Ephesians 6.10-17

Luke 17.12-19

Again, quoting from St Kallistos Angelikoudes (14^th cent.): ‘Historical moments are like mirrors that show images of spiritual realities.’ (Philo V, p. 170) In the mirror of our Gospel this morning, we see the reflection of Holy Baptism as well as of this liturgical season of Advent. For, like the ten lepers, we who have been cleansed of our spiritual leprosy in Holy Baptism are either ‘raising our mind on high’ to make our way with the one leper to the LORD born of the Virgin in the Cave in order to follow Him to the Tomb of His Holy Pascha, or away from Christ to live with the nine in the world [and to make our way to non-existence, as Popadija was saying yesterday!]

It's a disturbing reflection. For every ten souls who are cleansed of their spiritual leprosy in the waters of Holy Baptism, how many strive to leave the world and to draw near the LORD Jesus Christ in the ‘cave’ of their heart, in order to take up their cross and work to put to death what is earthly in them and to offer their love to Him who first loved them; and how many choose to remain in the world, drawing near to the LORD only with their lips, and only every now and then, while in their hearts they are in the world far away from Him?

Only the one leper of the ten, the Samaritan, when he saw that he was cleansed from his spiritual leprosy, turned his back to the west and set his face to the east in order to draw near the LORD with faith and love and to worship Him in Thanksgiving, in Holy Eucharist. This one leper, drawing near to the LORD in Thanksgiving, is an image of prayer in the way of the Church: descending with the mind into the cave of one’s heart to worship the LORD Jesus in prayer and Thanksgiving. It is an image of the Church’s liturgical and sacramental worship, rooted in the Holy Eucharist, holy Thanksgiving, of the Divine Liturgy.

‘Let us lift up our hearts!’ we will cry out in a few moments. ‘Let us give thanks unto the LORD!’ It is Christ in His Body, the Church, calling us to draw near to Him in the cave of our heart, in the fear of God, with faith and love. This work of descending into the cave of our heart in prayer is the real substance of Advent. In time, we are drawing closer to Christmas. In our hearts, we are ‘raising our minds on high’ and going to Bethlehem to behold the Virgin giving birth to Christ in the cave, in the cave of our heart. It is also an image of Great Lent, for Advent is but the first stage of the inner ‘exodus’ to Christ and His Kingdom that is found within us, in the tomb of our heart. In time we are moving to Holy Pascha, while in our hearts, we are moving daily to the Tomb of the LORD’s Holy Pascha, to become partakers of Christ (Heb 3.6) and of His divine nature (2 Pt 1.4) in the hidden man of our heart.

The liturgical and sacramental setting of this morning’s Gospel reveals that ‘to give thanks’ to the LORD in the way that saves us, or heals us, is to draw near to Him with faith and love in the prayerful longing to unite ourselves to Him in the likeness of His death. ‘To be like’ in the Bible means to participate in. We unite ourselves to Christ in the likeness of His death by participating in the sufferings of His death in our own struggle to deny ourselves and to take up the cross of the Church’s ascetical disciplines in the desire to become partakers of Christ, the only Lover of mankind. This means fighting, sometimes fiercely, to put to death our enmity with God manifested in our lust, our greed, our stiff-necked self-esteem.

Taking up the Church’s ascetical disciplines is how we put on the whole armor of God. We put on the whole armor of God in order to fight our way to Christ who is in us, in the cave and tomb of our heart, and to unite ourselves to Him in the likeness of His death on the Cross. For, in the power of His Cross, we are made able to stand against the wiles of the devil, to wrestle against the principalities, powers, and rulers of the darkness of this age, and even to defeat the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Participating in the sufferings of Christ by taking up our Cross in self-denial out of love for Christ, this is the essence of Holy Thanksgiving, Holy Eucharist; and it is in this Holy Thanksgiving that we are saved; for in this Holy Thanksgiving, we are delivered from the darkness of hell, we are raised from ‘non-existence,’ and we are made one with God, we are deified. We take up our cross in the likeness of Christ’s death and we put to death what is earthly in us, our spiritual leprosy, and we are clothed in the Glory of His Resurrection.

At our Baptism, we faced the west and breathed and spat on the devil. Then, with the ten lepers, we turned to face Christ in the East in the mystical Light of His Holy Resurrection, and we swore – a full nine times! – to unite ourselves to Christ.

