Hey everybody this is Steve and God has shown His face to us.
The first week of Great Lent ends with the Sunday of Orthodoxy.
“On this day, the first Sunday of Lent, we
commemorate the restoration of the holy and venerable icons…” [a]
And that might be kind of confusing.
We’ve spent the last few weeks learning from the Publican and Pharisee, from the Prodigal
Son.
We’ve learned about judgment and forgiveness.
These are all lessons that make sense as we prepared for Great Lent.
So why does [Great] Lent itself start with a Sunday dedicated to icons?
We’ll get there.
But first, a bit of history.
The Sunday of Orthodoxy celebrates the restoration of icons after the end of iconoclasm.
Iconoclasm, which literally means the destruction or breaking of images, was a time when people
tried to stamp out icons and end their use in the Church.
After centuries of persecution, when countless icons were destroyed and countless saints
were persecuted (and even killed) for standing up for the Truth, the Church finally restored
the use of icons.
This happened on the first Sunday of Great Lent in 843, and we’ve been remembering
this Triumph of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Lent ever since.
By the way, remember that word “triumph.”
We’re going to get to it later in the video because it doesn’t mean what you think it
means.
Ok, at this point, you may be thinking that the Sunday of Orthodoxy is like an anniversary.
Icons were restored on the first Sunday of Lent in 843, so we celebrate that every year.
But that still doesn’t really explain what the restoration of icons has to do with Great
Lent or our journey to Pascha.
And, if you’ve read the Gospel and Epistle readings that are assigned for Sunday, you
probably noticed that they don’t seem to have anything to do with either icons or Orthodoxy
either.
[Michael Scott explain like I’m 5]
That’s because the Triumph of Orthodoxy isn’t merely about icons or the Faith in
an abstract sense.
It’s about honoring the saints and holy people of God who suffered and died for the
Truth so that we too could rejoice and benefit from the Truth of the Gospel.
And this actually builds on the original meaning of the first Sunday of Lent.
Because, before people fought to remove icons, and before the Church finally restored them,
the first Sunday of Lent was dedicated to Moses, and Aaron, and Samuel, and all the
prophets of the Old Testament, who, as we’ll soon see, also made great sacrifices to remain
faithful to the Lord.
You can still find that original theme in the Scripture readings that the Church has
assigned for the first Sunday of Lent.
Because remember, they don’t seem to have anything to do with icons.
But they do have a lot to do with the prophets.
That’s obvious in the Epistle, where St Paul recites a long list of prophets and their
great deeds:
“For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel
and the prophets -- who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises…”
[b]
We covered what exactly those promises were back in episode 14 of our Live the Word series.
Feel free to check that out if you haven’t.
But for now, just keep in mind God made certain promises to His people, to our ancestors in
the Faith.
And, as we’ll see, that promise is fulfilled in us.
Because not only is the life of the Church connected in Christ, but so are the times
of the prophets and ancient Jews.
“But wait, Steve!” you may exclaim.
“The Gospel reading is Philip bringing Nathanael to see Christ.
We don’t see any reference to prophets there!”[c][d]
Or do we?
[Michael Scott turntables]
“And wait, Steve,” you may also exclaim, “you still haven’t explained what triumph
has to do with anything, even though you promised[e][f][g]!” [h]
[Michael Scott empty promises]
Hold on, I’m getting to it!
At the very end of this Sunday’s Gospel reading Nathanael, who was skeptical about
Jesus at first, becomes convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised one, the one
who has come to save Israel.
He’s convinced of this because Jesus tells Nathanael that He saw him, in a mysterious
way, while he was still under the fig tree.
[i]
It seems that whatever was going on beneath that fig tree was known only to Jesus and
Nathanael, and this is enough to blow Nathanael’s mind.
And Jesus tells Nathanael if you think *that’s* impressive, just wait and see what’s to
come.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending
and descending upon the Son of Man."
[j]
If you’ve ever read the Book of Genesis, you might recognize the reference to an important
moment in the life of Jacob.
