"He lifts up on high the lowly, and those who mourn he exalts to safety."
This verse from the fift chapter of the Book of Job is extremely appropriate for our meditations during this Nativity Fast. The verse first reminds us of the importance of lowliness on our part. We must approach God with lowliness in order to receive the life and salvation that He has to offer. Humility is an easy concept, but a difficult virtue to master. Humility, in a nutshell, is the truth. Humility is knowing our true place in the universe, our true place and state before God. The same word in Greek means both "humble" and "lowly," tapeinos, and the corresponding virtue is tapeinosis. Tapeinosis has a range of meaning from meekness to degradation. In the Christian context it also has a range of meaning. Tapeinosis can mean the degradation that comes from extreme suffering, or it can mean the lowliness that comes about as a result of sin. This range of meaning is fortunate, because given the range of meaning, it is Christ, sinless as He is, Who is our model of tapeinosis. In other words, "He lifts on high the lowly" can be understood in this context as a prophecy of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Christ willingly entered the extreme degradation of physical and moral suffering for our sake, and for this "God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name above every other name." The same verse is also a prophecy concerning us, who are conformed to Christ in His Mysteries. Through the Mysteries of Christ, we share the identity of Christ. We enter into the extreme humility of suffering, so that, in Christ, we can be raised to glory.
The second half of the verse is a doublet, that is, it says the same thing as the first half, but nuances the message that has already been given. The Biblical poets are, almost without exception, masters of doublets. The second half of the verse says, "and those who mourn He exalts to safety." Well, it goes without saying that "safety" and "salvation" are the same word. The poet is talking about the ultimate safety, salvation in the Presence of God, the Kingdom of God and Paradise. But we notice that those whom God gives salvation to, as an inheritance, are those who mourn. The Lord Jesus Himself repeats the sentiment in the Sermon on the Mount "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted." It is not general sorrow, discouragement or despair that is being recommended here. The poet is talking specifically about mourning for sin. The poet wants us to know the positive consequences of standing before God and acknowledging that we are not [yet] what we were created to be. This kind of mourning is a keystone of Christian spirituality. In Greek it is known as penthos. Penthos has been described by various spiritual writers as "a bright sadness," because it is not the useless, handwringing, fretting sorrow of the world. It is a mourning that engenders JOY. Yes, it seems like a paradox, but this is precisely what penthos is. Penthos is a mourning that leads us naturally to joy because of the promise of salvation. Salvation cannot be attained without it. The Lord's saying is clear: no mourning, no comfort; but, on the other hand, if there is true mourning, then comfort will follow from the Lord.
The importance of penthos in the Church can be observed simply by the way that Christians pray. Traditionally, Christians pray facing the East. In fact, in the early Church they even stretched out their hands in a gesture of supplication and longing. Why the East? We pray towards the East because the Paradise is in the East "And the Lord God planted a garden in the East [Paradise] and there He placed the man, whom He had made." By praying in this way, we express our longing for restoration. Also, we express our longing for the Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because the manifestation of that coming will also be from the East. Our Lord Himself tells us, "Even as the lightning flashes from the East to the West, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." In other words, when we pray, we do not try to make ourselves as comfortable as possible as is the custom of certain other religious traditions, but we stretch out our hands in longing towards the East, longing for Christ and His Kingdom above all things, while humbly confessing that we are not worthy to inherit it. We allow the body to outwardly manifest the disposition of the soul, and, in this way, the body's action supports and bolsters the soul's disposition.
A man who is an example of penthos can have a profound effect on those around him. There was a controversy in the early Church concerning who had the authority to forgive sins in the Name of Christ: the bishops [and, by extension, the priests] or the confessors [those who had suffered for the faith during the horrific persecutions, but who had, nevertheless survived] and the "spiritual fathers" certain revered monks who excelled at the art of directing Christian souls. The controversy ultimately went away on its own, because widespread persecution ended after the Edict of Milan (312-3), so the confessors died out, many of them being revered as saints after their deaths, and the monastic movement became increasingly clericalized until virtually all "spiritual fathers" were also priests. In my own theological opinion, the confessors and "spiritual fathers" [like Antony the Great, for example] had the ability to "forgive sins" but not in the same way that the bishops wielded the authority. The confessors and holy monastic spiritual directors could "forgive sins" because they had the ability to move others to a perfect and complete contrition. In the case of the confessors, we know from contemporary accounts, that the sight of their wounds was so moving that many people [including the Emperor St. Constantine the Great] would venerate them like living relics as they wept for their sins. The case of the "spiritual fathers" was a bit different. In their case it was the example of their prayer, their suffering and their apparent and perceivable closeness to God that would move others to repentance.
We must strive to perfect lowliness and mourning, not only for ourselves, but as an example for others. Spend time everyday meditating on what we've lost on account of our great distance from God, all the while remembering with joy the blessed promise of our restoration.
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