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Christ is
risen from the dead, by death he hath overcome death, and to them in the
graves hath he given life.
Welcome back
to our Thursday evening weekly talk. I hope you all had a wonderful and
spiritual journey to Pascha and have after feasting with souvles,
flaounes and eggs regained your bodily strengths.
Every year
after Easter I am always asked by someone if everyone is allowed to have
Holy Communion on Easter night even though someone may not have prepared
for this with confession and the Lenten fast. The query always comes
after they hear St. John Chrysostom's Easter Sermon which is read on
Easter night at the end of Mattins or as I prefer just before Holy
Communion. In it St John says: "Ye who have fasted
and ye who have not, rejoice this day. The table is fully laden; all of
you delight in it. The calf is plenteous, let no one depart hungry."
Indeed if we
take what St. John says literally then everyone can partake of Holy
Communion on Easter night disregarding the fact that they haven't
prepared themselves in any way. Many do take these words literally and
we see that people who never come for Communion throughout the year, who
have never fasted, or made any sort of preparation, and who even have
meat on Holy and Great Friday come to Commune of the Holy Mysteries on
Easter night believing that they are justified in doing so because St.
John Chrysostom tells them that it is permissible. What they are doing
is taking these words out of context and out of ignorance fail to
understand the theological and spiritual meaning of the sermon.
Yes, St.
John say that everyone should partake, but he is speaking about a future
time, of the spiritual banquet which we shall all partake of, if we are
found worthy to be standing with Christ after the General Resurrection
from the dead. Thus those who do not have their bad health to justify
why they didn't fast or prepare themselves in any way for Holy Communion
are in fact treating the Precious Body and Blood of our Lord in a very
casual and trivial manner and will I’m sure be asked to justify their
actions when they come before the Judgement seat of God.
There is a
general misunderstanding about fasting and Holy Communion which I think
we should clear up before we look at St. John's Easter Sermon. Most of
our parents were raised with the teaching that people are not allowed to
have regular Communion and especially not until 40 days have passed from
the last Communion. Many from the "old school" have Communion only on
the Great Feasts. Why? Because before each Great Feast there is a fast,
and they were brought up to believe that to have Holy Communion you must
first fast. Of course, this teaching is not the teaching of the Church,
but rather the invention of the Evil one to distance Christians from the
Holy Chalice and the Source of Life.
In contrast, the
Church teaches that Christians must and are obliged to have Communion
every time they attend the Divine Liturgy. If we go back a few
centuries, we see that it was not allowed for someone to remain in
Church if he/she was not to have Communion. If for example they were
under a penance and were not allowed to receive Communion, they had to
leave the Church after the reading of the Gospel or at the latest when
the Priest exclaimed "The Doors, The Doors", whereby the doors of the
Church were shut. If we go back even further to the first four centuries
we know that Christians in those days had regular Communion, can we then
assume that they fasted every time before partaking? Of course not!
During the first centuries, the Church only had the fasting days of
Wednesdays and Fridays and the fast of Great Lent. The other fasts
entered the Church's calendar after the 4th century. Logic tells us that
if the Church teaches us to have Holy Communion every Sunday, but at the
same time forbids fasting on Saturdays, then food has nothing to do with
Holy Communion. You see therefore that fasting does not make us worthy
to partake of the Most Pure Mysteries. The purpose of fasting is
something else. It is first of all our obedience to the will of God,
because the first commandment he gave to Adam was not to eat of the
forbidden tree, but because he disobeyed the will of God, he was exiled
from Paradise. Fasting together with prayer are the means which help us
to cultivate our souls and pull out the roots of bad habits.
What then is it
that makes us presume to be worthy of Holy Communion? The truth is that
whatever man does it cannot make him worthy to partake. We partake only
because Christ commands us and calls us to commune of His Precious Body
and Blood. Jesus said: "If you do not eat of my
flesh and drink of my blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my
flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on
that last day".
We cannot
and do not have the right to call ourselves Christians if we do not
Commune of the Precious Gifts. Everything that I have said doesn't mean
that everyone without exception can come and have Holy Communion at
every Liturgy without some kind of preparation. Christians ought to be
always ready and their way of life should be such that does not allow
for any impediments. They should observe all the fasts in the Church's
calendar and especially the fasts of Wednesdays and Fridays. They should
have regular confession and have the guidance and blessing of their
Spiritual father to have Communion, because there is also a great danger
in regular Communion. We may become so accustomed to having regular
Communion that we take it for granted and instead of it being for the
remission of our sins, we add a greater sin onto our already heavy
shoulders.
