SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“To the Hebrews, the sea was a frightening place, full of chaos and death. To be cast into the sea was to sink down into Hades…God is the ground of our innermost being, yet we skim along on the surface of life. The result is that our lives are rather like that of the deep-sea fisherman who was fishing for minnows while standing on a whale.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Jonah 2:5-6, Martin Laird) “The creation story begins with God’s Spirit hovering over the face of the water. It wa

“Salvation, then, is more than forgiveness of sins, more than a mental acceptance of Christ and His teachings. For in salvation we are given union with God through Christ, a right and full relationship with the Holy Trinity, and the restoration of our full humanity. All these things are accomplished through the Incarnation, the union of God and man in the Person of Jesus Christ. Salvation, then, is founded on a substantial union of the believer with Christ in His full humanit

“Human biological life is a gift from the Creator, not the negative consequence of sin. St Paul’s words about the first Adam becoming a ‘living being’ can be interpreted to mean a ‘biological being.’ Adam was created with a physical, even mortal nature like all other biological creatures, but had the potential to be a spiritual being. But as St. Paul notes, the physical/biological was first. The spiritual nature needed to be developed by humanity, but sin is the roadblock to

“All that we read in holy Scripture for our instruction and salvation demands an attentive ear. You have just heard [Luke 24:13-35] how the eyes of those two disciples whom the Lord joined on their way were kept from recognizing Him. He found them in despair of the redemption that was in Christ, supposing Him now to have suffered and died as a man, not imagining Him to live forever as the Son of God. So He opened to them the Scriptures and showed them that it was necessary fo

“I believe that Christians make a serious mistake when we begin to speak first about God rather than first about Christ and His death on the Cross and resurrection from the dead. It is a mistake because it presumes we know something about God that is somehow “prior” to those events. We do not, or, if we think we do, we are mistaken. The death and resurrection of Christ are the alpha and the omega of God’s self-revelation to the world. Nothing in all of creation is extraneous

“ ‘…Christ died for the ungodly’ (Romans 5:6). The ungodly are all of us. Because of sin, everyone stands in alienation from God, and we do not have the capacity to become righteous on our own. Because of God's love, Christ died for our sins to bring us the gift of righteousness…Christ is the offering for all sin—voluntary and involuntary—which demonstrates God's incomparable grace toward us.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Romans 5:6, Hebrews 10:26-27) “There is no one who will save

“Reading Scripture is an essential way that we allow God to speak to us. We hear His voice in sermons in church. We may hear His voice coming through the encouragement of others. However, the Bible is a way that we can hear His voice at any time, and hear it most completely. A sermon is on a specific passage of Scripture and is heard in church. And a word of encouragement requires another person’s input. The Bible is something we can pick up at any time and at any place to he

“The warning Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you [John 12:35] operates on at least two different levels: (1) To the Jewish people in Jerusalem to whom Jesus spoke, the warning was a reminder that there was only a little time left for them to accept him as their Messiah. (2) To those later individuals to whom the Fourth Gospel was written, and to every person since, the words of Jesus are also a warning: There is a finite, limited time in w

“The standard of judgment is uncalculated mercy toward others. The works produced by faith are emphasized, for saving faith always produces righteous works. What we do reflects our true inner state…To see Christ in everyone is the fulfillment of the great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Matthew 25:31-46, Matthew 25:40) “True participation lies at the heart of all worship and much else in our lives. A marriage, at its best, is a participa

“The beautiful is identical with The Good, for all things seek the beautiful and the good at every opportunity, and there is no being that does not participate in them. They extend to all that is, being whatever is truly admirable, sought for, desired, pleasing, chosen and loved. Observe how the divine force of love –that power of Eros pre-existing in the good—has given birth to the same blessed force within us, through which we long for the beautiful and the good in accordan