Jacob is the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham, one of the patriarchs of the Old
Testament.
Except Jacob really wasn’t supposed to be a patriarch.
His older brother, Esau, was technically the one who was supposed to receive that inheritance.
But Jacob tricked his father, Isaac, into blessing him.
Which caused Esau to get very, very angry.
And caused Jacob to run away.
While he was on the run, he spent the night in an isolated place.
And, in a dream, he saw a great ladder.
The bottom rested on the earth, and the top reached all the way to heaven.
Jacob saw angels ascending and descending the ladder.
And by the ladder, he saw the Lord, who told him this:
“I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which
you lie I will give to you and to your offspring… and all the families of the earth shall be
blessed in you and in your offspring.”
[k]
Jacob was comforted and inspired by this vision.
And he made a vow, to return to his father’s house and be reconciled with his brother;
and to worship the Lord.
“If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread
to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then
the Lord shall be my God…” [l]
Years later, Jacob finally encountered his brother.
And it was a terrifying moment.
Remember, Jacob tricked his father and basically stole his brother’s inheritance.
His brother had every reason to want revenge.
By finally meeting his brother, Jacob was putting his life in his brother’s hands.
He was potentially walking into a trap and certain death.
Yet, the night before this meeting, something incredible happened.
Jacob was alone.
Yet the Scripture says that, all of a sudden, he found himself wrestling a mysterious man
until the sun rose.
Jacob had the upper hand.
He was winning.
And he wouldn’t let go until the mysterious person blessed him.
But first, this mystery man did something, well, mysterious.
He gave Jacob a new name.
“You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and
with humans, and have prevailed.”[m]
And when Jacob asked for the man’s name, he wouldn’t give it.
He simply offered Jacob His blessing.
Jacob seems to have realized something after he received the blessing.
Because he marveled at this and named the place where they wrestled Peniel, “For I
have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
[n]
But before Jacob has time to collect himself, he looks up and sees his brother approaching
with 400 men.
Remember, Jacob is all alone.
And his brother, Esau, is armed.
And very, very mad.
So Jacob walks out to meet Esau.
And he bows down 7 times.
He humbly prostrates himself 7 times before the brother he wronged.
What happened next was completely unexpected.
“But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him,
and they wept.”
[o]
This sounds a lot like the Parable of the Prodigal Son, doesn’t it?
Just like we saw in episode 166: when the Prodigal Son returned to his father, a confrontation
that could have easily ended in judgment instead became a moment of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Jacob, despite his sin, despite the ways he had wronged his brother, wrestled with God
until daybreak.
He humbled himself in the wilderness.
He cried out to the Lord, and the Lord heard him.
The Lord came to him.
And Jacob looked upon the face of the Lord and lived.
This is all very similar to Nathanael.
In the Gospel reading for the Sunday of Orthodoxy, we learn that he had been seeking the Messiah
his entire life.
And, when he encountered Jesus, he was prepared to be disappointed (because there’s no way
the poor son of a Nazarene carpenter could be the one promised by God).
But, despite his doubts, Jesus is the One promised by God.
Nathanael, just like Jacob, looked upon the face of the Lord.
And lived.
Then, Jesus promised Nathanael that he would see what Jacob had seen--the union of heaven
and earth.
While he started a skeptic, Nathaneal ended up confessing the truth about Jesus, the truth
that is the foundation of the Gospel:
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God!
You are the King of Israel!”[p]
Nathanael looked upon the face of the Lord and lived.
Like we mentioned earlier, in the epistle reading this coming Sunday, Paul gives us
a long list of prophets who received a promise, that they would see the Lord.
And these great saints endured many sufferings for the sake of this promise, holding on to
the hope they had in God, even though they didn’t live to see that hope fulfilled.
However, as we also said earlier, that promise has been fulfilled in us.
Because we have looked upon the face of the Lord and lived.
The promise of the Lord is that He would unite heaven and earth as if by a ladder.
