Old Testament – The Tao of Holy Orthodoxy

December 23, 2017January 3, 2018

44. Holy Icons

Yousis Theotokos

Holy Icons in the Narthex

Holy Icons, the sacred images of the Orthodox Church, splendidly adorn the interior spaces of our Orthodox temples. When entering the Narthex, you will likely encounter an Icon depicting Jesus Christ as a man and another showing Him as a child, held by His mother, the Virgin Mary. Typically in an Icon of Christ as an adult, a halo surrounds the Lord’s head with three Greek letters identifying Him as The Existing One or The One Who Is, meaning that He is the God without beginning, unconfined by space and time. In the Icon of Christ as a child with His Mother, the child bears the halo as mentioned, and is held lovingly by His mother, who is identified as the Mother of God. These icons provide strong affirmations that Jesus Christ is both God, The Existing One, and a human being, born as one of us from a human mother.

Holy Icons express Truth

Holy Icons express Truth visually in paint as the Holy Scriptures express the Truth in words with ink. These symbolic images are more than humanly-inspired art. An Icon teaches the Holy Tradition of the Church and invites the viewer to participate in the spiritual reality beyond the Icon itself.

Icons before the Incarnation of Jesus Christ

In the ancient times recorded in the Old Testament, before the Birth of Jesus Christ into the world, God commanded His people not to make images of Him. The God Who created everything that exists, fills the universe, and sustains the universe did not have an image that could be portrayed. No image made by human hands could possibly represent the invisible God Who is present everywhere at once. Having revealed Himself to His people, the Israelites, God warned them against making and worshipping idols as idols. When they did rebelliously incorporate idols into their worship, influenced by the pagan cultures around them, they inevitably drifted away from the real God Who loved them and fell into spiritual confusion. God taught His people that He was not like the false gods worshipped by their pagan neighbors. The True God showed His presence, sometimes as cloud, smoke, and fire, but no image made by human hands could properly express the Mystery of the One Who Is. How could a human being presume to depict the One who is invisible, limitless, and without boundary, size, or shape?

God did not completely forbid the Israelites from making images. In fact, He instructed them to weave images of the angelic Cherubim into the curtains of the Holy Tabernacle. God also told the Israelites to make two solid-gold statues of Cherubim, facing each other with wings outstretched toward the other, to sit on top of the Ark of the Covenant. The images in the Tabernacle reflected the heavenly reality because the Tabernacle served as a reflection of heaven on earth. These images identified the Tabernacle as God’s Palace, the Holy of Holies as His Throne Room, and the Ark of the Covenant as both His Divine Throne on earth and as His Footstool (considering that God fills the whole universe).

On one occasion, God commanded the Israelites to make a bronze serpent, raised upon a pole as a sign of God’s love for His people, His faithfulness to them, and His power to heal. Whoever looked upon the bronze serpent would receive healing from a snake bite. (Later in history, the serpent was destroyed because the Israelites began worshipping it as an idol.) The proper meaning of the bronze serpent is found in the meaning of the Cross.

When King Solomon built his magnificent Temple in Jerusalem to replace the mobile Tabernacle, he directed his craftsmen to carve beautiful images into the wooden walls and doors, and then to overlay the wood with gold. In the most sacred room, the Holy of Holies, Solomon placed two enormous statues of cherubim to overshadow the Ark of the Covenant with their broad, majestic wings.

Holy Icons after that Incarnation of Jesus Christ

The Old Testament contains the Story of God’s work in human history to prepare the world for the Birth of Jesus Christ. Through His Birth, the Uncreated Son of God, Who Is equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit as God, came into the world through a human woman as one of us, a human being. The One Who cannot be contained by the universe was laid in a simple manger in a rustic cave. The invisible One became visible as “the image [that is, the icon] of the invisible God” (Colossians 1.15, NKJV).

Why can we make an image of God today when it was forbidden in Old Testament times? This is the reason: God gave Himself an image by becoming a man. His human nature was seen with human eyes and, therefore, can be depicted with human hands. We also depict the Saints (the holy ones) of God who have become like Christ and in whom the saving, transforming Divine Presence dwells, sanctifies, and shines.

Holy Icons remind us of the Story and our place in it.

Holy Icons remind us of our place in the Story of salvation, which extends from the beginning of time through the history of Israel in the Old Testament to the life of Jesus Christ on earth and the ministry of His Apostles on through the history of the Church until today. The Holy Icons help us remember God’s continuing Presence and work within human history. The Icons likewise remind us of the Saints, our spiritual ancestors who lived in different times, places, and culture, and how God changed their lives and worked through them to touch the lives of others.

