Sermon

Holy Wednesday 2007

It’s been almost ten years since the first time I witnessed someone pass away from this life. I was at a home outside of Boston ministering to a family whose father was dying. There was a wife, three children and their wives present. Each took turns in the bedroom with their father and at times others were congregating in the living room and talking. I was in the living room with one of the man’s children when his wife, who had been alone in the room with her husband, peeked around the corner and gestured for me to come. We walked into the man’s bedroom, and she whispered to me, “I think he is gone.” I looked at the man lying in his bed, and I gently responded back, “I think you are right.” She asked me if I would check for a pulse. Somewhat nervously, I checked, which served to confirm what I already knew, this man had passed away. I could tell from the moment I had come into the room.

How is that? Well, it’s more than just looking at his chest to see if it was still breathing. In Greek there is a word, “Prosopo.” This word is translated in different ways—some times Prosopo means face, other times it is used to mean the body. But perhaps the best way the concept of Prosopo is used is to define it as countenance. Everyone has a countenance, a Prosopo. It’s what gives is a twinkle in our eyes. No, not a literal twinkle, you only see that in cartoons. But inside each of us is an essence, a prosopo, which transcends the mere functioning of our limbs. For even when we are at rest and none of the limbs are working, we still have our countenance, our prosopo.

In theological terms, we call the countenance the soul. It’s what makes us, us. And so when I peeked around the corner and saw this man and knew without checking for vital signs that he had passed away, it was because his soul had left his body, and all that was left was a shell. The countenance, the prosopo, the soul, the essence of this man, had left.

Tonight we gather to celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Unction. And in a few moments, when you come up to be anointed, it will be for the healing of soul and body. Many people mistakenly view this sacrament as some sort of substitute for medical science. It is not. The pains of the physical body are best healed through the talents of those whom God has blessed with a knowledge of how to treat the human body when it is sick, our doctors and nurses. Rather this sacrament is for the healing of the prosopo, the countenance, the soul, the essence that inhabits each of our bodies.

During this Holy Season of Lent, I have made reference on numerous occasions to one of the verses from the Beatitudes, in the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (5:8) The primary goal in the life of every Christian is supposed to be a purification of the heart, so that at the end of life, when the soul departs from the body, it is prepared to gaze upon the uncreated and Almighty God.

We’ve all looked at the sun, and we know that we cannot do that for more than a second, because it is too powerful and painful for our eyes. In the same way, because of our sins, our soul, in its condition, cannot gaze upon God. But God gives a gift to us, which helps transform and purify our souls so that one day they can gaze upon God. And that gift is grace, which is imparted to us through the sacraments of the church. Grace, as I have also said on numerous occasions “heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking in each of us.” The word for sacrament in Greek is “Mysteria” and so the more correct translation for sacrament is to use the word “mystery.” The “Mysteries” of the church, prepare us to understand and experience the mysteries of God, in some small way in this life, and in a more full way, in the life to come.

The mysteries of God are not magic tricks performed on the members of the church. They are not good luck charms. They are powerful gifts of God’s grace coming down on those who are prepared to receive them. That’s an important distinction—powerful gifts of God’s grace coming down ON THOSE PREPARED TO RECEIVE THEM. For those who will march in in the next couple of days to receive Communion for Easter who rarely if ever attend church, who never pray, who never fast, who have not prepared, or for those who have come tonight who are here because they were reminded by someone, hey it’s Holy Wednesday, go to church and get the oil, the sacraments do little good for you. The sacraments are gifts that God offers to His people to assist them in purifying their souls. The pre-requisites to the sacraments are an understanding that there is darkness in each of our souls as a result of our sins, and desire to remove that darkness in order to gaze upon the things of God more clearly.

Inside each of us is a soul, a spiritual expanse that is filled with either goodness or sin. It’s one or the other. No soul is empty. It is either filled with light or with darkness. When each of us was baptized, the soul was cleansed. It was filled with God’s love and God’s light. In Orthodoxy, we hear of the concept of the “nous”, or the eyes of soul, sometimes called the eyes of the understanding. Sin means to go wrong, miss the mark, abandon truth, mix natural and unnatural, something like a virus that invades and infects our pure nature.

The eyes of the body, and the other senses filter what goes into the soul—what we see, what we hear, what we say, affects our souls. So if we take in Godly things through our senses, the eyes of the soul see clearly. But if we take in ungodly things through our senses, then the soul become dark. It becomes unable to see a clear path towards God. In Orthodoxy, we call the ungodly things we take in through our senses, the Passions. The passions are things that darken the soul, things like lust, jealousy, egotism, dishonesty, gossip, desire for power, gluttony. Passions are things that are attractive to the eye of the body at the expense to the eye of the soul.

The Orthodox, compared to other Christian denominations, emphasize seeing God as light. The impure cannot see God, they cannot stand to see God. Just like we cannot stand to look at the sun directly, not because someone tells us we can’t, we try to look and we can’t. The Church Fathers write that after the soul leaves the body, if it is pure, it goes through to the Everlasting Light, which is what God intends.

If the eye of the soul has gone from dark to light, because a person has lived a life of faith and repentance, because they have worked to purify their souls, then the light of God will be beautiful to that person and the person will delight in looking at it. This is what heaven is—beholding the Light of God, which we call in the Creed, the Light of Lights, or in theological terms, the uncreated light.

If the eye of the soul/center of the heart, the nous, has not been purified, if it is still dark with sin, then the light of God burns it like fire, the soul cannot be with God—that is hell. For even Christ tells us, that hell is an absence of God, and with the absence of God, an absence of hope.

