Under the Mercy

The coming of Christ is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. The Passover of the Jews looks forward to the coming of Christ, and his death and resurrection, for the salvation of the world. We in the Byzantine Church still call Easter Pascha, as the ancient Church did, to indicate that Christ is our passover. The difference is, whereas the first passover was salvation for the people of Israel only, the Passover of Christ is for all humanity.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.- Romans 3:23-26 NKJV

I prefer the New King James among modern translations because of its use of the Byzantine Text, which is the text the Church uses. But I particularly like the way the NKJV renders this passage. St. Paul says, "because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness..." The phrase, passed over, links the sacrifice of Christ with the Passover of the Jews. In the same way that the blood of the passover lamb covered the door posts of the Jewish homes in Egypt during the Exodus, Christ our Passover covers our sins. God "passes over" them just as the Angel of Death passed over the homes covered by the blood.

The word propitiation in this passage refers to the Mercy Seat where God was thought to have had his throne (Ex. 25:17-22). Once a year, on the day of Atonement, the blood of a sacrifice was sprinkled on the mercy seat for the forgiveness of sins.

Some prefer to translate this word for the mercy seat in Romans 3 as propitiation, because it indicates that an angry god is being placated.

But the New American Bible chooses the word expiation to translate the same word that the New King James has propitiation. The New American Bible explains the choice in this way: "Expiation: this rendering is preferable to "propitiation," which suggests hostility on the part of God toward sinners. As Paul will be at pains to point out (Romans 5:8-10), it is humanity that is hostile to God."

We are the ones who have chosen to alienate ourselves from God. We are not alienated from God because we sin, but we sin because we are alienated from God. The hostility is on our part, not God's.

"I will not execute the fierceness of My anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man,
The Holy One in your midst;
And I will not come with terror."

- Hosea 11:9 NKJV

Instead, the blood of Christ is a gift of a merciful Savior, a merciful God.

The writer of Hebrews describes the terrifying scene of encounter in the Old Testament:

" For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”- Hebrews 12:18-21 NKJV

But in the New Covenant we find mercy and have direct access to God (Hebrews 4:16; 10:19-22). We do not approach a terryfying scene, but the family of God, the gathering of all of God's people throughout the ages known as the Church:

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.- Hebrews 12:22-24 NKJV

The New American Bible comments thusly on verse 24: "Speaks more eloquently: the blood of Abel, the first human blood to be shed, is contrasted with that of Jesus. Abel's blood cried out from the earth for vengeance, but the blood of Jesus has opened the way for everyone, providing cleansing and access to God (Hebrews 10:19)."

The Orthodox Study Bible provides this commentary: "[in the Church] the blood (v. 24) cries not for vengeance and further death- as did Abel's (see 11:4; Genesis 4:10)- but for mercy, forgiveness, atonement and unending life. This is the blood of Christ given us in the Eucharist."

It is not only the former sins that are forgiven in Christ; faith in Christ and membership in His Body, the Church, provides for continual cleansing from sin, and fellowship with God:

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. - 1 John 1:7 NKJV

Come to faith in Christ; come to the Church; join the Body of Christ. Abide in Christ by abiding in His body. God's mercy and unconditional love awaits you there.

I believe in the Communion of Saints- What Orthodox and Catholic Christians believe

I believe in the Communion of Saints- this statement is taken from the Apostle's Creed. All Christians believe, or should believe in the Communion of Saints. But some Christians do not understand why Catholic and Orthodox Christians pray to the saints, and pray for the dead.

We Orthodox-Catholic Christians believe that bonds of unity established by unity with Christ cannot be broken by death. The Communion of Saints is based on the Holy Eucharist:

Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. - 1 Corinthians 10:17 NIV

Death cannot break the bond of this communion with Christ and each other. Every time we partake of the Holy Eucharist, we are celebrating it not only with those believers in our particular temple (Church building) but with every Christian who has ever celebrated and partaken in the Holy Eucharist:

But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
- Hebrews 12:22-24 NIV

In coming to Christ, we do not come as an individual. We come as a community, as a body. As individuals, when we come to Christ, we come also to the assembly of angels and saints, in one body. The Sprinkled blood mentioned in this passage is the very Blood of Christ, shared in the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist.

Because of this solidarity of one Body of Christ that unites heaven and earth, we can pray for those who have died before us, and they can pray for us.

We believe we can pray for those who have gone before us, "in faith and hope of the resurrection," in the words of one Orthodox prayer.

He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin. - 2 Maccabees 12:43-46 NAB

Here is the commentary from the New American Bible on this passage: "This is the earliest statement of the doctrine that prayers (2 Macc 12:42) and sacrifices (2 Macc 12:43) for the dead are efficacious. The statement is made here, however, only for the purpose of proving that Judas believed in the resurrection of the just (2 Macc 7:9, 14, 23, 36). That is, he believed that expiation could be made for certain sins of otherwise good men-soldiers who had given their lives for God's cause. Thus, they could share in the resurrection. His belief was similar to, but not quite the same as, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory."

