Three Day Lent – Day 1 – Call to imitate Jesus

In the name of God the Father, Christ Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit, One True God. Amen

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus

In the liturgical calendar of our Church, which is a cycle of feasts and fasts, very soon the whole Church will begin a pilgrimage along with Jesus to the Cross on Mount Calvary and to the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. But eighteen days before we begin our pilgrimage of the Great Lent, we undertake the ‘Three Day Lent” in commemoration of the mission of Jonah to the sinful people of Nineveh and their repentance and the grace and mercy that God had upon them. When we look at our calendar, this Three Day Lent falls after we have commemorated the Feast of Theophany and by mere co-incidence, this year, the Fast falls exactly 18 days after the Feast.

The Feast of Theophany reveals the Most Holy Trinity to the world through the Baptism of our Lord (Mt.3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). Through this Feast we became witnesses to the Almighty God Who had descended among us in the form of a human being. We became witnesses to the Trinitarian nature of God through Jesus, Who in His human nature descended upon the waters of the river Jordan, we saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus in the form of a dove and we were witnesses to the voice from the heavens of the Father, Who confirmed Jesus as His Son. From ancient times this Feast was called the Day of Illumination and the Feast of Lights, since God is Light and has appeared to illumine “those who sat in darkness,” and “in the region of the shadow of death” (Mt.4:16), and to save the fallen race of mankind by grace.

When we really try to understand the baptism of our Lord, it is a precursor to the death and resurrection of our Lord in the Feast of Pascha.

The Feast of Theophany is also an annual reminder for all of us, who are called to follow Christ, of our own baptism. Our baptism is a baptism in the Triune Name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christian Baptism is the mystery of starting anew, of dying to an old way of life and being born again into a new way of life, in Christ. In the Orthodox Church, baptism is “for the remission of sins” (cf. the Nicene Creed) and for entrance into the Church; the person being baptized is cleansed of all sins and is united to Christ; through the waters of baptism he or she is mysteriously crucified and buried with Christ, and is raised with him to newness of life, having “put on” Christ (that is, having been clothed in Christ). It is through Baptism that we are also called to be “sons and daughters of the Most Holy and Living God”.

Through our Baptism we are called to become like Christ and be imitators of Christ in our life. We are called to do the will of our Heavenly Father, just as Christ fulfilled the will of our Heavenly Father by humbling Himself and becoming the same as His creation. His purpose of becoming human was to raise the human nature to the divine nature.

When we look at the protagonist of the Three Day Lent, the Prophet Jonah, we can see that he too was also called to do a divine call of preaching to the people of Nineveh. He was called to go to the city of his enemies, for Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire. And Assyria was an enemy of the country of Israel. Fearing the difficult role he had been given, he thought of running in the opposite direction of Nineveh, to Tarshish. Fearing the danger to his own life, he was willing to enrage the Mighty God He served diligently and was willing to place the life of fellow human beings in danger. He was frightened of his mission that he dared not go to the city of his enemies.

When we look at our own lives, do we not also run in the opposite directions of our calling? Do we not also find the roles that have been assigned to us through divine will as humanly impossible? Do we not struggle hard against God’s will in our life to do what seems right by our own desires? Do we not find ourselves weak to carry the cross that has been assigned to us?

But when we look at the life of Jonah, he too had a baptism of his own while he was in the belly of the fish for 3 days and nights. And through this baptism he died to his own self and submitted to the will of the Father that he was able to find peace in the bowels of the fish. It is only when he died to his selfish and sinful desire that he was able to submit to the calling that God had placed in his life. It is only when he submitted to his weakness that he was able to trust in the might of God. It is only when he came face to face with his selfish desire that he was able to comprehend to a certain extent why God was calling him to go to his enemies. It is only when he found himself out of his own strength and intellect that he was able to call out to God from the depth of his affliction and say that “You heard my voice”.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, as we complete the first day of the Three Day Lent, with the backdrop of the Feast of Theophany behind us and looking forward to walking with Christ on our pilgrimage to the Cross on Calvary, let us look at Jesus for He is the perfect example for us to imitate in our lives to grow closer to God. He is the perfect example of submission to the divine plan of God. We are but clay in the potter’s hands, dear friends and clay does not have a say in what the potter moulds out of the clay in his hands. For it is in submission to the will of our Father in Heaven that we achieve our divine purpose on earth.

Tomorrow, let us look at how to imitate Christ in our lives.

Your brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin George