Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to the Father. In
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen. I need to tell you that
this gospel you just heard about the Canaanite
woman, You hear every year just before you hear
about Zacchaeus. And you hear Zacchaeus just
before you hear about the publican and the Pharisee.
Then there's the prodigal son. Then there's the
last judgment gospel. Then there's the forgiveness
Sunday. And guess what comes next? The holy season
of the fast, Great Lent. So, the flags are out.
The bell has rung to tell us that we're on a
new course. And this is good because I think
all of us need a new course. And the church gives
us this challenge which we find gives us comfort
and help and understanding. But I'm not going
to talk about the gospel today. I want to ask
you to think about this for a moment. What is
a martyr? Is a martyr? No. Not the one that blows
up a car and a whole marketplace to win a war.
That's not a martyr. Is a martyr the one that
gets left behind and has to clean up the dishes
at home when everybody goes out to the movies?
That didn't happen to me this week. No. That's
not a martyr. Martyr is the one who joyfully,
underline that word, joyfully witnesses to the
love and power of the resurrection, which is
within. So it's real. This power to that person
is real. And they give testimony by their very
life. In Rome, You can believe in Jesus Christ,
but you also have to affirm everything else.
The martyrs didn't just die because they believed
in Jesus Christ. They believed everything about
Jesus Christ, that he is Lord and God, and that
Caesar wasn't Lord and God. And so the martyrs
went to their deaths. Voluntarily and with joy.
This is a mystery. This is a mystery of the church.
But we're surrounded with icons of the martyrs.
No one at the moment is asking for our life to
be given. But you think about Russia. Today is
the Sunday of the new martyrs. 500 years. Orthodox
Church. Bastion of Christianity. Yes, it had
many problems. But suddenly, things started to
shift. So no one's asking for our life now. But
think, brothers and sisters, what can you offer
joyfully, voluntarily, of yourself to God. How
many are there that ask for our mercy and they
need the word of truth, which if we don't have,
we can't give. But if we can have it, it would
bring to their hearts new life, new hope, new
joy. On the stand here and here, you see an icon
of the Russian new martyrs. We celebrate this
memory today. The thousands, millions of martyrs
of the Church of Russia and every church, Bulgaria,
Romania, Greece, has its new martyrs. But this
is ours. One Orthodox historian wrote this. He
said that in this commemoration, what we see
with the horror that was let loose on the church
and the church faithful. What we see here, he
says, is the incarnation of absolute evil in
the temper of man. In other words, he says, the
participation of the devil, the father of lies,
an ancient enemy of God, who tries to make humans
his obedient weapon against God. And this is
revealed in this great sea of witnesses. Those
who led the revolution in Russia in the years
before 1917 and after boasted that they are beginning
a new project. They're going to produce the new
man. And in doing so, they had to eliminate all
those that stood in the way of perceived progress.
And those that did object to this fantasy of
utopia. They just always believed that they would
have a better revolution than those who came
before. And one has to sacrifice for the future,
they said. And so they produced countless martyrs.
Only God knows all the names. Revelation, the
book of Revelation says, lo, a great multitude,
which no one could number, of all nations and
kindreds. in people and tongues. They stood before
the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white
robes and with palms in their hands. Do you know
why we wear white at baptism and carry palms
at Palm Sunday? The first churchman to be arrested
and killed was Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev,
whose feast day was yesterday. Frightening and
brutal men tortured him. The words of Archbishop
Benjamin of Petrograd, who is depicted on the
wall over here. He's our own bishop saint. They
ring out. He says, when he was arrested and he
had to deal with these terrible circumstances,
he wrote, it's difficult, it's hard to suffer.
But according to the measure of my sufferings,
consolation abounds from God. It is difficult
to cross this Rubicon, this frontier, and give
oneself over completely to the will of God. But
when this is done, and we don't need to be a
martyr to do that, that person abounds in consolation
and does not feel even the greatest sufferings.
Filled as he is in the midst of sufferings by
an inner peace, he draws others to suffering.
so that they could imitate that condition in
which the joyful sufferer finds himself. My sufferings
had not yet reached their full measure. Now it
seems I have to go through everything. Prison,
trial, public mockery, demands for my death as
people applaud it, the ingratitude, the betrayal.
anxiety and responsibility for the fate of others.
My sufferings have reached their height, but
consolation has also increased. I am joyful and
calm as always. Christ is our life. Christ is
our light and our peace. We pastors should have
more faith. We should abandon all self -reliance.
our intelligence and learning and human strength,
and give place to the grace of God. I am joyful
and peaceful. He is a living example of what
St. Paul said. We heard it in the epistle. What
can separate us from the love of God? Height?
Depth? Angels? Principalities? Powers? Life or
death? Nothing can separate us. It's been said
that the glory of the church is its martyrs.
Those people who prove ready to be witnesses
of God, witnesses of their faith up to their
own death. I was asked once, why would you endure
martyrdom? Why not be silent? Take the fifth,
but have faith in your heart. I looked for an
answer to this. I knew the answer, but I wanted
an answer from someone with spiritual authority.
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom says this. Would you,
if challenged, renounce your father, your mother,
your child, your spouse, whom you love simply
for the sake of enduring no danger? And so it
was the martyrs. They love God, not sentimentally.
Not superficially, but with all of their heart.
They love the Lord with all of their life. I
have a few words here to end from Archpriest
Sergei Michev, executed November 1941. His father
was a great ascetic and elder. And to me, this
answers the question, Why did Margaret Dunn come
to Russia? After 500 more years of orthodoxy.
And here's what he said. Listen carefully, because
this has to do with us. The judgment of God is
taking place upon the Russian church. He's writing
this in the 30s. It is not by coincidence that
the external aspect of Christianity is being
taken away from us. The Lord is punishing us
for our sins and is thereby leading us towards
a cleansing. What is happening is unexpected
and incomprehensible for those who live by the
standards of the world, who seek worldly things
first. Even now, they still strive to bring everything
down to an external level. attributing all the
problems to outside the church. Our Lord is calling
us to accept a new form of life and salvation.
And this is the part I underline. Many churches
built by hands of men, filled with many treasures,
were open for centuries. At the same time, many
temples, not made by the hand of man, by God,
the soul. We're in a terrible state of decline.
Left unused and superficial. Formalism, secularism,
a nod to Jesus Christ was felt to be sufficient.
Come into church, light a candle. Now that the
church is built by man's labor are being destroyed
by the communists. In the repentant yearning
for them are raised temples built by the hands
of God. The flames of humble martyrdom are beginning
to be ignited. Let us, beloved ones, enter into
the cell of our soul, into the temple of our
spirit, which is consecrated to God at the time
of our baptism and sanctified by him at the time
of our communion, repeatedly. This temple of
ours, no one can destroy, except we ourselves.
In there is both priest, Christ, and penitent,
us. It's the altar table of our heart, he says,
and upon it we can always, with our tears, consummate
the great mystery of repentance and love of God.
It's difficult for us who have let our invisible
temple grow desolate without prayer, living by
the visible church, but now accept from the Lord
a new way of salvation. And he ends his letter
with these words. Let us stand aright. Let us
stand with the fear of God. Amen.