In the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Don't be frightened
by my three books. I promise I'm not going to
give a class. I just need a little bit of reminder
sometimes of what things say. So have no fear.
If you've been on a wonderful trip, a journey,
you want to relive some of those moments to talk
about them, to bring to your mind what was so
wonderful and enjoyable about that trip. Well,
let me do that a little bit for where we've been.
Today's the 13th day after Christmas. Yesterday
was the 12th day, just like in this song, the
12 days of Christmas. It's a very Christian understanding.
It's a festal period which goes on for 12 days.
Actually, It's just leaking out and continuing
as we go. So today is very festive as well. We
did a vigil for Christmas. Actually, we had days
of preparation, pre -feast days, which we had
matins in the morning and vespers in the evening.
As I said to the congregation yesterday at the
end of the service, please come back for vespers
yesterday. In the Orthodox Church, we have at
least two services a day. Not that we always
do them, but we have them. We're preparing for
this great celebration of what happened there
in Bethlehem, what led to it, and what happens
in the Bethlehem of our heart, how we meet the
Savior of the world. That God is with us. We
don't sing, God is with us, understand all ye
nations, and submit yourself in a triumphalistic,
worldly way. We sing that because God has become
man and he is with us. He's with us today. Where
two or three are gathered, where a multitude
have come together, not just informally, not
just casually, but as those who live according
to his name. You carry his name. That means when
you come together, you are united in Christ and
he is there in the midst. God is with us. That's
why we sing this. And we celebrated and we sang
and we sang Christmas carols and we had wonderful
food. I hope you had all that. And then... Some
days went by, and we came to New Year's Eve,
and we had Vespers for St. Basil and the Feast
of the Circumcision of Christ. Well, remember
that his parents took him, Jesus, in accordance
to the law of Moses, to what was given to Abraham,
to be a sign of the covenant that he himself
humbled himself to be, because he is one of us.
God is so humble. You know, he pretty much will
take anything we can give him. You don't feel
like praying in the evening? Do one bow, say
the Lord's Prayer. God is humble, and he receives
that because he loves you. And then you feel,
maybe I can do a little bit more. And God's Spirit
then is activated in your heart, and you begin
to pray a little bit more. But it all starts
with humility. His humility. His whole life was
one of humility. And the shedding of blood from
the beginning to the very end. And I'm coming
back to that point in a moment. And we celebrated
the faithful and good and amazing servant, the
Bishop of Caesarea Basil. You can see right there
in the altar, Basil the Great. There's not many
saints we call the great. He was only a bishop
for nine years, and in that time established
hospitals, orphanages, schools, miracles in abundance.
And then we celebrated New Year's Day. We had
a liturgy here, which was wonderful. And in the
evening, we gathered again. Yes, it was tiring
physically. It was tiring. Who comes back on
New Year's Day? There's bowl games on. But we
came back to sing the Vespers, just brief, it
was about 40 minutes, of our venerable Father
Seraphim, wonder worker of sorrow. That's the
January 2nd is the day of his repose. So of course
we're going to gather because that's the day
he entered in to what you can call The council
of the saints. God is glorified in his wondrous
ones. That he is with the Lord. Interceding for
us. And this parish is named after him. So you
carry a bit of St. Seraphim. Wherever you go.
Because you are a member of the parish of St.
Seraphim. And he prays for you. Each one of you.
Individually. I can say that boldly. And then.
The next morning, we were expecting our archbishop
to come, but he was ill. But many priests came,
and we celebrated his feast day. This means when
we celebrate a divine liturgy in honor of a saint
or any feast day, that means we are lifted up
to be with them at the throne of God, at his
divine banquet table, to feast with the saint.
We're with them. It's not... Some ethereal thing.
It's very practical because we eat and drink.
That's food. Spiritual food from heaven. And
then a couple days went by and we celebrated
the Feast of Theophany. You see this magnificent
fresco and the icon is still in the middle of
the church because we are just the day after
Theophany. And it was as if we gathered at the
shore of the Jordan River. We had gallons and
gallons of water. And we prayed that the Holy
Spirit would come and change that water to be
the water, the true water of life, the water
of the Garden of Paradise, where we were standing
with Adam and Eve. And creation is being renewed,
starting with that most basic thing, water. Isn't
that an amazing thing that your church gives
us? I'm saying all this, and I'm recounting all
this, not to make anybody feel bad because you
missed some of this, but to tell you and to remind
you about the riches of the church, the riches
of liturgical life, and to also inoculate you
a little bit. I read an article last week. It
was by a young man who had gone to Yale Divinity
School for one semester. And he said, the one
semester at Yale Divinity cured me of my Christianity.
