In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
It seems that most of us tend to go about our lives in a semi-conscious way, simply living each day, and not thinking about anything too much. We just get up in the morning and live our lives as everyone else does, not paying attention to the foundation of who we really are. Living in this world as we do, living in this country as we do, we tend very much to fall asleep, as it were. We become accustomed to live in the self-satisfying, self-serving routine that everyone else falls into. Many of us (although not all of us, thank God) allow the distractions and the temptations of everyday life to put us to sleep. We can forget to do basic things such as saying our prayers first thing in the morning. We forget to say “good morning” to the Lord as we were taught as children to do. In the course of the day therefore, we likely forget to give thanks to God for the good things that happen to us. We forget to call on the Lord for help when we are having difficulty. We forget to ask for His blessing on everything that we are doing.
When we come to the end of the day, instead of remembering the Lord, perhaps we sit down comfortably in front of the television to watch various programmes ; and then we do the very worst thing that a person can do, which is to watch the news at ten or eleven o’clock. The news, itself, is one of the most disturbing things that comes into our lives on a daily basis because it reports 98 percent evil activities. The news reports disturbances, evil and catastrophes which are all laced with fear. Fear makes money. Then perhaps we try to go to sleep, our minds disturbed by what we have seen. We wonder why we have difficulty sleeping and why we are restless during the night. If we watch the news at the end of the day, we should be aware that there will also come a tendency to forget about the Lord. We so easily fall into simple reaction to the news that we easily forget to treat the news as fuel for intercession. We should never dare to think of going to bed without first offering all this suffering in the world to the Lord. Thus, we ask the Lord to intervene in the suffering and the waywardness of the world. It is important also that we bless the Lord, giving thanks to Him for everything. Of course, we also ask the Lord’s forgiveness for the mistakes we may have made during the day.
Our responsibility as Orthodox Christians is to do something different and not do as other people do. We are not to fall into the sleep and forgetfulness of sin. Our responsibility is to be a light that shines. The Apostle exhorts us : “Awake you who sleep … and Christ will give you light” (Ephesians 5:14). “It is high time to wake from sleep” (Romans 13:11). Our responsibility is to be an example of hope and a force of hope to all these people who have fallen asleep in the forgetfulness of sin, and who are paralysed. We are the ones who are called to action. The Lord asks action of you and of me – the action of love. The Apostle Paul makes it very clear in a Scripture verse that I had to memorise when I was a child : “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Sin is a word whose meaning properly comes to us from Greek, and means “missing the mark”. Most people will think of it as breaking laws, but this is not the case, although “missing the mark” could mean that too. The mark that we aim for is the state of being in complete harmony with God’s will for us. This harmony means that our love for Him should be pure and selfless, the same as His love for us. When we are in this state of harmony, we are truly ourselves, and we are truly alive. However, when we depart from this way, Christ’s way, we turn away from love, light and life to selfishness, darkness and death. We become distorted. This is what the Apostle was talking about when he said to us that “the wages of sin is death”. We choose another path than God’s, and its payment to us is death. The world in general is walking on this death-dealing path. Therefore, the way of the world brings paralysis and death, whereas our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ gives us life. He sets us free. He gives us energy. He gives us power.
Brothers and sisters, it is important that we take hold of this free gift and allow the Lord to set us free, and keep us free. Let us allow the Lord to lift up our hearts and give us energy and enable us to be alive and active. The Lord did not create us to be enslaved by forgetfulness and pettiness. The Lord created us to be alive and to be free. May our Saviour today transform each of us so that we can be a centre of love for all those around us. May He give us the courage to accept the free gift of God and to live and glorify Him all the days of our life, in everything that we do and say, from this moment onward. Let us with our whole being glorify the All-holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, always, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.