[As an aside: Some may object to the use of the book of Maccabees. But we Orthodox and Catholics accept the Maccabees as canonical scripture. As St. Augustine says, "we follow the Apostles, and not the Pharisees," in accepting the Greek, not the Palestinian canon of Scripture. The Church's Bible has always been the Septuagint, with the longer canon.]

Likewise, we believe that the Saints in heaven can pray for us Saints on earth as well. As the passage from Hebrews above indicates, we have come to the "spirits of just men made perfect."
This belief antedates the Christian era, as we see in this passage from 2 Maccabees:

[Judas Maccabeus] cheered them all by relating a dream, a kind of vision, worthy of belief. What he saw was this: Onias, the former high priest, a good and virtuous man, modest in appearance, gentle in manners, distinguished in speech, and trained from childhood in every virtuous practice, was praying with outstretched arms for the whole Jewish community. Then in the same way another man appeared, distinguished by his white hair and dignity, and with an air about him of extraordinary, majestic authority. Onias then said of him, "This is God's prophet Jeremiah, who loves his brethren and fervently prays for his people and their holy city." Stretching out his right hand, Jeremiah presented a gold sword to Judas. As he gave it to him he said, "Accept this holy sword as a gift from God; with it you shall crush your adversaries." - 2 Maccabees 15:11-16 NAB.

Here is commentary from the New American Bible on this passage: "Onias, the former high priest: Onias III (2 Macc 3:1-40). Evidently the author believed that the departed just were in some way alive even before the resurrection." Jeremiah: regarded by the postexilic Jews as one of the greatest figures in their history; cf 2 Macc 2:1; Matthew 16:14. Who . . . prays for his people: a clear belief in the intercession of the saints.

We can pray for those who gone before us, and they can pray for us. There is a solidarity of love in the One Body of Christ. Death cannot break that bond. We acknowledge this reality everytime we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Eucharist in our Churches. Even our Churches are built with this belief in mind. Consider this passage from the Book of Revelation, and the commentary from the Orthdodox Study Bible:

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. - Revelation 6:9-11 NIV

Commentary from the Orthodox Study Bible on this passage: the vision of the souls of the martyrs under the altar (v.9) is derived from the OT practice of pouring blood (the physical manifestation of the life of the soul) of sin offering at the base of the altar of burnt offering. It is a basis for the historic Christian practices of building church buildings over the tombs of martyrs, placing relics of saints in the altar when a church is consecrated, and burying baptized people under the altar. Thus in the Divine Liturgy Orthodox Christians remember "those who lie asleep here, and in all the world."

The Bible says, "The memory of the just will be blessed." - Proverbs 10:7 NAB.

When we honor the saints because they are blessed. Mary the Mother of God prophesies of herself, "For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed."- Luke 1:48, NKJV

They have come to the glory that awaits us all. For Orthodox-Catholic Christians, death is a sacrament, a passage way on our path to deification and glorification with God and all the Saints in heaven.

In the meantime, those who have gone before us are not dead but alive, as Jesus taught us:

And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living." - Matthew 22:32 NAB

Good Friday: Putting to Death the Religious Self

Today is Good Friday. In the Byzantine Church, we read in the Matins service what are known as the 12 gospels. These readings are comprised largely of events in the life of Christ leading up to and including his Passion.

I was struck by a particular theme today. I noticed that those who plotted and called for the crucifixion of Jesus were the religious establishment of his day.

I was struck in particular by John 18:28:

"Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover."

The same people who were working to have Jesus put to death were worried about ceremonial uncleaness, about religious defilement.

The night before He died, our Lord Jesus Christ told us that "a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God."- John 16:2.

The challenge here is for us, those of us who call ourselves believers. Are we, in the words of St. Paul, guilty of "having a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:5)?"

Have we during this past Lent, the Great Fast, restricted our diet, given up meat, cheese, dairy or fish; chocolates or liqour- only to over-eat in the meals we do have? Are we crabby with spouse, family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors, all the while fasting?

We attend the Pre-Sanctified services if we are Greek Catholic, the Stations of the Cross if we are Roman Catholic, but do we spend quality time with our spouse and family, kids- or in our prayer closet with God?

Have we practiced fasting and attended Church services, but ignored issues of social justice and charity for the poor during this great season of Lent?

"You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former."- Matthew 23:23.

If we have, we must not despair, but turn to God, who always ready to forgive. We must acknowledge our failures and sins before our Maker. Consider the parable of the Publican and Pharisee (Luke 18:10-14). We can be like the publican, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."- Luke 18:13. Our religious self has often been like the self-righteous Pharisee in the parable "I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get." - Luke 18:12.

Today, God is put to death and is laid in a tomb; let us confess our sins, and let Him take them with Him into the tomb, to be buried. Our old self is crucified with Christ, and is lain in the tomb with him (Romans 6:3; Galatians 2:20). On Sunday, on Easter, we will arise with Him in glory, and walk in newness of life. This is the promise of our Baptism. This is the promise of God.

But we must acknowledge that sometimes our Old Self is immersed in religion, and that our "form of godliness" must be crucified with Christ, destroyed and buried. Our religious self is sometimes nothing other than another personna of our Old Self, our Sinful Nature. It must be destroyed. As the great Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemman suggested, Christ died to end religion- but rose again to give us new life in the Spirit.