CHRIST IS OUR ONLY HEAD ORTHODOXY IS HIS ONLY BODY

CHRIST IS OUR ONLY HEAD

ORTHODOXY IS HIS ONLY BODY

     “Away with Him! Let Him be crucified!” with these bitter cries of Christ’s enemies, they  branded themselves as Christ-killers, doing everything possible to degrade Jesus Christ, whom God sent first to Israel for salvation, but they greeted Him who loved them with a passionate hatred, evidenced by the way they spat on Him,  cursed Him, and assaulted him with bitter words of mockery. Fools! They did not understand that their actions were taking them  into an unescapable  trap.  For they unjustly killed the Lord and King of glory and no one could give back to Christ, the life which they stole from Him.  They will be judged by the law of justice  not mercy. The terrible injustice which they inflicted will cause their eternal condemnation.

      However Christ’s death was like no other death, for as He testified  He is the Life of the world, and Life cannot die: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  But the heavenly Father raised His Son according to the law, which prohibits an innocent man from being put to death The divine law calls for the return of four times the value of what was unjustly taken. Therefore Christ’s Resurrection, is infinite and is extended to all who are resurrected in Christ.  This is exactly as the Father had allowed the events to unfold and it is how God makes evil become good. What could be a worse crime that to sentence God to death, to be a murderer of the Godman.? What could be better than Christ being gloriously resurrected and His resurrecting all those who love Him and keep His commandments.  What could be better than being judged not by God’s justice, but by His great gracious mercy in Christ, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

     Life comes only from the Lifegiver, no one is able to produce life because life can only be derived from life.  The death of Christ instead of being an ordinary death was a live-giving death.  The Devil, through seduction acquired rulership over death, by using man as his tool, and  the fear of death was in the hearts of men. To avoid death they would often do the will of the Devil who used this to terrorize men, through every evil imaginable, such as  crimes, wars, murders, jealousy, hatred of good, thirst for revenge, lying, and stealing, etc. There is no evil that he did not maliciously devise. Why? Because he revolted against  God,  and seeing that man was special in God’s creation, he hated and warred against both God and man. Hence we are told to hate all evil and flee from even the thought of it.

Of course, the devil could never affect God power, and there is a deep mystery in these events and we must remember, that God alone knows everything and rules over everything. His plan proceeds exactly as He decides. That is why the Church sings: “Lord, I have heard of the mystery of your plan.”  God announced His plan in the beginning of the Book of Genesis: “Let us create man in our own image and according to our likeness.”  Christ being the first such man, and millions have followed Him, obeyed Him, lived for Him and died for Him, and will certainly be resurrected by Him.

     When any powerful earthly king would visit a certain place in his earthly kingdom, the results of his visit are felt for some time afterward. Jesus Christ the King of heaven and earth visited the race of man, and we will feel the effects of His wonderful visit until the end of time, for it involves salvation of the human race. The results of His visit means so much to those who honor and obey Him. For we see that His visit changed everything. Four-day dead Lazarus; Christ changed his death to life; cleansing the lepers, Christ restored them to their former glory as men; prostitutes, Christ changed them into virginal  like women.  When man follows  Christ he receives glory in place of shame and honor in place of dishonor.  Those who follow Christ achieve  nearness to God in place of estrangement; peace in place of enmity,  Whereas before Christ’s advent, death ruled the world, Christ’s followers see death as desirable to be with Christ, knowing that Christ put death to death and changed death  into a door opening  into eternal life. As death has no dominion over Christ, so it has no dominion over His Church.

    We must always call to mind, that this life is not given to us for our pleasure and enjoyment alone, although innocent pleasure and enjoyment may be part of life.  For we can marry,  rejoice, husband, wife and children, enjoy their company, teaching and playing with them and be thoroughly happy, for Christianity does not take away happiness for it is the only real source of happiness and the outpouring of joy, with the firm promise of great comfort and hope, for without hope man’s life is empty and miserable.  The present life is meant to be a   place of learning, testing, a strengthening and  a  preparation for life without end where there is no darkness but only light, no sadness but only joy, no evil but only goodness and peace, no death for life will be eternal with God, who will eliminate all sorrow.

THE GLORY AND EXALTATION OF MAN AND WOMAN

THE GLORY AND EXALTATION 

OF MAN AND WOMAN

   When God created man and woman, he foreknew that they would fall away  from Him, but He also knew how one day he would exalt them beyond all imagination, for His plans are perfect and will be accomplished.  The terrible degradation of man began with their breaking of God’s law upon accepting the advice to do so by the devil who appeared the form of a serpent and seduced them. Heeding his pernicious words, followed by their disobedient action they ate, breaking life- threatening law which firmly forbid this. By their action, Satan became their master while man acquired fears never felt previously. Death entered the world and man sunk from his noble and glorious rulership of all creation to the depths of enslavement to the devil. Nature released fury as well as beauty and food.

