Intro: Giving your life over to the idea of God vs. giving your life over to Jesus Christ.
- Compare to marriage: love the idea of marriage (or whatever) vs. unity with love through a relationship
- Judas loved the idea of the Messiah
- The myrrhbearers loved Jesus Christ the Messiah; through that personal service/duty they found the true God
- John (14:6-7) “Jesus said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.”
- God is perfect love; we know and live in that love not through love of the idea of God – or even the idea of Christ – but through the constant nurturing of our relationship with the person of Christ, the second hypostases of the One God in Trinity.
Coincidences (Mp. Antony): Panteleimon (in altar… and on tabernacle)
Two more today:
- Epistle on ordaining deacons assigned for today (
- Sunday of Myrrhbearers (and Saturday) and the altar consecration.
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So many parallels; the physicality of the rituals, the transformation of the ritual of death into the ritual of eternal life, the way that the Myrrhbearers found God in the darkest and most hopeless of times by doing what love required – even when they knew it would not be requited.
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But today? I am tired, so let me share one thought…
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One thought: what did we anoint?
- A corpse that we have prepared so that it’s decay is slowed? Is this a museum that we hope to beautify and keep open for a few more years/decades?
- Or did we anoint an altar that symbolizes and makes tangible the reality of salvation through the Passion and Resurrection of the God-man, Jesus Christ?
- This is not the temple: YOU are the temple; more importantly – WE are the temple
- Matthew 18:20; “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
- We have not given ourselves over to the idea of God, or to the idea of Church, or to the preservation of a beautiful building:
- We have given our lives, individually and as a community, over to the living Christ; the one who has trampled down death by death.
The joy of the Consecration is more than the consummation of our return to this house of worship. It is our joy that God is with us; that He has saved us; and that this house of healing – this place where people can come to know and love Christ and through that personal relationship with Him be saved – [that this house] is open for business so that we can, as the Living Body of Christ – the Church – bring peace and salvation to God’s suffering children (chrismations yesterday and today!!!)
