St Peters Orthodox Church

What a wonder is the Ascension of Christ our God as He returns to the Father in Paradise. The angels who always had beheld God in Paradise are even in wonder at what they see when Christ Ascended. The Ascension is the final movement of the finished work and ministry of the Incarnation. For as Christ Ascended, He kept our humanity within Himself eternally making the impassible way to Paradise now passible through Himself. Now, all mankind has the opportunity to return to Paradise; and only because Christ Ascended.

Jesus says in the Gospel of St. John chapter 16, "Whatever you ask the Father in My Name, He will give you." But what does it mean to ask in the Name of Jesus? The answer to that question is critical to understanding our role of joining with Christ's intercession for the life and salvation of the world as His Kingdom of Priests.

In our study thus far, we have been looking at the role of the Priesthood of All Believers and mainly focusing on the aspect of our Priesthood that faces God representing and interceding for the world before Him. In this last session, we now focus on representing God to this present age. We ascend the mountain to fellowship with God, receive from Him, learn of Him, and be healed and transformed by Him. We descend the mountain to represent God and manifest His Kingdom before all of those around us. In this session, we look at the life of Moses in this very role seeking to see how Moses greatly succeeded in representing God to His people. But we also have a look at how Moses failed in misrepresenting God to the people. We must see this particularly in our age. For the misrepresentation of God to man will move man further away from salvation and have implications in our own lives.

In the Gospel of St. John Chapter 16, Jesus tells His disciples that it would be to their advantage that He leave them and return to the Father. For then the Holy Spirit could come. And as we would be granted the Holy Spirit, we would be granted the mind of Christ. The Holy Spirit is given to us that we may be transformed within our souls to grow to love what God loves and have no taste for what He detests. As our passions and affections become His, we experience His joy even when the world crashes in against us.

There is a relational rhythm to our fellowship with Christ in prayer. A helpful acronym for this rhythm is ACTIP (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Intercession, Petition). This lesson takes us through each of these movements in the rhythm of prayer and the experience of God that can be had by this fellowship.

When Christ was with His disciples between the Resurrection and Ascension, He was preparing them for His return to the Father. He told them that in this life they will weep and lament with sorrow, but that their sorrow would be turned to joy. In this life, we who are His disciples will suffer in a fallen world in many different ways. But the reality of Christ's presence in our lives and our ability to fellowship with our Lord grants us a joy that is unexplainable.

Christ our God is our Great High Priest Who intercedes for us and is our Mediator and Advocate. He stands before the Father interceding for the souls of mankind. As His Priesthood, we are ordained for and invited into a participation in Christ's ministry of this blessed intercession for the life of the world. Today we examine closely this role we have been given to stand with Christ between the Father and the souls of mankind. This is true intercession as the priesthood of all believers.

Jesus says in the Gospel of St. John 10, "I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own as the Father knows Me and I know the Father." Our Lord is revealing to us that we can know God with the same intimacy of knowing as the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father. What is this incredible revelation Christ is giving to His disciples? Today we look at the very relationship the Good Shepherd desires with His sheep.

All Christians are "priests" and the last thing Satan wants is for Christians to live out their vocation as this Holy Priesthood. When we truly walk in our priesthood our enemy considers us dangerous and we become a target. But we have been given Divine power from Christ our Great High Priest to endure and walk in the most important role He has ordained for us to walk in within His Kingdom.

St. Thomas and all of the disciples were in a crisis of faith existing in fear, anxiety, and great sorrow as they had just witnessed their Lord be taken from them, tortured, crucified, and buried in a tomb. In St. John 20 we have the narrative of how Christ appeared to them and brought them from the darkness of all that they were going through to peace and joy. What was it that delivered them from fears, anxieties, and sorrows? It was Christ's presence with them and the revelation He would give to them of Himself. Then they would be filled with joy and proclaim Him as their risen Lord and God. It is the same for us. The answer to our distress will always be Christ's presence with us and His revelation to us that we may know Him. (Jonathan, I have attached an icon to be uploaded with this sermon)

As is tradition in the Orthodox Church, on Easter Sunday we hear together the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom. "Hell took a body and came upon God. It took what it saw but crumbled before what it had not seen."

Tonight is the night of our deliverance. Christ, our Passover Lamb, is crucified and He is raised from the dead. We are delivered through Him from death to life, from the lesser condition of oppression and slavery to heirs of a Heavenly Father, and from darkness to light. This is the night Christ, having descended into Hades breaking its gates in sunder, He rises from the dead granting the firstfruits of the Resurrection as many come out of the grave and proclaim what He has done. For Christ is Risen!

The writer of Hebrews said that it was for the joy set before Him that Christ endured the Cross. What was His joy? We were His joy. We who have fallen short, we who suffer the disorders and dysfunctions from the fall of man were His joy. It was for the joy of redeeming and healing us that our Lord endured the Cross. What kind of love is this? How far God went to gather us back to Himself.

The last night our Lord Jesus Christ was with His disciples before His Passion, He gave them a command. He took bread and wine, gave thanks blessing them both saying, "This is my Body and this is my Blood. Do this in remembrance of me." This was not a suggestion of something for them to consider doing when they gather. It was a command from the love of Christ our God Who offered His disciples forgiveness of sins, healing of their souls, and eternal life through that which He had blessed for them. Tonight we celebrate both the command and the gift of Christ; Holy Eucharist.

With Christ's Passion before us, tonight we remember the words of the Prophet Isaiah who said "by His stripes we are healed." Right in the middle of Holy Week, our Lord places one of the greatest reasons He went to His Passion right before us. He became broken so that we might be put together and made whole again. As we bless the oils of Holy Unction and that of the Catechumens, we remember the fullness of Christ's healing ministry in our lives. And as we have the oil of Holy Unction placed upon our heads tonight, we remember and believe that Christ lays His hand upon us to restore our body, mind, and soul.

Christ our God took the Roman instrument designed to shame, torture, and bring death and turned it into something magnificent. By Christ's willingness to die such a death, and by His presence on the Cross, He turned the Cross into the very instrument through which we could be released from our shame and given life. How far our Lord willed Himself to go that the paradise of fellowship with Him once again could be open to us. His love enduring the Cross declares how much worth He places on us all.

The transition on Palm Sunday itself is a difficult transition. We start out with Palms celebrating the coming of our King and Messiah and transition in that same Mass to His Passion. But it is Christ our God who willed all of this. And why? His love for us drove Him to the Cross.

Why do we bless Palms, waive them, and process to the Altar with them on Palm Sunday? It is not just to re-enact an event that happened over 2000 years ago. God's people who waived their palms as Jesus entered Jerusalem back then were mistaken as to Jesus' kingship and they limited Who He was as Messiah and what He would do as their Messiah. But beyond the Cross and the Resurrection, we know Who He is and all that He is done. Palm Sunday begins Holy Week. And Holy Week is a participation in all that Christ did to gather us back to Himself in the eternal now.

St. John of Kronstadt offers wisdom for Priests who serve at the Altar during Liturgy. These same principles can be applied to the Priesthood of all Believers as they take their place as living stones in the Mass. Today we discuss these principles that will help us fulfill the ordination God has given us all in the eternal worship of Him.

We speak often of Christianity as an ascension out of the results of the Fall to our Lord Jesus Christ. And, we are right to do so. But in the last two weeks of Holy Week called Passiontide, we focus on descending with Christ as we journey with Him to and through His Passion. His journey to His Passion was one of great humility. The Lord of Lords, the Word of God condescends to place Himself in the hands of humanity so that humanity might be saved. Humility is the path to salvation as we are called to live in the same humility by taking up the Cross and dying that we might live.