All evils that has entered the world came were released in the breaking of the law by the first created pair. This was not God’s intention nor is it ever right to blame God for anything because He alone is the Lover of all mankind and his great and mysterious plan for all creation was, not in the cherubim, seraphim or thrones, but in the exaltation of the race of man.

Today, if anyone will heed the voice of the Lord, there is prepared unbelievable glory and honor for those who offer their attention followed by a firm decision to pursue this glory, for this is truly the only destiny of man. Jesus Christ came into the world, born of the Virgin,  and it is he, whom we  speak of as the head of the race of man. He is the main person for while Adam and Eve made bad choices, and brought evils into the world, the Godman Jesus Christ was obedient to death even the death of the Cross, and brought all of God’s goodness into the world. For this reason God the Father has highly exalted Him. St. Paul describes this exaltation with these wonderful words: 

TWO BEAUTIES

TWO BEAUTIES

    In the fall of this year we saw the foliage looking in awe at the yellow, oranges, reds and in between colors and marvel, speaking to many others about this royal beauty/ How the Creator bestows on us sinful men such beauty!   In the winter will be another type of beauty with some discomforts from snow and ice.  I will never forget the one time that I was traveling on a small  “mountain” road, and on my way I saw that the branches of the trees were covered with glittering ice. As I ascended this road I was intoxicated by the absolute beauty of the ice covered trees, and the bright sun flickered all over. Made it look like millions of diamonds/  I got out of my car and making the sign of the Cross, I said: Lord your beauty is beyond words to describe!  There is also the beauty of the birds and their chirping music, the beauty of flowers and their aroma and bright colors, the fruits on plants, all come from the same soil, but by the wisdom and hand of the Creator of all that exists.

   There is another beauty which infinitely surpassed all other beauties, and that beauty is Jesus Christ.  Knowing that He is the Godman, and seeing Him weeping for the deceased  Lazarus,  almost breaks our hearts, and is couched in the two words: “Jesus wept.”  But of even greater is the beauty of  His life-giving and commanding voice: “Lazarus come forth.”   The ugliness and bad odor of death is immediately put to flight as Lazarus the dead man, comes out of death back into life. Lazarus now risen from the realm of death reflects the great beauty of Christ His Master, the author of our life. The joy and exultation that overflowed in the souls of Martha and Mary also reflects the beauty of Jesus Christ. We observe the beautiful man, who cured the deaf and mute, gave sight to the blind and the paralytics were walking vigorously after His wondrous works. 

Large crowds followed Jesus  attracted by His absolute divine-human beauty. Even the soldiers whose task was to take Jesus which they failed in doing, and when they returned without Him, they were asked why they did not take Him, they replied saying: “No man ever spoke like this man. Christ only by His beautiful authority and power would not rendered it impossible to take Him before His appointed time. Formerly blind men rejoiced when the Light of the world, enabled them to see worldly light. The beauty they experienced is this. Their eyes were opened and the physical light poured in making everything around them visible.  Another set of eyes were also opened at the same time, their spiritual eyes, for they saw with these ideas that Jesus was the Son of David and the Messiah or Christ.

In the world, men usually see only external beauty, but lurking beneath that external beauty is often  found ugliness in the form of egotism, arrogance and misery, for external looks are not genuine beauty. Genuine beauty is to be found in the person. Let us look at Christ’s internal beauty.  What attracted so many to him was His supreme virtue which radiated from Him with great brilliance.  The aura surrounded him  revealed to some his supreme kindness, His great compassion, and especially His unconditional love, For this love is a special aspect of His beauty, which we all attracted to is His being the only Lover of man or philanthropist. Greatly beauty is that when we were ugly and sinful, He in all His beauty and love willingly and in great forbearance, suffered His passion which He suffered for us and willingly allowed them to nail Him to the Cross.

Christ is beautiful and desires to share His beauty by creating man and woman in His image, thus reflecting His great beauty on all creation.  He  chose to create us out of clay, then breathed  into us a life-creating spirit, and by this spirit bestowing upon us freedom, intellect and feelings, with an active will to make choices and  decisions.  What has God wrought?   He has lovingly  given us the greatest gift possible, a gift for which we ought to glorify   Hin day and night. Yes we should thank Him for this temporary life, but we need to remember that the real life is the life in Christ, concerning which, Christ says: “Whoever believe in me shall never die/” The eternal life does not begin after we die, it begins here and now in this present world by our faith in Christ, our holy Baptism and the gift of Holy Spirit/

Jesus is our Head; Jesus is our Bridegroom; Jesus is our Savior; Jesus is the perfect example of what we must become. When we learn to love Jesus we will begin to see His perfect beauty. Everything is from the Lord Jesus Chrsit. All is given through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen genuine beauty until He sees the beauty of Jesus Christ. This is established when a man repents and confesses and approaches Him in a humble manner, with fear of God faith and love.