Fasting was
never intended to be the instrument, which would prepare us for Holy
Communion. The Divine Liturgy in the Ancient Church was in fact served
in the evening and after supper according to the practice initiated by
Christ himself at the Mystical Supper. By imitating that very first
Divine Liturgy, the Apostles organized the so-called “Agapes” which was
a common feast of love where the Christians gathered to eat and give
praise together and after supper they would then perform the Divine
Liturgy and everyone partook of the Divine Mystery. The Agape Feasts
were soon separated from the Divine Liturgy because they were at times
disorderly. The Church moved the Eucharist service to the morning so
that the Lord’s Body should take precedence of all other food entering
the mouth of a Christian. This was the original meaning of the Eucharist
fast. No food should enter the mouth before partaking of the Divine
Mystery.
With the
fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman occupation of the Greek lands, and
the prohibition of education, the Church suffered greatly because the
priests themselves had but a basic education with no theological
training. The Eucharist fast was misinterpreted as a normal fast before
the Eucharist, which was a burden on the people. They couldn’t fast
every week from Wednesday to Saturday so that they could have regular
Communion. This caused the people to stop having regular Communion and
they just Communed on the Great Feasts as these were preceded by a fast.
This became the normal up to our age, with people believing that they
couldn’t have regular Communion or at least not until 40 days had
passed. In more recent years, the educated Priests are finally
outnumbering the uneducated Priests and the Church is finally returning
to her true teachings, although it is difficult to wipe away the old
teachings which people had been brought up to trust and hold as the
truth. In our day and age, most Priests will tell you that if you keep
all the fasts in the Church’s year, that is: every Wednesday and Friday,
The Lenten fast, Holy Week, The Apostle’s fast, The August fast, and the
Advent fast, and have the blessing of your Spiritual Father, then you
can have regular Communion.
Fasting and
Holy Communion are in fact two different things. In theory, one doesn’t
always need to fast to have Communion and one doesn’t always need to
have communion because one fasted. But one must always be prepared.
So with that
let's return to the main subject of the talk. In the past I have
mentioned parts of St. John Chrysostom's Easter Sermon, but today I want
us to look at the full text. But to understand what he says we must
first understand how the Church understands and interprets the Divine
Liturgy. We have seen the interpretation in previous talks, but I do not
expect you to remember every detail of what we said then. What you must
always try and remember is that the Divine Liturgy is not just a
celebration of a historical event that took place in Jerusalem 2000
years ago. As we begin the Liturgy in our earthly time, something
mystical happens and the Church is transported to heaven and is joined
to a different time sphere, a time called the aeon. This heavenly time
is very different from our earthly time. Earthly time is measured by
change and motion. Its nature is to begin, to endure and to have an end.
Heaven and the angels, exist outside of earthly time. but they are not
eternal, because they have a beginning, they have their existence ‘in
the age’ [aeon, αιώνι], which according to St. Maximus is motionless
time, for it remains without any change. God Himself, being uncreated,
exists outside of time as we know it and outside of the aeon, for God
has no beginning or end, but is eternal.
The Church
is not only the visible congregation worshipping here on earth, but also
the invisible congregation of the saints and the angels worshipping in
heaven. The Church visible on earth lives in complete communion and
unity with the whole body of the Church of which Christ is the Head. It
stands at a point of intersection where the past, present and future of
our earthly existence are merged with the unchanging and motionless time
of the aeon.
Thus the
Mystical Supper was performed in a large upper room by Christ himself
[Mark 14: 15]. He took the bread and the wine and transmade them into
His Body and Blood. This event is united to the "aeon" and what Christ
performed that one time, was performed for all times. Christ had only
one body and so when the priest re-acts the same event, in the Divine
Liturgy, he does not make another body because then we would have
millions of bodies and that would be quite absurd. He prays that the
bread and wine become the same Body and Blood that Christ Himself
offered to His disciples. When we attend the Liturgy and partake of His
Body and Blood, it is as if heaven and earth have been joined together
and we are at that same upper room participating at the some table and
of the same Sacred Supper as did the Apostles. In this same way, all the
events of Christ’s life, from His Birth to His Resurrection and
Ascension, are re-acted by the Church, but they cease to be just an act
and become a reality in that all the events are forever taking place in
the motionless time of the Kingdom of heaven. Therefore, we become
witnesses of His birth together with the wise men and the shepherds, we
follow His earthly life, hearing His divine words of salvation and bear
witness to the countless miracles He performed; we stand and gaze at His
crucified body, in pain and disbelief that the Jews preferred the
murderer Barrabas to Christ; and we become co-mourners with the Mother
of God, the Apostles, the Myrrhbearers and all His followers; we then
follow Mary Magdalene and the Apostles to the empty tomb and rejoice
with them at the news of the Resurrection.