Holy Icons remind us of the mystical reality and our place in it.

As the Holy Icons portray salvation history, they also portray the mystical aspect of reality invisible to human eyes. As Orthodox Christians, we participate in this mystical reality. The Icons help us to remember that God and His Saints, along with the Angels, are present with us today. When we gather for heavenly worship in our Orthodox temples, all the Saints from every age and place who have completed this life in faith and have gone on to be with Christ are present with us in worship.

Holy Icons are windows to heaven that help us pray.

The Holy Icons serve as windows to heaven that help us pray. When we see an icon of Christ with our eyes, we look through it with our hearts (the eyes of the soul) to perceive Christ Himself. When we look upon an icon of a Saint or Angel, we see with our human eyes paint on a piece of wood, but with our hearts we look beyond it to the one depicted. Standing before the Holy Icons, we focus our hearts and offer our prayers. We speak with Christ in intimate prayer, face to face, before His Icon. We also ask for the Saints to boldly pray for us, interceding on our behalf, and we request that the Angels watch and protect us.

We worship God and venerate Icons, though which we encounter God’s Grace.

We Orthodox Christians worship one God, the True and Living God – The Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No other God exists and we serve none other. To direct worship toward a created thing rather than the Uncreated Creator would be idolatry, completely contrary to the Orthodox Way. That would not make sense at all. We worship God alone and venerate (honor) both His Saints and those sacred things made holy by His Presence. For this reason, we venerate Holy Icons like we venerate the Holy Gospels, and other things within the Church that bring us to participation in God’s Grace. During Christ’s ministry on earth, a woman received healing by just touching the edge of His clothes. Later, people received healing through handkerchiefs and aprons touched by St. Paul. Others sought healing just by touching St. Peter’s shadow. Likewise, we may also experience the Grace of God through the Holy Icons when we use them properly for our benefit according to the Orthodox Way.

The whole Church affirms the place of Icons in the spiritual life

When iconoclasts (icon-destroyers) desecrated Holy Icons in earlier centuries, the whole Church affirmed the proper place of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in AD 787. Iconoclasts rose up again for a short time, but the Icons were restored to the churches once and for all in AD 843. Every year, Orthodox Christians gather to commemorate the final restoration of Icons by celebrating the Triumph of Orthodoxy. This day celebrates the restoration of the Icons specifically, but also the triumph of the Truth Faith (Orthodoxy) over false opinions (heresy), generally. On this Sunday of Orthodoxy, as it is also known, we proclaim with one voice:

As the prophets beheld, as the Apostles have taught, as the Church has received, as the Teachers have dogmatized, as the Universe has agreed, as Grace has shown forth, as Truth has revealed, as falsehood has been dissolved, as Wisdom has presented, as Christ awarded, thus we declare; thus we assert, thus we preach Christ our true God, and honor His Saints in words, in writings, in thoughts, in sacrifices, in Churches, in Holy Icons; on the one hand worshiping and reverencing Christ as God and Lord; and on the other hand honoring as true servants of the same Lord of all and accordingly offering them veneration.

This is the Faith of the Apostles, this is the Faith of the Fathers, this is the Faith of the Orthodox, this is the Faith which has established the Universe!

Keep a proper approach to Icons and other sacred things

In order to maintain a proper spiritual understanding of Holy Icons (and other sacred things), be attentive to these three instructions:

1) Worship God alone and reverently venerate what God has sanctified (made holy) by His Presence: Never confuse the Uncreated with the created. In other words, always recognize the distinction between the Creator Himself and what He has made.

2) Maintain unity of the spiritual and material. Do not separate the physical (material) and the spiritual aspects of reality as though they are disconnected. God created the physical world as very good. He made you – body and soul. You encounter God through your human body and in your human body. Salvation encompasses soul and body. So, keep your body and soul in spiritual unity. Also, recognize that you can encounter the spiritual world with your soul and body through physical things.

3) Always recognize that what makes things holy is the Presence of God: Remember that Grace is not a created power, but it is the Uncreated God Himself – His Presence. If you forget that God Himself is present within holy things, you may fall into a pagan notion that holy things contain some magical power by themselves. Neither Holy Icons nor Holy Water or anything else contain power on their own. The protecting, healing, transforming Power we encounter through the sacred things that we venerate is not an it, but a He.