And he goes on to explain what kind of Christianity
he kind of had and what they were teaching him.
It was a Christianity in which he was being taught
at Yale that the verse, God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son is simply
child abuse. That you would give your son to
be brutally treated by godless and wicked people,
the Romans, to be crucified? What kind of father
would do that to his son? And then it goes on
and on and on, of course, because there's imperialism
and all that stuff wrapped up in that. But that's
not... the faith we have. Listen to one of the
prayers from yesterday. Let this inoculate you.
Let's see. O Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten
Son, who art in the bosom of the Father, true
God, the fountain of life and immortality, light
of light, who came as to the world to enlighten
it. Are we enlightened? Illumine our mind with
the Holy Spirit. Receive us who offer thee magnification.
For thou hast clothed thyself, O Lord, in our
weak and poor nature, and hast condescended to
the stature of a servant, thou who art king of
all, and yet to stand to be baptized in the Jordan
at the hands of a servant, having sanctified
the nature of water. O sinless one, Thou mightest
lead us into a new birth through water and the
Spirit and restore us again to true and first
freedom. God is not an angry God dangling us
over a pit. If we don't confess his name, he
will just destroy us. That's the God that this
kid believed. That's the God that they were teaching.
We don't believe him. But then they would strip
away everything, all the miracles, the resurrection,
the baptism, the dove, the hand of John, the
angels, the shepherds, the wise men, the healings,
all that gone. What are they left with? Jesus
of Nazareth, they say, with the Beatitudes. But
the problem there is, The Beatitudes, you can't
acquire any of those things. Peace, meekness,
truth, humility, being persecuted without the
gift of the Spirit. You can't have a spiritual
life without the Holy Spirit. And today, today
we celebrate this incredible forerunner in Baptist
John. who gives us a clue about what might not
seem obvious. This is what the Synoxarian says.
The church honors the forerunner and the Baptist,
extolling him as the greatest of prophets, most
noble of those born of women, voice of the word,
herald of grace, swallow, presaging the spiritual
spring. torch and beacon of the divine light,
spiritual dawn announcing the sun of righteousness,
and terrestrial angel and heavenly man stationed
at the border of heaven and earth, uniting the
Old and New Testaments sent by God as a voice
in the wilderness in order to announce and to
prepare for the coming of Christ. You've heard
this from Isaiah, and St. John quotes it. Prepare
the way of the Lord. Make straight the paths
of our God. Every valley shall be filled. Every
mountain and hill humbled. The crooked ways shall
be made straight. And the rough places, plains.
And this is what St. John brings to us through
Christ. This is what it means when he says, repent
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is
what it means when Jesus says, repent for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand. It doesn't mean
you should be miserable and not have any fun.
That's what people think. The society is very
Calvinistic and Puritan. Repent has a very negative
tone, but this is what repent means. The glory
of the Lord shall be revealed. And all flesh
shall see the salvation of God. The Lord has
spoken. This leads us, brothers and sisters,
directly to what St. Paul says to do. The Holy
Spirit has been given to us. You've been baptized
by water and the Spirit. You've been immersed
in the Holy Spirit. Immersed in him. So that
you bear him. For what? For yourself? No. Not
for yourself. Some to be apostles. Some to be
prophets. We have prophets. Some evangelists.
Some pastors. Some teachers. For what reason?
For the equipping of the saints. For the work
of ministry. For the edifying and the building
up. of the body of Christ, till we all come to
the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the
Son of God, to the perfect man, to the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We're
being called to be like Christ, his representatives
in this world. You have been given the gift of
the Holy Spirit. Live according to it. Build
up the body of the church. Don't just come to
church. Be the church. Live the church. Do everything
you can to adorn the church with your virtues,
your life, your work, your blood, your sweat,
because the glory of the Lord will be revealed
to all. Beg God that you may dwell in that glory.
To him be glory, now and ever, to ages of ages.