Those sacred moments of our baptism, however, were but the beginning of our salvation. They were not its end. To be saved, to unite ourselves to Christ and to be deified in Him, we must strive with the one leper to live in the oath of our baptism every day, every hour, every minute to draw near to Him in the cave and the tomb of our heart. We must become ascetics – an ascetic is one who denies himself and takes up his cross – according to our strength, our circumstances, our station. We must strive to live in ceaseless prayer, we must work to turn our eyes inward to the Christ who is in us, the only Lover of mankind, and away from friendship with the world.

This is clearly a fight. Otherwise, why would St Paul tell us to put on the whole armor of God? The whole armor of God is the Cross, given to us in the form of the Church’s ascetical disciplines. By these, the power of the risen LORD Jesus Christ, begins to be incarnate in us. The power of His Cross covers us, it goes before us. It penetrates our soul to the division of soul and spirit, all the way to discern the thoughts and intentions of our heart not to shame us or embarrass us but in order to purify our heart so that we can see God. Only in the power of the LORD’s Cross do we become strong in the LORD; for it is the LORD Jesus Christ Himself who fights the powers and rulers of darkness that prey on us, seeking to devour us. Our fight, then, really, is simply to unite ourselves to Christ our God through ceaseless prayer!

But why would He fight for us if with the nine lepers we choose not to draw near to Him in our hearts but choose instead to go in the way of friendship with the world ruled by the powers of darkness? How can we sinners become the Righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor 5.21) if we take ourselves away from the Cross of the LORD to live in friendship with the world, the source of our spiritual leprosy?

We swore an oath at our baptism (that’s why it’s called a sacrament) to unite ourselves to Christ. The cleansing of our spiritual leprosy in Holy Baptism, as I said, is only the beginning of our salvation. So we long as we fight to unite ourselves to Christ through unceasing prayer, our healing continues and, in fact, never ends, because our healing is consummated in our being glorified, our being deified in union with Christ, and there is no end to the glory of God.

St Kallistos Angelikoudes writes: “The righteous shall reap the fruit of their ascetical labors, for which it was written: They shall become intoxicated with the fatness of Your House. And You will give them drink from the abundance of Your delight (Ps 35.9). And the LORD has said to them that He shall recline at the table in the Kingdom of the Father and shall serve them (Lk 12.37), to whom He also promised that together they would drink from the new cup in His Kingdom and rejoice.’” From these words of St Kallistos, we see that the Divine Liturgy fills heaven and earth, and it fills us, for in partaking of the Body of Christ in Holy Eucharist, in Holy Thanksgiving, we already in this life are granted a taste of the hope of faith, which is our inheritance of eternal life, which is real, substantive, hypostatic (Heb 11.1), if, says St Paul in Hebrews, we hold fast to the beginning, the root (arche) of our foundation (hypostasis, the Hypostasis of Christ) to the end, to its consummation (telos).

St Kallistos goes on: ‘Those who turn to the LORD [with this morning’s one cleansed leper] and obey the commandment as they should, and who see the cup and drink from it, enjoying it with heartfelt gratitude, truly taste its sweet sensation in their soul, and they sing songs of thanksgiving to God, crying: Your cup intoxicates us like the best wine, and Your mercy – which is beyond conception, and is hidden as the dregs at the bottom of the cup – shall pursue us all the days of our life (Ps 22.5-6), which shall be everlasting and deathless.’ (Philo V, p.180)

The LORD says to the one leper: ‘Arise. Go your way. Your faith has saved you.’ The leper’s faith was made real and not just theoretical when he drew near in prayer not just with his lips but in his heart in the fear of God, with faith and love, with thanksgiving, to worship the LORD Jesus Christ who had cleansed him of his leprosy. To draw near to the LORD God is to draw near to Him in the Cave of Bethlehem and in the Tomb of His Holy Pascha. It is to die with Him by daily striving to put to death what’s earthly in us. But to die in the LORD is to rise with Him to eternal life. And so the LORD says to the leper, ‘Arise!’ Go your way in the resurrection. Through prayer in the way of the Church, put on the whole armor of God, and fight to live not in friendship with the world but in the love of Christ who is in you, working His salvation in the midst of your body and soul, to raise you from your grave and lead you into His Kingdom of Light. Amen!