WE ARE WEDDED TO CHRIST
Brothers and sisters in Christ—
Today in the Gospel, the Lord tells the people the
Parable of the Wedding. The wedding is
often used as an image of the Kingdom of God, and with good reason, because, in
the death and resurrection of Our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, we are
wedded to our God, One in the Holy Trinity.
In Christ, we have a new intimate relationship with the Holy Trinity,
who wants us to share His life with Him.
We are wedded
to Christ first by our Baptism. In the
Mystery of Baptism, we put on Christ, we were baptized into His death. We went down into the tomb with Him, and our
souls rose from the dead with Him in the glory of the Resurrection. For this reason, it is the Tradition in our
Church that the one, who is baptized is immersed in the water three times,
signifying not only the Persons of the All-Holy Trinity, but also the three
days, which Christ lay in the tomb. We are longer two with the Lord Jesus (if
we keep His commandments), no, instead, we have become one flesh with Him,
through the Mystery of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist assures that Christ lives in us, just as we live in Him,
and the Mystery of Chrismation assures that we have but one Spirit with
Christ. He becomes our inheritance both
in Body and Spirit.
In the
Church’s sacramental life, we are wedded to Christ. He has become our
Bridegroom, Who has won us at the cost of His own life. It is that very life, which He freely
communicates with us. We see the way
that He has loved us, and we understand why the great commandment demands that
we love God in the same way. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord, your God, is One, and
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your strength and with all your mind.” We also understand the reason for the other commandment
that is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” After all, He
loved us enough to lay down His life for us. In order for us to be like Him, we
must have the same sort of love. If we
look around us in the world, we will realize there are many ways that we can
exercise this love. This love is not an
emotion. No one will be able to say, “I
never really understood Christianity, because I am not a very emotional
person.” This love is not an
emotion. Emotion is barely more than a
passion in us, but the love that is spoken of in the Gospel, the love that is
the nature of God Himself, is the love of benevolence (an intellectual decision
to will the good for others). More often
than not, emotion is only an obstacle to true charity. So many people over the years have said to
me, “I just cannot forgive. I am not
ready yet.” They say these kinds of things, because they understand love as an
emotion. But love is an intellectual
decision, and forgiveness is the intellectual decision to return to that
original intention. If you make the
intellectual decision to forgive, your emotions will catch up with that
decision. The love of benevolence will
win out.
We are wedded
to a love that is not an emotion, but rather a love that unconditionally wills
the good of everything in Creation. For
this reason, we can see that the name of “Father” is especially appropriate for
our God, and we should allow our relationship with the Father to guide direct
our conduct as fathers, leaders and members of the community. The inner life of our God, Who is Love,
teaches us every aspect of this love of benevolence. He teaches us how to be fathers and leaders,
but He also teaches us to be servants, and to be voluntarily
self-sacrificing. The Holy Spirit teaches
us by example to be at the service of the rest of Creation, to be a support for
those around us, even if they do not deserve it. To be worthy of our communion with God in the
sacraments, we must strive to be as self-emptying as He is.
Marriage is a
relationship of mutual sacrifice. For
this reason, at the wedding service in our Church the tropar to the Holy
Martyrs is always sung: “O Martyrs, you have suffered courageously and received
your reward; pray to the Lord, our God, to have mercy on our souls.” It is good for us to keep in mind that in our
marriage with the Lord we need to suffer courageously, even as He did, and as
the Martyrs did. All around us in the
world there are many concrete ways that we can suffer courageously, being of
service to God and to others. The
primary and most important way for us to serve is also the most important. Pray.
Pray with real love for all and everything, and pray for yourselves only
what is most important and precious: the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Let us decide to be like our Divine Spouse,
our Bridegroom, and put aside all material wants and earthly cares and pray
only for that, which really matters, our union with God in the Holy Spirit. During the day as we go here and there, and
accomplish this and that, let us look for opportunities to pray for
others. In this way, we will build the
habit of this love of benevolence. The
sacrament of Baptism is our entry into the Kingdom of God, but this sincere
charity is our wedding garment, which gives us a right to remain in that
Kingdom. Let us not be found without it.
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