Eastern Christian Insights

The Lord used the story of the Good Samaritan to show us who we must become if we are truly uniting ourselves to Him in faith.

Both the bleeding woman and Jairus were at the end of their rope. They faced circumstances so dark that they could not imagine how they would be delivered from them. The gravity of their challenges is reflected by how little these characters speak in their encounters with Christ. They did not use many words to show whatever level of faith they had in Him, perhaps because what was at stake was beyond their ability to name.

Both the bleeding woman and Jairus were at the end of their rope. They faced circumstances so dark that they could not imagine how they would be delivered from them. The gravity of their challenges is reflected by how little these characters speak in their encounters with Christ. They did not use many words to show whatever level of faith they had in Him, perhaps because what was at stake was beyond their ability to name.

There is simply no way around the basic truth that how we relate to our neighbors reveals how we relate to our Lord. What we do for even the most miserable and difficult people we encounter in life, we do for Christ. And what we refuse to do for them, we refuse to do for our Savior. Our salvation is in becoming more like Him as we find the healing of our souls by cooperating with His grace. While we do not save ourselves any more than we can rise up by our own power from the grave, we must obey His commandments in order to open our souls to receive His healing mercy and participate in His eternal life.

There is simply no way around the basic truth that how we relate to our neighbors reveals how we relate to our Lord. What we do for even the most miserable and difficult people we encounter in life, we do for Christ. And what we refuse to do for them, we refuse to do for our Savior. Our salvation is in becoming more like Him as we find the healing of our souls by cooperating with His grace. While we do not save ourselves any more than we can rise up by our own power from the grave, we must obey His commandments in order to open our souls to receive His healing mercy and participate in His eternal life.

Instead of obsessing over how we measure up, we should simply focus all our energies on finding healing for our passions as we reorient our disordered desires for fulfillment in God. If we persist in doing so and call out for the Lord’s mercy whenever we stumble and fall, we will come to know the joy of those liberated from the tomb, clothed in the divine glory, and finally in our right minds.

Instead of obsessing over how we measure up, we should simply focus all our energies on finding healing for our passions as we reorient our disordered desires for fulfillment in God. If we persist in doing so and call out for the Lord’s mercy whenever we stumble and fall, we will come to know the joy of those liberated from the tomb, clothed in the divine glory, and finally in our right minds.

The veneration of icons should prod us all to wrestle with the question of who we are and who we want to become. Too often, however, we think that iconography simply has to do with wood and paint, and we ignore the question of whether we are becoming more beautiful icons of Christ. The icons are not merely examples of religious art, but reminders that to become truly human is to become like Jesus Christ, for He has healed the corruption of the human person that began with the first Adam.

On this feast day of the Holy, Glorious, All-Laudable Apostle and Evangelist Luke, we have an opportunity to celebrate the great witness to the Lord made by the patron saint of our parish. Our small community is named in his honor and memory. We see his image on our iconostasis and regularly ask him to pray for us in the Divine Liturgy. Author of both a gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, as well as an iconographer and a physician, St. Luke died a martyr’s death at the age of 84.

On this feast day of the Holy, Glorious, All-Laudable Apostle and Evangelist Luke, we have an opportunity to celebrate the great witness to the Lord made by the patron saint of our parish. Our small community is named in his honor and memory. We see his image on our iconostasis and regularly ask him to pray for us in the Divine Liturgy. Author of both a gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, as well as an iconographer and a physician, St. Luke died a martyr’s death at the age of 84.

We do not have to burn incense on the altar of a Roman god in order to show that we are ashamed of the Savior. All that we must do is to refuse to take up our crosses as we serve the false gods of this world. It does not take much spiritual insight to see that worshiping idols is quite common and easily done in our time and place.

The veneration of icons should prod us all to wrestle with the question of who we are and who we want to become. Too often, however, we think that iconography simply has to do with wood and paint, and we ignore the question of whether we are becoming more beautiful icons of Christ. The icons are not merely examples of religious art, but reminders that to become truly human is to become like Jesus Christ, for He has healed the corruption of the human person that began with the first Adam.

The love to which Christ calls us is not merely an emotion, but a true offering of ourselves for the sake of someone else. It is a self-less offering in which we put the needs and interests our neighbors before our own. It is a personal offering that builds communion with other people and unites us together as those who share a common life. Of course, the basis of such love is the great Self-Offering of Christ, Who enables us all to share in His eternal life as members together of His Body, the Church, as a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The love to which Christ calls us is not merely an emotion, but a true offering of ourselves for the sake of someone else. It is a self-less offering in which we put the needs and interests our neighbors before our own. It is a personal offering that builds communion with other people and unites us together as those who share a common life. Of course, the basis of such love is the great Self-Offering of Christ, Who enables us all to share in His eternal life as members together of His Body, the Church, as a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Our calling, like that of Peter and the first disciples, is simply to obey Christ’s command to follow Him. When we stumble in doing so, we must cultivate the humble recognition of Peter, who said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”