This concept
of being transported and joined to another time sphere of motionless
time is clearly taught in the Church Hymns. Many of the Great Feasts
have hymns beginning with the word "Today" as though the event being
celebrated is happening now before our very eyes and not some two
thousand years in the past. The Christmas kontakion say: "Today the
Virgin comes to the cave to give birth"; "Today the Virgin gives birth
to the creator of all"; from the Lord's Baptism we sing: " Today the
nature of the waters is sanctified" and from the prayer for the blessing
of the waters we say many verses beginning with Today: "Today the grace
of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon the waters.
Today the Sun that never sets has risen and the world is filled with
splendour by the light of the Lord... Today the Uncreated of His own
will accepts the laying on of hands from His own creature. Today the
Prophet and Forerunner approaches the Master, but stands before Him with
trembling... Today the waters of the Jordan are transformed into healing
by the coming of the Lord... Today Paradise has been opened to men and
the Sun of Righteousness shines down upon us... Today things above keep
feast with things below..."
Probably you
might remember the more recent event of the Crucifixion on Holy and
Great Thursday. As the priest comes out of the Sanctuary for the
Crucifixion procession he says aloud. "Today is hung upon the Cross he
who hung the earth upon the waters" The Resurrection Service is all sung
in the present - in the now, for example: "Today a sacred Pascha has
been revealed to us, a Pascha new and holy, a mystical Pascha, a most
honourable Pascha, a Pascha that is Christ the redeemer". Only sin and
death are things of the past.
Every Sunday
Service is a Resurrection Service, but the Easter Service has a special
peculiarity. Although we don’t know when, it is believed from the times
of the Apostles that the Second Coming of Christ will happen one year on
the night of the Resurrection. So the Easter Service not only transcends
our earthly time, but also transcends the “aeon” and is in fact the
Feast, the Banquet of the New Kingdom of which we will partake of after
the Second Coming of Christ, thus it is our return to Paradise, our
return to God in the future age after the Second Coming.. St. John has
this in mind when he says “Let no one lament his
poverty, for the universal kingdom has appeared.”
This
teaching of the Church transcending to a different time and place is
verified by the Divine Liturgy itself. After the Holy Gifts have been
consecrated and before Holy Communion, the priest cries out “The Holy
Things unto the holy.” In other words only those who are holy and
therefore worthy can partake of the divine Mysteries. If we understand
“The Holy Things unto the holy” with our earthly time then no one can
receive Communion for no one is holy but God, and that is why we respond
by saying: “One only is holy, One only is the Lord, Jesus Christ, to the
glory of God the Father. Amen.”
If the Holy
things are only for those who are Holy, how do we dare approach and
partake of these dread Mysteries? We partake because we anticipate the
Universal Kingdom. We say “The Holy things unto the Holy” because we
have been transported to the banquet of the New Kingdom. At that moment
we are with Christ at the Wedding banquet which means that we have been
saved and if we have been saved then we are saints and therefore Holy.
If we are found standing with Christ after the General Resurrection then
Christ has found us worthy to be among the ranks of saints and therefore
worthy to partake of the Wedding Banquet. Only in this understanding can
we approach for Holy Communion because even the most spiritual and Holy
Father would not dare say that he is worthy or that he is a saint.
Let's now
hear St. John Chrysostom's Paschal Sermon keeping in mind what we have
just heard.
"Whosoever is pious and loves God, let him enjoy
this good and cheerful festival. Whosoever is a grateful servant, let
him rejoice and enter into the joy of the Lord. Whosoever is weary of
fasting, let him now receive his earnings. Whosoever has laboured from
the first hour, let him today accept his just reward. Whosoever has come
after the third hour, let him with thanksgiving take part in the
celebration. Whosoever has arrived after the sixth hour, let him have no
misgivings, for he too shall suffer no loss. Whosoever has delayed until
the ninth hour, let him approach without hesitation. Whosoever has
arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not fear the delay, for the
Master is gracious: He receives the last even as the first; He gives
rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that has
laboured from the first; and to him that delayed He gives mercy, and the
first He restores to health; to the one He gives, to the other He
bestows. And He accepts the works, and embraces the contemplation; the
deed He honours, and the intention He commends.
