My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.
THE THIRD SUNDAY OF GREAT AND HOLY LENT: THE VENERATION OF THE PRECIOUS AND LIFE-GIVING CROSS (Part III)
Since the crucified One is King of Glory, it also means that the Cross is the Throne of the King of Glory. Just as the kings of old had their thrones, from which they governed their subjects, so too the Cross is the throne of Christ. And indeed the Kingly death on the Cross points to the strange way of Christ's governing and kingship, as Saint Nicholas Cavasilas analyzes it.
Christ did not stay where He was, nor did He send the Angels to call upon men and save them, but "He Himself went about seeking them", He Himself was a helper and servant. He went down into the prison and released man, paying with His precious Blood. This show His humility.
He showed His great love, for He was not satisfied just to teach people, He did not hold them by fear, as the world's rulers would do, nor did He subjugate them with money. But, having authority as God, He united with Himself those He ruled. He Himself became a friend to man, a father, a heart. He guided them "more rejoicingly than a father, more naturally than members, more necessarily than a heart". Christ governs His own people with love. He Himself has authority, He does not draw it from anyone else, but at the same time He does not rule through fear and hate, because such actions do not constitute true authority.
Freedom too is connected with humility and love. Although He loves men, He does not direct them without their own freedom. He was Lord and Master not only of their bodies, but also of their souls and wishes. He guides His own people, just as the soul guides the body and the head and the limbs.
The crucified Lord shows the way of True Authority. He governs truly who is distinguished by humility, love and respect for freedom. In this way Christ "ruled His pure and True Kingdom."
There is a very beautiful word which points to the mystery of the love of God, as it was expressed on Golgotha. It is the word "reconciliation" and the verb 'to reconcile', which the Apostle Paul often uses in his letters. Speaking of the love of Christ when He died on the Cross, He says: "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Romans 5:10). Here it is seen clearly that after the fall, men were hostile to God and that this reconciliation happened through the death of Christ. It does not say that God was hostile to men, but man was hostile to God. And in another Epistle the Apostle Paul refers to the ministry of reconciliation. "Now all things are of God, Who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Also in this passage it is seen that God reconciled man to Himself through Jesus Christ.
The energy of reconciliation, the love of God, is closely connected with the historical fact of the Crucifixion, since it is by the Cross that Christ conquered the devil, death and sin. The Apostle Paul mentions in his Epistle to the Colossians that Christ canceled the written code, "nailing it to the Cross. Having disarmed the authorities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them" (Colossians 2:15). In this sense the Cross of Christ is the sign of the mystery of man's reconciliation and conciliation with god...
"...Death is separation of the soul from the body. So Christ gave up His soul, His spirit, to His Father, but this does not mean that there is also a separation of the hypostatic union of Divine and human nature. If we accept it the case of men that their hypostasis is not abolished in spite of the soul's departure from the body, this applies much more to the Godman Christ.
Saint John of Damaskos says that even if Christ died as a man and His soul was separated from His body, the Divinity remained undivided in both soul and body, and the one hypostasis of the Logos/Word remained, in spite of the soul's departure from the body. Moreover, Christ's soul and body never had their own hypostasis apart from the hypostasis of the Logos/Word. Thus even if the soul was separated from the body, they were hypostatically united by the Logos/Word.
This means that His soul descended into Hades with the Divinity in order to release the righteous men of the Old Testament from the power of death, while the body remained in the tomb with the Divinity, without suffering decay and disintegration, precisely because there was the unified divinity. In this way the soul and body, united by the Divinity, "break the chains of both death and hell", as we sing in the Church. The soul with the Divinity broke the chains of Hell, and the body with the Divinity tore asunder the power of death.
Saint Cosmas, the poet, bishop of Maiuma, formulated this great theological truth in a troparion (hymn) which is the Canon of Great Saturday: "Thou wast torn but not separated, O Logos/Word, from the flesh that Thou hadst taken. For though Thy temple was destroyed at the time of Thy Passion, yet the Person of Thy Godhead and of Thy flesh is but one; in both Thou art one Son, the Logos/Word of God, both God and man." (Source: The Feasts of the Lord by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos HIEROTHEOS)
(To be continued)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape In His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George