Immerse yourself in the whole spiritual life

Venerate the Holy Icon of Christ and worship the Living Christ depicted therein with all your being. Honor the Holy Icons of the Saints and Angels that depict these faithful servants of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. Standing before the Holy Icons, collect your mind, focus your heart, and offer your prayers and worship to the Son of God who took our image. Before the Icons of the Saints, ask those who are alive in Christ to offer prayers to God on your behalf. Request the Holy Angels and Archangels to watch over you and protect you on your journey. Immerse yourself in the whole healing life of the Church, taking advantage of every gift bestowed by God. As one of the many sacred therapeutic gifts God has given to us for our healing, make use of the Holy Icons for your salvation, for the benefit of others, and to the glory of God.

Be a living Icon of our Lord for the sake of others

Remember that you have been made according to the Image of God. Strive with all your soul to become a clear representative Icon of Jesus Christ so that those who know you may see Christ through you and learn what it means to bear His likeness.

Read: Genesis 1; Exodus 20.4-5; 25.17-22; 26.31; Numbers 21.4-9; 1 Chronicles 28.2; 3 Kingdoms (1 Kings) 6.14-37; 7.1-39; 4 Kingdoms (2 Kings) 18.1-8; John 3.12-17; Luke 8.3-48; Colossians 1:15-18; Acts 19.11-12; Acts 5.12-16.

October 16, 2017October 16, 2017

18. The Crucifixion of Christ

crucifixion-whole-mosaic-byzantine

At the appointed time, Jesus Christ entered the city of Jerusalem to submit to suffering and death. Soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and placed it on His head. They nailed his hands and feet to a wooden Cross and raised up his body for all to see. A sign above his head mocked him as a false king. Christ’s enemies did not realize that He had entered into the world for the purpose of ascending the Cross for the salvation of our human race.

In His human nature, Christ suffered and died on the Cross, but in His divine nature as God, suffering and death cannot touch Him. The Cross killed a man, but with this Cross, the King of All crushed the power of death. We speak poetically of the Mystery of the Cross: Although Hades (the place of the dead) took a body, it came face to face with the infinite God. Hades swallowed up a body it has seen, but it was destroyed by the uncontainable God it had not seen.

Through the Cross, death was changed to life. The old Adam had died by death because He had rebelliously eaten from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but the New Adam trampled down death by death through obedience. Christ transformed the Cross bearing His body into the Tree of Life, planted on the earth for the healing of all who would share in its Life-Giving Fruit.

On the Cross, Christ again showed us an image of what a healed human person looks like. The perfected human being is victorious through humility, transforming that which is meant to crush and destroy into something beneficial and healthful. A healed person, united with God, is moved by self-denying love.

Jesus Christ is both our Divine Physician and our only saving Antidote. He alone is capable of saving us from death.

Read: John 19; Philippians 2.1-11

September 30, 2017October 16, 2018

13. Our Summary Diagnosis

California_Drought_Dry_Riverbed_2009

The disease of death shows itself through a variety of interconnected illnesses. Holy Scripture summarizes the effects of death on our human race by describing the how the various consequences affect humanity. These consequences include the darkening of the heart, pride and delusion, misuse of a rational mind disconnected from the heart, forgetfulness of God, the influence of chaotic passions that lead us toward suffering and death, and the struggle to choose good instead of evil.

Near the beginning of his Letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul summarizes the disastrous effects of sin and death on our ancestors in the past. Since we have inherited death, we still experience these affects today. This particular passage (Romans 1.18-32) explains that when our ancestors lost knowledge of the true God, they forgot what it means to be true human beings, made according to the image of God with potential to become like Him. Relationships between the Creator and His creatures, relationships among human beings, the relationships between males and females descended into chaos.

When reading Holy Scripture, understand that the sacred writings sometimes attribute human characteristics, including emotion, to God. The language of God’s wrath in this passage, for example, provides an image humans can understand to describe a Mystery that is beyond understanding. God does not really have anger or wrath, which are human passions, as we do. God is passionless. Besides, the “wrath” of God mentioned is not turned against human beings. The divine wrath is turned against the unnatural sin and death afflicting humankind, which prevents us from receiving the Love and Grace of God and keeps us from following the Way toward our healing, purpose, and potential. Holy Scripture says that God gave us over to do evil, which means that God allowed human beings to turn away from Him and His Way. (God created us with the freedom to choose.) Men and women wanted to follow their own desires, so God permitted them to do so. God is Love. The human being decided to forsake God in order to pursue his own opinions and follow the passions, which lead toward chaos, suffering, and death. (Throughout history, God sent his prophets to remind people that He loved them and desired for them to return from the path of destruction so that they might enjoy goodness and life in relationship with Him.)

If you want to be healed, you need the One Physician who knows your diagnosis perfectly and possesses the Power to cure you from death in both soul and body entirely.

Read: Romans 1.18-32

September 19, 2017October 25, 2019

6. Death: Our Ultimate Diagnosis

Read Genesis 3. You may read it online here.