Therefore let everyone enter into the joy of the Lord. The first and the
last, receive your wages. Rich and poor, dance with each other. The
temperate and the slothful, honour this day. Ye who have fasted and ye
who have not, rejoice this day. The table is fully laden; all of you
delight in it. The calf is plenteous, let no one depart hungry. Let
everyone enjoy this banquet of faith. Let everyone take pleasure in the
wealth of goodness. Let no one lament his poverty, for the universal
kingdom has appeared. Let no one bewail for his transgressions, for
forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the
Saviour’s death has set us free. He who was held by death, eradicated
death. He plundered Hades when He descended into Hades. He embittered
it, when it tasted of His flesh, and this being foretold by Isaiah when
he cried: Hades said it was embittered, when it encountered Thee below.
Embittered, for it was abolished. Embittered, for it was ridiculed.
Embittered, for it was put to death. Embittered, for it was dethroned.
Embittered, for it was made captive. It received a body and by chance
came face to face with God. It received earth and encountered heaven. It
received that which it could see, and was overthrown by Him whom he
could not see. Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O Hades is your
victory? Christ is risen, and thou art cast down. Christ is risen, and
the demons have fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ
is risen, and life is liberated. Christ is risen, and no one remains
dead in a tomb. For Christ having risen from the dead, has become the
first-fruits of those that have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and
power, for ever and ever. Amen."
St. John
begins his sermon: "Whosoever is pious and loves
God, let him enjoy this good and cheerful festival." Here we have
to be cautious because his message is clearly not a free invitation to
everyone to partake, but only to those who live pious and holy lives,
who love God and live according to his commandments. From the very
beginning of his message he excludes all those who are Christians only
in name, who live without God in their lives and then when it befits
them to interpret what he says further down as his blessing to everyone,
even murderers, to partake without any guilt of the precious gifts.
St. John
continues: "Whosoever is a grateful servant, let
him rejoice and enter into the joy of the Lord." John is making a
reference to the Parable of the Talents where the good and faithful
servant is rewarded because he had been faithful over a few things, in
other words he worked for his salvation, thus the Lord said to him:
"I will make thee ruler over many things: enter
thou into the joy of thy lord." (Matthew 25:14-30). Again without
spelling it out, John is excluding those who resemble the wicked and
slothful servant in the Parable who was cast out of paradise because he
never made even the slightest effort to change his way of life, he never
worked for his salvation and never once made even the slightest effort
to show love to others.
John then
takes us to another Parable – the Parable of the Workers in the
Vineyard.
"Whosoever is weary of fasting, let him now
receive his earnings." In the Parable the workers are working in
the vineyard of the Lord, but John replaces this work with the spiritual
work of fasting: the wages though remain the same. The Lord agreed with
the workers one denarion a day or one penny a day. Again in the Parable
the Lord hired workers at different times of the day – at the first
hour, the third hour, the sixth, ninth and the eleventh hours. Everyone
received the same reward though some complained that it was unfair for
them who worked all day in the heat to receive the same as those who
only worked for an hour in the coolness of the evening. (Matthew
20:1-16) St. John in his sermon continues with the Parable to show that
the Lord is merciful and compassionate treating everyman with equality
and accepting each man according to the time of his life he received the
calling to repentance even if that time is on his deathbed.
"Whosoever has laboured from the first hour, let
him today accept his just reward. Whosoever has come after the third
hour, let him with thanksgiving take part in the celebration. Whosoever
has arrived after the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings, for he too
shall suffer no loss. Whosoever has delayed until the ninth hour, let
him approach without hesitation. Whosoever has arrived only at the
eleventh hour, let him not fear the delay, for the Master is gracious:
He receives the last even as the first; He gives rest to him that comes
at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that has laboured from the
first; and to him that delayed He gives mercy, and the first He restores
to health; to the one He gives, to the other He bestows. And He accepts
the works, and embraces the contemplation; the deed He honours, and the
intention He commends. Therefore let everyone enter into the joy of the
Lord. The first and the last, receive your wages. Rich and poor, dance
with each other."
There are
two things we must give special attention to. Firstly everyone who
received his reward from Christ, worked for his salvation, even the
person who came at the eleventh hour put in a little effort. He didn't
just craftily walk up at the last minute with his hands opened to
receive a wage for which he didn't work for, which is exactly what those
who come for Holy Communion without any form of preparation do: they are
craftily trying to receive a reward for doing absolutely nothing.
Secondly, by referring to the two Parables of the Talents and the
Workers in the Vineyard, St. John is telling us that his message is
referring not to this world or to our earthly time, but of the future
time of the General resurrection after the Second Coming of Christ
because both Parables are images of the Dread Judgement day of Christ.