That He would give us new life just as He gave Jacob a new name.
The promise of the Lord is that He--though God, though invisible, though transcendent
and beyond us--that He would take on flesh, and become one of us.
With hands we could hold.
With a heart that could break for us.
With blood He could spill for us.
With a face we could look upon.
So that we can live.
This is why on the Sunday of Orthodoxy we loudly chant, “The indescribable word of
God became defined when He became incarnate of You O Theotokos.
He restored our soiled image to what it was of old by joining it to His divine beauty.
We confess salvation, and recount it in word and deed.”[q]
While the Sunday of Orthodoxy may seem like an anniversary (the celebration of the return
of icons), it’s actually a celebration of the revelation of the fullness of God’s
love, which we see in Jesus Christ, who is fully God but also fully human.
And it’s a celebration of the saints who preserved and embodied this sacred truth.
Christ is not just a man who was made incarnate 2000 years ago; He is the same Divine Son
of God in whose image we are made: who is revealed in the lives and bodies of the saints
whose icons we now venerate.
We are blessed to be able to see the face of Christ in the Church’s icons and the
Mystical Sacraments of the Church only because of the great sacrifices of the many men and
women who dedicated their lives to the Lord and the spreading of the Good News He brought
us.
These sacrifices are celebrated on a day that originally commemorated the prophets of the
Old Testament because those prophets too made great sacrifices for God.
They set the example of suffering for a promise.
Except it was a promise that they never saw fulfilled.
And of course, the great witness of those saints and prophets through the ages is why
we not only worship Christ through His icons but also venerate Him in the great saints
and prophets that devoted themselves to Him over the course of thousands of years.
These saints and prophets embody more than anything else the Good News that is the story
of Jesus Christ: that a life of sacrificial love for God and neighbor leads to eternal
life.
And we celebrate the great saints in icons because they preserved the great message that
the invisible God has become visible.
That the invisible God has become visible in them.
That we can look upon the face of the Lord and live.
Remember that word, “triumph”?
Today, we use that word to mean “victory.”
But, in ancient Rome, triumphs were ceremonies to mark the celebration of a victory.
A victorious general would march through the city with his army and the spoils of war:
the treasure he captured from the enemy.
At the end of Divine Liturgy on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, we make a procession while holding
our icons high.
Because our victorious general has conquered death.
And we hold up icons as the spoils of war: treasure that displays our victory to the
world.
Because the transcendent Son of God has remained true God of true God yet has also become the
true human being, and He continues to make true human beings in His likeness, a likeness
preserved in the icons of the Church.
We look upon icons because we can now look upon the Lord.
We reach out and touch icons because we can now reach out and touch the Lord.
We can even kiss icons because we can now kiss the Lord, who humbled Himself so He could
embrace us with His resurrected Body and lift us into His Kingdom.
This is the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
And none of this would have been possible without the faithfulness and sacrifice of
the great saints and prophets that came before us.
Revealing to us that the Lord of all continues to be revealed in them, and that He desires
to continue the work of making Saints today.
That He still seeks to reveal Himself in and through us, as new saints.
So let's Be the Bee, and live the triumph of Orthodoxy by being icons of our loving
Lord.
Be the bee and live Orthodoxy.
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[a](Synaxarion for Sunday of Orthodoxy) [b](Hebrews 11:32-33)
[c]could be fun to do this with like a dubbed video of someone who looks really mad (i'd
be happy to do it) and to have your very calm voice over it...or something.
[d]LOL YES PLEASE [e]expect this to ring out like this "you
promiiiiiiiiiiiiiised" [f]LOL
[g]The voiceover will be so deadpan.
[h]And another.
[i]Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe?
(John 1:50) [j](John 1:51)
[k](Genesis 28:13-14) [l](Genesis 28:20-21)
[m](Genesis 32:28) [n](Genesis 28:30)
[o](Genesis 33:4) [p](John 1:49)
[q]Kontakion of the Sunday of Orthodoxy