In the third chapter of Genesis, a serpent slithers into Paradise. This serpent is not just a garden snake, but a highly-intelligent bodiless power – a spiritual creature. (At least, the spiritual serpent is working through the physical snake.) The Old Serpent is known by other names: the Great Dragon, the father of lies, the prince of demons, Satan, Lucifer, and the Devil. Once a beautiful angel, the Devil chose the way of darkness and pride. Enamored by his own beauty, the serpent rebelled against God because He wanted to be a god himself. Since the Creator is All-Powerful, the Devil sorely overestimated his own greatness. Like a bolt of lightning, He fell down from heaven along with the many angels who followed him. These angels, who had been created to be pure and do good, became demons, evil powers who hate God and human beings, whom God loves, and try to corrupt all that is loving and good.

The sneaky serpent approached the woman in the Garden. He deceived her into thinking that God really wanted to prevent her from becoming like Him. The serpent craftily presented disobedience as a quick way for her to achieve greatness and to become a god.

Why did God forbid Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? God’s commandment protected them. The fruit was not yet ripe for eating, or, rather, they were not ready to eat it. Adam and Eve had not yet attained to the maturity necessary to be enlightened through the Tree.

Eve believed the serpent’s deceptive lies. She looked at the Tree and the fruit with the snake’s seductive words in mind. She was tempted to eat from the Tree. Reaching out and taking hold of the fruit, she ate it. Then, she gave some of the fruit to her husband and Adam ate it, too. The fruit had looked sweet to their eyes, but their disobedience turned its taste bitter in their mouths.

This disobedience of Adam and Eve is called sin. Sin means disobeying the instructions the Creator gives us to keep us in good health and keep us on the Way of Life. He designed us, so He teaches us how to live in the Way that is natural for the human person. A sin is an act that is unnatural according to how God has designed us as human beings. Sin separates the human being from the experience of God.

Adam and Eve expected to see with vision of gods, but their eyes were opened to the experience of death. God is Life, so when our first ancestors disconnected themselves from Life Himself, they experienced the absence of Life, which is death. When we sin, we inhibit Life Himself from working within us fully. The consequence is a greater experience of death. Simply put, sin causes death.

When Adam and Eve tasted the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, their eyes were opened, but their eyes were opened in the way they expected.

God had intended for sickness and death to only be a rational concept in the minds of the man and woman. He created them to experience only good health. After their sin, the opposite became true. Sickness and death entered their experience while the good health they once knew remained only in their memory. The eyes of the man and woman were opened to see themselves standing naked and ashamed. That is, Adam and Eve saw themselves stripped of the radiant Light of Grace, the Divine Presence that had once clothed them royally.

The man and woman certainly obtained knowledge of good and evil. They had already known good by experience because goodness was the natural Way of their existence. Even though they only knew good, they possessed (because God created them with free will) the ability to act completely against what was natural for them to do. After they turned away from God, rejecting their natural inclination, their knowledge of good and evil turned upside down. Adam and Eve no longer knew only the experience of good as they had done in their innocence. Their eyes were now opened to a newfound experience of evil because they committed an act of evil. (God is Life, Light, and the Good One. As death is the absence of Life and darkness is the absence of Light, evil is the absence of Good.)

Death afflicted Adam and Eve both in the soul and in the body. It stuck their souls immediately. Their hearts were darkened, causing spiritual blindness. They no longer remained in the Divine Presence they once enjoyed. Although they did not physically die completely for quite a while, their bodies became susceptible to sickness, difficulty, and the wearing down of age.

When God confronted Adam and Eve after their sin, neither the man nor the woman expressed sorrow or a desire to repent. Instead, Adam responded by blaming both his wife and God, saying, “The woman you put here with me gave it to me and I ate it!” In turn, the woman blamed the serpent for deceiving her. God clothed Adam and Eve in garments of skin. They now possessed mortal flesh like the animals. Their Creator exiled them from the Garden of Paradise to keep them from eating from the Tree of Life. As a result of their sin, they had to live very different lives in a very different world than their loving Creator had made for them to enjoy.

Like the lower animals around them, Adam and Eve reproduced. With the help of God, they brought more human beings into the world. All their descendants inherited the disease of death in body and soul.

Why did God throw Adam and Eve out of Paradise and post an angelic guard with a flaming sword to guard the sealed entrance? Why did God want to keep Adam and Eve away from the Tree of Life? The answer is Divine Love. God did not want the human beings He crafted according to His image to eat from the Tree of Life in their sickened condition. If they ate from the Tree in their sickness, they would exist forever as mortals in a perpetual state of spiritual sickness and death. God intended for us to be truly Immortal, sharing in His Life with bodies and souls in perfect health. He wants us to fulfill our potential and purpose. God doesn’t want us to just exist, but to thrive, being fully alive. So, God exiled humanity from the Garden, until He completed His work to cure our disease.