Only this
understanding justifies what St. John say next:
"The temperate and the slothful, honour this day. Ye who have fasted and
ye who have not, rejoice this day." If after the Great Judgement
we still find ourselves with Christ then Christ has deemed us worthy of
salvation and we may enter with him into the Wedding Banquet. If Christ,
according to his righteous judgement has found something in the slothful
person who was too lazy to fast, worthy of salvation, then who is John,
or me, or anyone else to question this judgement? Therefore John says:
"The temperate and the slothful, honour this day.
Ye who have fasted and ye who have not, rejoice this day." He is
not giving permission to the person who was indifferent to fasting to
partake of Holy Communion, but rather with his mind on that future age,
after the Great Judgement, John cannot imagine anyone still standing
with Christ, whom Christ has judged worthy, of not partaking of the
Wedding banquet.
John
continues: "The table is fully laden; all of you
delight in it. The calf is plenteous, let no one depart hungry. Let
everyone enjoy this banquet of faith. Let everyone take pleasure in the
wealth of goodness. Let no one lament his poverty, for the universal
kingdom has appeared." Here then John verifies that what he has
said refers to events after the Second Coming when the universal kingdom
of Christ will be established. John is asking us to celebrate the
universal kingdom now as though it has already happened because in the
motionless time of the aeon all events past, present and future are
happening as now.
Then
remembering that we are all still sinners awaiting death he reassures us
saying: "Let no one bewail for his transgressions,
for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the
Saviour’s death has set us free. He who was held by death, eradicated
death." Here John begins the Orthodox teaching of where the souls
of the dead went before the Resurrection. Through Adam's sin Paradise
had been closed to men and all the souls of those who died ended up in a
place cut off from paradise which the Greeks called Hades. In Mythical
Greek Hades was the God of the underworld and in the Christian era the
name was retained to refer to the temporary abode of the dead. It must
not be confused with Hell which is a permanent place prepared for the
devil and his followers for after the Great Judgement. Because everyone
inherited the consequences of Adam’s original sin, everyone even the
righteous ended up in the temporary abode of Hades. Christ was the only
exception. Christ was not subject to original sin and was free from all
personal sin, he was therefore not subject to death or Hades. When he
was crucified and laid dead in the tomb, Hades had no legal claim over
his soul as it did with the souls of other men. Thus it stands to reason
that if Hades had no legal claim over Christ then it couldn't hold him
and had to let him go. And so the soul returned to the body and Christ
was resurrected from the dead.
In the
Psalms and in general all ecclesiastical language, everything created by
God like the sun, the moon, mountains streams etc, are personified and
referred to as logical creatures for example, from the Song of the Three
Children that we sing on Holy Saturday Morning we sing: "O ye sun and
moon, ye stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord. O every shower and dew, all
ye winds, bless ye the Lord. O ye earth, mountains and hills, and all ye
things that grow in the earth, bless the Lord. O ye fountains, seas and
rivers, ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord.
In the same way, when referring to Hades, the fathers and the church
hymns personify it as a person, or rather as a power that laid claim to
the souls of men and held them captive, but this has nothing to do with
the mythical ancient Greek God. Thus St. John says in his Sermon:
"He plundered Hades when He descended into Hades.
He embittered it, when it tasted of His flesh, and this being foretold
by Isaiah when he cried: Hades said it was embittered, when it
encountered Thee below. (This is a quote from Isaiah 14: 9)
Embittered, for it was abolished. Embittered, for
it was ridiculed. Embittered, for it was put to death. Embittered, for
it was dethroned. Embittered, for it was made captive." When the
Priest reads the Sermon during the Resurrection service every time he
says the Word "Embittered" the people in response shout out "Embittered"
Likewise when further down he says "Christ is risen" they respond with
"He is risen".
St. John
then gives us a wonderful image of Hades meeting with Christ:
"It received a body and by chance came face to
face with God. It received earth and encountered heaven. It received
that which it could see, and was overthrown by Him whom he could not
see. Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O Hades is your victory?"
(This is a quote from 1 Corinthians 15:55)
Then in triumph John announces with great joy:
"Christ is risen, and thou art cast down. Christ is risen, and the
demons have fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is
risen, and life is liberated. Christ is risen, and no one remains dead
in a tomb. For Christ having risen from the dead, has become the
first-fruits of those that have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians
15:20) To Him be glory and power, for ever and
ever. Amen."
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