Sunday After Christmas:
Faith and Love
By Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi
Faith and Love
By Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi
Today we celebrate Saint Joseph the Betrothed, David the King, and James the Brother of God, who indeed were related to Christ, since Christ, as man, descends from them, and they belong to the choir of the forefathers. In particular, Saint Joseph the Betrothed — who was also the guardian of the Virgin and contributed so greatly to the mystery of the divine economy. These Saints “were justified by faith.”
In the days of our Lord’s presence, these faithful people were tested far more strictly than the people of the Old Testament; for while they were expecting the Messiah, they were expecting something different from what they actually saw. They did not expect to see a simple infant held by a young mother — poor, despised, without any support or human assistance. They never expected to see such paradoxical things. For, expecting the Messiah “from the root of Jesse and from the loins of David,” they anticipated a king with authority and aspirations of dominion, with material and worldly splendor. That is why, when they began to understand somewhat that Christ was the Messiah, they ran to make Him king — and He withdrew from them.
Faith and Its Meaning
Our subject concerns faith, and therefore we must interpret it. What does faith mean, and what is the meaning of our own faith? The meaning is not as simple as it appears. When one interprets religious faith, one realizes that it must be connected with the subject of providence. There is Someone who is the provider, sustainer, and creator of beings. Moved by this realization, a person, in order to ground faith, enters along this path of religiosity. Others enter faith through a sense of necessity: they realize that they cannot manage on their own and that they need some support. This sense of their inadequacy, their smallness, and their reaching out to find someone who will secure peace, happiness, and safety for them, creates — so to speak — faith in some being in whom they find rest when they come to know Him, imagine Him, describe Him, and believe in Him. In this way too, a form of faith is created.
We Christians, however, possess faith in the divine through a personal relationship. We do not investigate in order to discover some supreme being who is the cause of the creation and preservation of beings. Nor do we turn to God out of necessity or fear — either to be delivered from some danger or to be granted something we need. Rather, our relationship with God is personal and loving. We receive faith from revelation as expressed in the Holy Tradition of our Church. Part of Holy Tradition is the Scriptures, the Old and the New Testament. And in these Scriptures we find that God revealed Himself, wishing Himself to establish personal relationships with man. Having revealed Himself, He began to create with man a kind of covenant, a contract of cooperation. And this covenant of cooperation extends “even unto us.” And to us who live in the times of the New Testament, He not only drew near and promised — and we promised in return — He comforted us and we listened to Him, but He Himself came to earth and became like us, assumed our nature, associated with us, and then communicated His very Self to us, so that this personal relationship might become more tangible.
If someone were to ask us whether we believe in God, the question would seem very strange to us, because, given what we have received, our faith is elevated into a personal relationship with God. And see to what extent the all-goodness of our Savior Christ reaches: He abolished every symbolic representation of His presence among us that existed in the Old Testament and accomplished an absolute personal encounter, entering into the totality of our being in the following paradoxical way.
Many times examples speak more clearly, and for this reason I mention the following noteworthy incident. I once encountered a modest mother holding her small child in her arms. Her affection and tenderness toward the child were something ordinary to most people. To me, however, it inspired wonder; and wishing to give occasion for benefit to others as well, I asked her publicly: “What would you desire, most devout mother, to complete your maternal love for the infant you are kissing?” After remaining silent for a few seconds, she answered me with emotional depth and certainty: “Only if I could eat it would my love be complete — not in order to destroy it, which the concept of eating implies, but to carry it within me so that it might always be inseparably mine.” This moved me deeply, because I understood the meaning of perfect love — since our Lord Himself condescended to be eaten and drunk by us! “Given” to us, He fulfills all His love by handing over His very Self. Moreover, in this way He gives us the possibility to become partakers and sharers of all His divine attributes, of course to the extent that our nature can receive them. “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” Behold, then, the essential element of our being.
Having embraced us with His entire God-befitting love, He Himself enters the most central elements of our being “through eating and drinking,” and communion with Him is not merely a personal encounter, but a complete, ontological union.
This faith inevitably transfers us to the most essential element again: LOVE. For our movements now toward Him in whom we believe are no longer movements of searching, nor of fear, nor of self-interest, nor of doubt, but movements whose sole motive is love. Because of this love, which we see overflowing toward us from Him, we receive it and return it to Him; and thus the faith which we possess and by which we move in all our affairs is also the source of love. For on the basis of love God began and created us; on the basis of love He endured us; on the basis of love He visited us again, rebuilt us, and sealed us with the seal of adoption — by His love alone. Now we, appreciating this love, find that it is not merely an attribute of God; for we have not heard simply that God loves, but that “God is love.” Love in God is not one of the virtues of His divine perfection. Jesus is love itself, in its very essence. Thus now, through the participation and communion we have with Him, this divine attribute is transferred into us, and we live “in love” and move “in love,” and all our movements in life have love alone as their presupposition. Whoever has grasped this meaning has reached the end of his destination. A person who moves according to this law does not create occasions to grieve God or other people. The pulsations of divine love, wherever they are applied, produce continual self-sacrifice. Love “does not seek its own, does not reckon evil,” and we know that nothing is accomplished unless it is first conceived as a thought. Evil, according to the Fathers, is abstract and non-existent; it exists and takes form only when it is conceived as a thought and then enacted as a deed. In the absence of the good, evil appears. Where the good is not practiced, evil finds room to appear. The manifestation of evil, according to the practice handed down by our Fathers, does not occur magically or suddenly. It is first conceived in the mind, examined, decided upon, and practically enacted — and only then does it take place and acquire substance. But we know that where love exists, “evil is not reckoned.” Where love exists, evil cannot stand even as a thought.
Our introductory faith led us to true faith, to the faith of theoria (vision of God), which automatically springs from love. With the experience of love, the human being is fulfilled, because he now loves God — and God alone. He loves people, his fellow human beings, his brothers, and is formed in such a way that he is even ready to sacrifice his soul for them.
This, in a few words, is the character of the perfect Christian. He begins with introductory faith and progresses to the faith of theoria. The faith of theoria leads him to love, where he is fulfilled. Then he truly becomes like his Prototype: “For as many as received Him, He gave them authority to become children of God.” Those who were perfected with these Orthodox presuppositions of Grace became exact images, copies of the Archetype. “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,” says John.
If, therefore, a person moves in this way, be assured that he absolutely attains his purpose. For this reason, everything that concerns us — from the smallest matters to the most crucial things of life — will be our sweet Jesus. “To Him be glory unto the ages.” Amen.
Source: From the book Athonite Messages, published by the Sacred Monastery of Vatopaidi. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