Eventually, Adam and Eve died by death as God had warned. They breathed their last breaths. The souls of our first parents entered into Hades, the name for the place of souls which have departed this life. Their bodies decayed, returning to the earth.

Even in physical death, God’s mercy is evident. Physical death puts an end to suffering in this life caused by sin and puts an end to the many various symptoms of death at work in our souls.

We all have been born afflicted with death, a disease unnatural to our human nature. Throughout human history and across our world today, we see the long trail of pain and destruction death has left behind.

You may think of death in the soul as a syndrome, a collection of inter-connected illnesses present in our souls. The next several entries address various specific sicknesses that we experience as part of our experience of death.

Remember: Death is our primary diagnosis.

September 17, 2017October 25, 2019

5. In the Garden: Healthy Humanness

Read: Genesis 2.4 – 2.25

The first chapter of the Book of Genesis shows us the wide, panoramic view of the creation of the whole universe, then focuses in on the creation of humanity. The second chapter of Genesis keeps this close-up focus on the creation of our human race.

God created the earth and then formed Adam, the first man, out of the earth, and placed him in the Garden of Paradise. In Paradise, Adam served as the priest of creation since, being body and soul, he bridged together the two dimensions of reality: the physical The first chapter of the Book of Genesis shows us the wide, panoramic view of the creation of the whole universe, then focuses in toward the end on the creation of humanity. The next chapter of a Genesis keeps this close-up focus on the creation of our human race.

God created the earth and then formed Adam, the first man, out of the earth, and placed him in the Garden of Paradise. In Paradise, Adam served as the priest of creation since, being body and soul, he bridged together the two dimensions of reality: the physical (material) dimension we encounter with our five senses and also the invisible (immaterial) spiritual dimension.

Adam gave names to the animals, but none of the animals were compatible with him as an equal partner who could could fully compliment and complete him. So, placing Adam in a deep sleep, God took part of Adam’s side, healed the wound, and crafted a woman from the portion of his body. When Adam saw her, he said, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He named her woman since she was taken out of man. Here, God established marriage as an mystical union between man and woman as one.

The man and his wife, Adam and Eve, were clothed in the radiant Light of God’s Glory. (To say they were clothed in God’s Glory means that that God Himself – His Presence – covered them. We also call God’s Presence at work within the creation the Uncreated Energy or Divine Grace.) Adam and Eve lived together in the Garden with the purity and innocence of children, still on the Path toward full maturity and perfection. They had been created according to the image of God, but they still had not become like God (so far as a creature can become like the Creator). If they stayed on the Path toward becoming more like God, they would fulfilled their potential and purpose as human beings.

In the middle of the Garden stood two great trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and also the Tree of Life. The first man, our first ancestor, took care of the Garden. Adam could eat from any tree in the Garden, except one. Only one. God warned Adam that if he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die by death.

As flight is natural for a bird and swimming for fish, every impulse and inclination of Adam and Eve was for doing what was good and healthful for their souls. They naturally followed the stream of the Divine Will. This natural obedience to God kept them safely on the heavenly Way that led toward continued maturity and progress. Still, since God endowed the human being with a free will, they possessed the ability to choose to do what would be completely unnatural and self-destructive. But, why would they do that?

The Book of Genesis reveals to us that a healthy human being is one with a pure heart who actively experiences the Life-Giving Uncreated Energy – the Grace of God. We have been created to harmoniously bridge the visible, material aspect of reality and the invisible, spiritual aspect of reality. So, we are designed to live in such a way that nurtures spiritual harmony between body and soul. This harmony is created by the experience of Grace that results from living in harmony with God. When we experience this inner harmony, the desire to live in harmony with others and the whole creation naturally grows. Then, we can attain to greater heights of spiritual health and live daily in a way more in tune with our purpose in this world.

Genesis also teaches us what God has created marriage to be. A man and woman are equal as human beings, but each is different from the other and complementary to the other. Marriage is this beautiful Grace-filled gift from God to help a man and woman progress along the Way together as they grow in spiritual unity with one another.

The relevance of these first two chapters of the Book of Genesis, properly interpreted, may be summarized like this: The description of creation in the Book of Genesis offers us a glimpse into Who God Is and what a healthy human being, full of Life, looks like. Genesis also teaches us that being human and achieving our full potential requires each of us to maintain a proper, healthy relationship to God and to other human beings.