In the time of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s earthy ministry, people worshipped God communally in one of two places. At certain times and seasons they would go up to the temple in Jerusalem. This temple was destroyed in 70 ad by the Romans. Now most of the year they would focus on worship at their local synagogue. This was particularly important on Saturday, the day of the Sabbath rest. We note that in our day, living as people of the new covenant when we come to the church we in fact are participating in worship that is a hybrid of both temple and synagogue worship.
It is said that before the end of the world the temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt and someone will enter that temple to receive worship. This will no doubt be an anti-Christ or the AntiChrist. But as Christians we are reminded that we have no need of a temple since we as Christians become the temple of the Holy Spirit. God dwells within our human fleshly temples because He is the God who created all of the material world and who Himself took flesh and lived as perfect God and perfect man.
Nevertheless it is important to note that the Lord was submissive to the religious customs of the day. He was a good and observant Jew. He wasn’t arrogant or aloof from the synagogue or it’s leaders. He is truly the only person who knew every sermon before it was preached. He was in fact the greatest preacher who ever lived. Yet, He did what was expected of Him because He wanted to properly observe the Sabbath and He did not want to be opened up to accusations of being faithless or rebellious. But most of all, He went to the synagogue weekly because He loved God His Father, and this was one of the ways that He drew near to God.
Now on this particular day, it seems that it was the Lord’s turn to stand up and read from the holy Scriptures. And the book that was handed to Our Lord was the prophet Isaiah. Something very special was about to happen and this thing set in motion or rather, it indicated to us that events were in motion that would forever change our understanding of the world, of God and of life itself. The Lord Jesus found a particular text in Isaiah and He began to read these words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor and to heal the broken hearted. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Do you know what this passage is about? It is a proclamation of the gospel. Our Lord is sharing the beginning of the good news with us. He is telling us that He sees our broken hearts. He recognizes the captives. He notices the blind. He takes note of those who are oppressed. He sees them all. He sees all of us. At some point in our lives, each and every one of us falls into one or more of these categories. Above and beyond the normal ways that we each struggle, our Lord is dialing in on the true source of our misery and difficulties in life. He is focused on our enslavement to sin, to evil and to death, the greatest of all the enemies of mankind. And He tells us that all of these troubles are coming to an end.
How so? How do we enter into this victory? We enter into it by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Christ was victorious and conquered sin and death through His life, His crucifixion and His resurrection from the dead. And the One who sees us welcomes us in to participate in His victory. The Lord says to us, “Come my brother and my sister, because I am victorious, you shall also be victorious with me!” Yet, some of you might still be thinking “how do we participate in this victory?” So let me share a few words that might help you.
As we’ve been studying St. Sophrony’s work “His Life is Mine” during our weekly gatherings, we came across these beautiful words recently. He wrote, “All of us are today in vital need of a firm faith in Christ’s eternal victory, that we, too, may become spiritually invincible. A very great deal depends on ourselves—to remember, for instance, that at the baptismal font we received new birth from on High, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Those who are baptized ‘with the Holy Ghost and with fire’ (Luke 3.16) perceive in their prayer that every given moment of our life is enveloped in Divine eternity. At all times and in all places we are held in the invisible Hand of our Heavenly Father.”
He continues on a little while later with these words… “from the moment we turn to God, resolved to follow His commandments, a process of basic healing begins.” Finally he ends by saying “If any of my readers is suffering from some psychological wound occasioned by failure in life, he can attain to a regal freedom of spirit and radically change his whole life if he turns to God every day with a personal prayer…”
So St. Sophrony, one of our great modern teachers tells us that first we need to remind ourselves of who we are in Christ. We need to be reminded of our royal lineage and the victory of our King. Next he mentions that we begin to embrace this faith through embracing the commandments of God. Clinging to these commandments and teaching of the Lord with our whole being. He tells us that this begins the path of healing. Finally he mentions that deep healing, even on the psychological level, will occur when we make profound personal contact with God in authentic heartfelt prayer.
Most of this probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to you. You have heard these things before. There is a reason for that. We repeat these thing because they are true and they don’t change from day to day or week to week. So even though we know these things we need to have them repeated to us and we try to find new ways to motivate ourselves into meaningful action.
It seems to me that this reading is given to us today, on the first day of the ecclesiastical new year, in order to remind us of these things. We are encouraged to bring everything to Christ every single day of our lives and especially on this first day when we ask Christ’s blessings on us and on the rest of the year. We do this with confidence that Christ has already achieved this victory and that He offers the faithful and pious a share in this glorious inheritance. Glory be to God forever AMEN.