It is not that God doesn’t want all people, He wants everyone. But God will only accept to look upon Him those who are prepared. And for those who are not prepared, they will not be able to look upon God not only because God will not find them worthy, but because THEY will not be able to look upon God, just the same way that we cannot look into the sun.

Our life on this earth is a time of preparation. God intended our lives to be lived in Communion with God. But since we are descendants of Adam, we are born into a fallen world like Adam and we have to overcome the world, in a sense, as Christ overcame the world, by living in communion with God in this life, in this imperfect world, so that we can experience a full communion in a state of paradise similar to before the fall of Adam.

A few months ago, at a special prayer service, I laid out a length of rope on the ground and said that the rope represented eternity. A paper clip attached to the rope represented the human lifespan. In the span of eternity, the lifespan is indeed very short. Thus the time for preparation is short, but the results of our preparation have eternal consequences.

The preparation for eternal life involves purification of the soul, the nous, which is also called the eyes of the understanding. What is the soul being purified from? The answer is the passions, like greed, jealousy, lust, anger, hopelessness, doubt and others. The purification happens through a life lived in Christ, specifically through daily prayer and through the sacraments. The first Gospel lesson we read this evening, the parable of the Good Samaritan spoke of a wounded man who wounds were treated with oil and wine—symbolic of the sacraments of unction and the Eucharist. The man was taken to an inn to recover. This represents the church. The role of the church then becomes similar to that of a hospital, to heal the passions and to in turn heal the soul.

The sacraments of Holy Unction and Holy Communion work hand in hand with Confession. The three are inter-related. Sadly, we eagerly participate in the first two, while the third eludes so many. All of these sacraments relate to healing. Communion affords us a foretaste of heaven, and a confidence to endure the trials of this life by offering us a glimpse of the joy that is to come. That is, when we prepare and receive properly, with fear of God, with faith and with love.

Holy Unction also speaks to healing, the healing of body and soul. The theme of tonight’s service is healing. The Epistles speak of the need for healing, about healing coming through the heart when it is full of love, about the fruits of the spirit, which provide the direction to keep us from being wounded. The Gospels recount many of Christ’s miracles and speak of loving our neighbor, persistence in prayer, humility, vigilance and healing. The prayers ask God for forgiveness and mercy and help when life gets difficult. The most important part of this sacrament, believe it or not, is not the part we’ve just done, it is the part that is yet to come. When you come up here to be anointed, a prayer will be said over each of you, “Holy Father, physician of our souls and bodies, visit, have mercy, forgive, heal and save your servant” and you will say your name, as a way of presenting yourself to God. Please say your name, even if I know it. I will anoint your forehead, chin, cheeks, top and bottom of each hand and if there is anywhere else you would like me to put the oil, let me know—eyes, ears, knees, etc. And as you come forward, this is an opportunity to bring to your mind the places in your life where you need healing. And after you are anointed, I want you to return to your pews for at least five minutes, rub the oil into your skin, and pray to God about some of your pains. As you rub the oil into your skin, pray to God for your healing of whatever pains are in your heart, on your body or in your soul. Think about the things that keep you away from God. Holy Unction is a sacrament of the church, and the sacraments are administered by priests through the Grace of the Holy Spirit. So important is it that this sacrament is received from the hand of another priest that I will not be receiving it this evening because there is no other priest here. I received Holy Unction two weeks ago, and knelt in front of a priest for the prayers of healing and received anointing with his hands. Therefore, please do not ask me if you can take Holy Unction home. I have it here all year, I can anoint you at any time. And if you have loved ones who are home bound, I will be happy to visit them with you and offer this sacrament to them.

Tomorrow there will be two services held in our church—Divine Liturgy commemorating the Last Supper will be held from 9:30-11:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. And tomorrow evening we will celebrate the Service of the Passion of Christ, beginning at 7:00 p.m. I believe that this is the most important service of the Liturgical year, more important perhaps than even the Resurrection. Because tomorrow’s service is about hope—it’s about the pains Christ suffered for us. If there was no crucifixion, there would be no resurrection. And if there was no Resurrection, there would be no hope, the soul would indeed be destined to spend eternity estranged from God. Tomorrow evening also provides the opportunity to kneel at His cross and offer up our own pains and leave them here. There are lots of you who have been frustrated in life—tomorrow is a day to come and cry them out to the Lord. Because if you don’t get rid of your pain, you’ll never have true joy. If you don’t want to sit through the entire service, come from 8:00-9:00 p.m., witness the procession of the crucified Christ and depart for home. But please come tomorrow, not for my sake, but for yours. Today, tomorrow and Friday, our themes are sorrow and healing—so that when we gather in three days, we can do so in joy, indeed ready to make a new start. Indeed the Lord is near to those who have a broken and humbled heart. If there are no wounds to heal, then no healing will occur. Just like when you go to the doctor, if you say, I’m in perfect health, there will be nothing the doctor can do for you. Everyone has spiritual wounds, things that take us away from God, things that take away our hope—bring those things to your mind as you come to be anointed. Bring those things to mind tomorrow and throughout this week, and ask for and allow God’s grace to again pour into your soul, so that your countenance can regain its sparkle, so that the eyes of your understanding can see God more clearly, so that the eyes of your soul may gaze upon the things of God with renewed joy in this life, and in the life to come, we may be granted to gaze forever upon the Uncreated Light. Kali Anastasi!