negative account of the ten spies and they rebelled by talking of selecting another leader to take them back to Egypt. This wasn’t just resistance against the authority of Moses, whom God had appointed, but unbelief of God himself.
In our daily lives, when we encounter problems which seem like mountains which we cannot cross and enemies which we cannot defeat, do we easily give up and lose our confidence? Do we lose our confidence in our God Who has helped us through our life? Do we lose trust in the God Who has helped us overcome all the problems of our life till now? Do we think of turning aside from believing in the promises of God and going to the wrong path? St. Paul warns each and every one us who think of turning aside from our faith, that we are called His house, only if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
Encourage each other to hold the faith
Lastly, to drive the lesson home, St. Paul tells his readers that even though we are called to follow Christ, we are not immune to turning away from God. There would be temporary attractiveness in sin, because of our wavering belief in Christ. Our heart can become gradually hardened, if we give in to sin continually. St. Paul recognizes that sin is “deceitful” because sin may seem pleasurable at the time (Hebrews 11:25), but it is deadly. The writer of Proverbs observes, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12). But he gives an important antidote to overcome the trickery of sin – Christian fellowship
But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness”
Hebrews 3:13
Dear brothers and sisters, how can we strengthen ourselves when we fall into sin or our hearts are wavering in holding onto our confidence? How can we strengthen our faith, if we isolate ourselves from each other? We can be rest assured that we aren’t that strong in our faith and we need the support of each other, to encourage us to walk in the right path , to exhort us and also to pray for us as we live for Christ.
Dear brethren, during these days of brightness when we dedicate our life to live for Christ and try to become instruments of righteousness of God, and fight our struggles by doning the armor of God with the strength from God, we should be on the look out as there will be many struggles which we cannot fight on our own. Many times, we might lose our confidence in God, but we cannot become partakers of our heavenly calling if we fall away from our Messiah and we try to fight our battles alone and rebel against God. It is spiritually perilous, it is spiritually deadly. Without faith or “confidence” we are no longer “sharers” or “partners” in Christ. We cannot just take our faith in Christ for granted, says the writer, we must hold it “firmly.” We must also encourage each other daily, to live our life in Christ and for Christ.
Dear brethren, in our current times when our churches are closed and we are isolating ourselves inside our homes and keeping away from family and friends, trying to keep the Covid-19 infections at bay, most of the time we would be fighting the battles of our mind and body alone from the world. Many would fall into depression and loneliness because of their separation from the people around them. Many of us would also be fighting the anxiety caused by hearing all the news about the rise in the infected and the death rates in their countries and around the world. In times like these, it is very easy to doubt our faith and fall away. But dear ones, do not lose your hope and confidence. Let us at least keep in touch with each other and encourage each other in our faith as we all fight this disease. Let us encourage each other so that we can all stand together in praise and worship in spirit today (and when the churches are opened, by standing together).
Hoping and praying that you all are well. Encouraging you all to share my post with your family and friends.
Your brother in Christ Jesus
Jobin George
