| As we move closer to the Feast of the Nativity, there is an important insight I want to share with you – one that reaches its apex in the birth of the Christ of God. It is this: God not only came to us in the birth of Jesus – but, indeed, the birth of Jesus is certain proof that God pursues us, seeks us out, and is relentless in doing so. The Western mystic, John of the Cross (+1591), in speaking of the metaphors we use to describe the spiritual life, points to the image of the great mountain. Climbing the mountain, struggling to go higher, become metaphors for our spiritual life, for our moving towards God, for our attempt to find Him and to get closer to Him. While this image is useful and recalls the disciples climb up Tabor and the encounter with Christ transfigured, it is somewhat different than the biblical understanding of man’s encounter with God.
The biblical perspective is unambiguous and has to do with the primacy of Grace, meaning, God’s initiative is always first, He makes the first move, He finds us and gets close to us by Him first pursuing us. The Psalmist expresses this relentless pursuit: “I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there also.” (Psalm 139:7-8) The mountain climbing image may mistakenly convey the idea that God is somehow remote, dwelling beyond our experience and our reach, and waiting for us to crawl to Him. On the contrary, throughout the Old and New Testaments, God reveals Himself as the seeker – the chaser. He is on a continual mission. We find the Father seeking the worshipper (John 4:23), scanning the earth from heaven (Ps 14:2), His eyes running to and fro across the planet to find something, to find the personal “some-one” (2 Chronicles 16:9). We find Jesus telling us that He has come to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). We find Him giving us a deeper glimpse into His heart by comparing Himself with a shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to seek the one lost (Luke 15:4-7), with a woman searching her entire house to find for a lost coin (Luke 15:8-10), with a father who incessantly scans the horizon for the return of the prodigal son (Luke 15:20), and with a merchant seeking fine pearls (Mt 13:45-46). God looks for us and makes the first move in love. Ages of our fumbling and stumbling cannot thwart the Divine Seeker.
Throughout Scripture we encounter a God who is on a quest, a searching God, a chasing God, a pursuing God. The pages of Holy Writ are permeated with this seeking God. He has been a seeker all along. It is His nature, it is who He is and reveals Himself to be. Yet it should startle us that the completely all-knowing, self-sufficient God, who created everything and needs nothing, would seek — and that He relentlessly seeks US. The ultimate confirmation that God rigorously chases us down the alleys and crooked passages of our life — is the birth in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth Who is the One who is on our heels. The British poet Frances Thompson in her poem The Hound of Heaven pens our reaction often to God’s chasing us: “I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up visited hopes, I sped; And shot, precipitated, down Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears….” God chases – how often we run from Him. God pursues – how quickly we hide.
So the seeking God comes and, according to the Prophet Isaiah, preparation must be made: “The voice of one calling: In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places made plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5) To use a simple, rather child-like metaphor for God’s pursuit of us, He is like a helicopter ever searching for a place to land. In order to land, the ground must be cleared, rocks and brush must be removed, holes must be filled in and mountains must be made level. The pursuing God wants to land in our space – in our hearts, deep in our souls. Like the inn keeper, we are confronted by the question: “Is there room in your heart for Jesus?” The season before the Nativity is a time for clearing. It is a holy season where we facilitate what God already wants to do – meet us in our heart, in that “holy of holies”, where He longs to be. Chief among the things we have to clean away from our hearts is indifference to God.
This, more than anything else, can become an obstacle to our letting into our hearts the pursuing God. St. Diadochos of Photiki tells us that indifference to God “prevents us from feeling any strong desire for the blessings prepared for us in the life to come…it depreciates spiritual life itself.” (Philokalia I) St. Thalassios agrees when he writes that “when we are indifferent to God, we become listless lukewarm, passive, and can become apathetic of soul; and a soul becomes apathetic when it is sick with self-indulgence.” (Philokalia II) God makes the first move. What is our next move? I suggest some questions by way of self-examination to see if we are growing indifferent to God and, therefore, have deafened our souls to the Lord’s pursuing voice: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:30)
The late Venerable Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh observes: “We complain that He does not make Himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for Him, but what about the twenty-three and a half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer ‘I’m too busy, I am sorry’ or when we do not answer at all because we do not even hear the knock.” (Beginning to Pray, p. 2) Here are some “clearing” questions: Is my Orthodox faith the context out of which I live my life? Who or what do I value the most in my life – honestly? Does my family live an active Orthodox life? Do I think of or remember God throughout my day? Have I changed my lifestyle to align it with my faith or I have I allowed my faith to atrophy in order to suit the siren call of the world? How seriously do I take the Lord’s call to prayer and worship? Do I carve out of my day significant times for prayer? Do I read the Word of the God who pursues me in Sacred Scripture every day? Do I treat and reverence others as Christ? Is my faith all in my head or does it come from my heart and out my hands in service to others? These and other questions can help us focus to see if we are listless or passive to God, if our faith has become like an old slipper – so “comfortable” that we don’t notice it and hardly know we have it on. Has the warmth of our Orthodox Christian faith cooled or perhaps even grown stone cold?
The point of the “clearing” exercise of this pre-Nativity season is not to brow-beat ourselves or to wallow in guilt or shame. God asks humility from us — not humiliation. The point is to help us wake up, work on clearing our spiritual house, and consciously prepare for Him to enter our heart of hearts. This is the season when we prepare for God in Christ to, at last, find us! The God who pursues us asks us to stir from our sleep. These were the thoughts that moved Johann Sebastian Bach in his composition “Wachet Auf” (Sleepers Wake) where he put to music in a majestic way the words of the hymn: “Wake, awake, the night is dying, And prophets from old are crying: Awake, ye children of the light! Lo, the Dawn shall banish sadness, The Rising Sun shall bring us gladness and all the blind shall see aright.” God is after you. He runs behind you. He pursues you. Isn’t it time for all of us to wake up and greet the Light, for the Rising Son again approaches?
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Dimitrios
(Please find this Sunday’s Bulletin attached for your prayerful preparation.) |