1 Corinthians 3:9-17 (we are a temple); Matthew 14:22-34 (walking on water). Sunday of the Cross and Maccabean martyrs. Fr. Anthony compares our situation to that of Peter on the water, then encourages us to reach out to Christ and turn our lives into living temples through virtue. Such a temple can protect us from the chaos and allow us to live in it without losing our peace. Enjoy the show!
Christ in the Midst of the Storm
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We live in a confusing time. It often feels as though the world has been given over to chaos. There is so much uncertainty. So many things we thought were settled—things we had taken for granted—are now being challenged. It can feel as though everything is coming unglued. Everywhere we look there is confusion instead of peace, discord instead of harmony.
This is the experience Saint Peter had when he stepped out onto the water.
This is, of course, a historical event. It really happened. But I also want to draw out one of its symbolic meanings. Throughout Scripture, water often serves as a picture of chaos. You can understand why. Water has no shape of its own. It pours wherever it can. Even on the Sea of Galilee, you cannot see very deeply beneath the surface, so you never quite know what is there. Water becomes an image of danger, uncertainty, and overwhelming confusion.
Peter was surrounded by that chaos. Beneath him was the water. Around him was the storm. Anyone who has ever been caught on the water in a storm knows how quickly fear can take hold.
Metaphorically, that is where many of us find ourselves today.
The confusion around us begins to work its way into our own minds. We become unsettled. We become afraid. We become discouraged. Different people respond differently, but the result is the same: instead of standing apart from the storm, we become part of it.
And then we begin to add to it.
Like a drowning man grasping at anything he can reach, we try to manipulate situations and impose our own will upon them. But we are not strong enough to master the chaos on our own. Instead, we begin to sink.
It is not a pleasant way to live.
It is not how life is meant to be.
And, thanks be to God, it is not how it will always be.
There is another image from today’s commemorations that helps us understand this.
Today, together with the Procession of the Cross, we also commemorate the Holy Maccabean Martyrs. They lived less than two hundred years before the birth of Christ, during the time when the Seleucid rulers sought to impose pagan worship upon the people of God. They even went so far as to desecrate the Temple itself by placing within it a statue of Zeus.
Think about what that meant.
The Temple, the holiest place on earth, had become a place of confusion. The darkness of the fallen world had entered even there. Some of the leaders themselves had begun to accept this corruption as normal.
But the Maccabean martyrs, led by Eleazar, said, “No.”
We do not belong to the chaos.
We will not become part of it.
And for that confession they gave their lives.
Their witness reminds us that we do not have to become like the world around us. We are called to something better. We are called to participate in something that transforms chaos into beauty, confusion into harmony, and fear into love.
That can become our natural way of life.
Our responses to others can become well-ordered, charitable, patient, long-suffering, and pastoral rather than fearful and judgmental.
How is that possible?
It is only possible if Christ is at the center of our lives.
Otherwise, we are doing exactly what the pagans did when they placed Zeus in the Temple. We take something created—our own will, our own fears, our own passions—and enthrone it where God alone belongs.
Saint Paul reminds us today: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”
The desecration of the Jerusalem Temple was terrible. But Paul says something even more astonishing: under the New Covenant, each one of us is called to become a living temple, a holy dwelling place for God Himself.
Whenever we respond to the world’s brokenness with anything other than Christ, we become part of the chaos. We add to the darkness. We add to the manipulation, the fear, and the anger. Instead of becoming instruments of healing, we become contributors to the world’s pain.
Saint Paul also speaks of building.
He reminds us that each of us is constructing something with our lives. His image always reminds me of the story of the three little pigs. What are you going to build your house with? Straw? Sticks? Or something that will endure?
Because the storm is real, our work will continually be tested.
The Temple of the heart must be built stone by stone through the practice of virtue.
I am not speaking moralistically. I mean this quite literally.
As we practice patience, forbearance, charity, humility, and prayer, these virtues gradually become habits. The Temple becomes a place of beauty, protected, as it were, from the storm outside.
The Fathers tell us that we can descend into the heart and find peace there. But they also tell us that this kind of peace does not happen by accident. It is cultivated through prayer, fasting, charity, repentance, and the steady practice of the Christian life.
Without that formation, the storm easily overwhelms us.
Yet there is always hope.
When Peter began to sink, he did not save himself.
He cried out, “Lord, save me!”
And Christ reached out His hand.
That is still the answer today.
When the storm overwhelms us, we turn to Christ. He pulls us out of the chaos, and then He teaches us, little by little, to build a life in which He dwells—a life where beauty, harmony, love, and peace become not merely occasional experiences but our natural way of responding to the world.
The Christian life is not simply about avoiding evil. It is about becoming the kind of people whose natural response is peace.
Think about our Lord’s command to love our enemies.
We often think of that as an intellectual exercise or perhaps an exercise of will. But it is something much deeper than that. It is the fruit of a life that has been cultivated in Christ.
It becomes a habit.
Can you imagine becoming the sort of person for whom the actions of an enemy become an opportunity to show patience, forbearance, prayer, charity, and pastoral care?
Not fear.
Not anger.
Not jealousy.
Not revenge.
Those responses no longer fit.
Instead, when we encounter them in ourselves or in others, we remember that way of life and say, “I know where that leads. Let me show you a better way.”
We show people that better way by the way we relate to one another.
Now, this is easier among friends. If God has blessed you with good friendships, you know how naturally good habits begin to develop. But Christian maturity goes even further. The goal is that we learn to respond this way even toward our enemies.
I speak as one who is still learning this.
I have no idea how it can be done except through Christ.
But I do know this: if we do not cultivate this way of life—if we do not build it minute by minute, brick by brick, day by day—we become vulnerable to the storm and eventually become part of it ourselves.
We have all seen where that path leads.
It destroys friendships.
It destroys marriages.
It destroys communities.
It destroys nations.
It cannot endure because it belongs to the chaos.
But God has shown us another way.
Go back to the very beginning of Scripture.
How does the Lord reveal Himself?
He takes the chaos and brings forth order. He gives everything its proper place, each according to its kind, each contributing to the beauty of the whole.
Then He gives humanity a vocation.
“Do this.”
Subdue the chaos.
Bring order.
Participate in My work.
That has always been our calling.
And now, in Christ, we have both the grace and the power to fulfill it.
Perhaps some of you are like Peter today.
Perhaps the waves feel as though they are crashing over your head. Perhaps you can barely catch your breath. Perhaps you feel as though you are sinking.
Then pray the simplest prayer in the Gospel:
“Lord, save me.”
He will.
He will take hold of you.
He will bring you into the safety of His Church, where His fullness is found, just as it is in every Orthodox parish. Here we learn to live the life of virtue. Here we learn to become temples fit for His dwelling.
But we do not remain infants forever.
As we mature in Christ, we discover that He is with us wherever we go.
There is no place where we are separated from Him.
We need not remain huddled in the boat forever, afraid of the storm.
In Christ we are able to walk into the midst of the world’s chaos without becoming part of it.
The storm may destroy the body.
It cannot conquer the soul.
We can bring peace into violence.
We can bring harmony into conflict.
We can bring healing where there is division.
We fulfill the vocation God gave humanity from the beginning: to take the chaos and, through the Logos, transform it into His beautiful order.
So I encourage you: whenever the storm begins to overwhelm you—as it surely will—turn immediately to Christ.
“Lord, save me.”
Let Him lift you up.
Return to the peace of the temple He is building within your heart.
And then carry that peace into the world, so that others may come to know the One who calms every storm.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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