Sunday of the Holy Ancestors of Christ

Bishop Seraphim : Homily
Witnessing to the Truth of God’s Love
Sunday of the Holy Ancestors of Christ
18 December, 2005
Hebrews 11:9-10, 17-23, 32-40 ; Matthew 1:1-25


In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

All those Hebrew names today that are hard to pronounce, represent people who were in a line of those who trusted God’s Promise. God reveals Himself to us. He has revealed Himself to Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and so forth. There are many people to whom God revealed Himself in the course of our history, not to forget people like Ruth. It is not only to a line of men that God revealed Himself. In revealing Himself to us, He revealed Himself to us throughout Scripture as a loving Father (not like broken, human fathers, but an all-loving, all-perfect Father). He revealed Himself to us as God who is Love (see 1 John 4:8, 16).

Human beings in the course of our history have very often betrayed that love for one reason or another, mostly because we are limited, selfish, and we cannot understand the Lord’s love. We often fall into the trap of trying to control and regulate that love, and that never works. If anyone wants to know why heresies have risen in the past in human history, in Orthodox Christian history, these heresies have arisen because human beings could not manage to cope with the breadth and the depth of God’s love, with the absolute incomprehensibility and unexpectedness of God’s love. People, with their so-called intelligence, have tried to regulate God, to box Him in a little bit, so that He would be more understandable, somehow. By doing that, they have distorted their understanding of Who He is.

We cannot tell God Who He is. We cannot tell Him how to behave with us. We have to accept His love, and live with His love. The prophet Isaiah tells us that a pot does not tell the potter how to make it (see Isaiah 45:9). The potter knows how to make it, and the pot then functions according to how God made it. It is the same thing with us. God loves us. Because of His love, He creates each one of us uniquely. He gives us talent. He gives us ability. Everything is rooted in His love. His love gives us life, and we live in this love. If we do anything good in this life, it is the product of His love.

Thus it is that all these three times fourteen generations of people (whose names we heard today) prepared the way for the coming of the Incarnation of God’s love. They prepared the way by being faithful before the Incarnation, before the visibility of God’s love, before He could be comprehended in such a way as we Orthodox Christians comprehend Him. If we have some difficulty living in the wake of this Incarnation, if we have difficulty living day by day 2,000 years since the Incarnation, accepting God’s love in the fulfilment of the Promise, can you imagine how much more difficult it was for those three times fourteen generations of people who lived beforehand only with the Promise – a Promise not fulfilled. Having seen evidence of God’s abiding love amongst them, and how many times He saved them from this-and-that, they did not encounter the fulfilment of His love. They were not filled with the Holy Spirit so that they could be members of the Body of Christ.

They, in anticipation, were prepared to have everything done to them (as the Apostle Paul said to us this morning in the Epistle to the Hebrews concerning how they were tortured for the sake of this yet unfulfilled Promise). How much more, then, are we responsible for the living out of this love in our lives – we, who call ourselves Orthodox Christians, we who say that we believe. We bear in us and amongst us the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth, the undistorted full Truth about the Holy Trinity, and Who is Jesus Christ. We have the responsibility to shine with the light of this love not just on Sunday or on a feast-day when we happen to be here together.

We have the responsibility to shine with this love every day. We have the responsibility to be this yeast and this salt that our Saviour says we are supposed to be if we are truly living His love. We are supposed to be catalysts of love in our everyday life, in our families, first. We are supposed to be persons to whom other people who are suffering and burdened by the cares of life will turn, because they see in us joy, they see in us a sign of hope, a sign of stability, a sign of peace. They can tell that we are Christ-bearers, because we love without attachments, without conditions, and we are servants like Christ. We do not puff ourselves up, exalt ourselves and squash other people, as the world does. We do not care what people think of us. Instead, we serve. We behave as Christ did. We wash people’s feet as Christ did (even if it is only a metaphorical washing).

When we behave like this, people turn to us in order to find Christ. When we behave like this, washing people’s feet (figuratively, or in fact), when we are going about our daily lives (as the servants or slaves of Christ that we are), we live in a certain freedom that other people do not know. People are bound up and enslaved by fear. We, who have been baptised into Christ, who have put on Christ (see Galatians 3:27), who bear Christ with us, are free in His love. We are not slaves of sin. We are not slaves of fear. We are free, free in His love. In doing all this, we are exercising that royal priesthood that all Christians who are baptised into Christ share, and must exercise. This priesthood has all to do with gathering the flock, the scattered sheep, the lost sheep, uniting them to the Body of Christ.

Now I would like to say that, as I stand here today in this Temple, in the midst of this flock, it is really obvious to me how much the Lord has been at work amongst us over the more than 25 years that this community has been serving and witnessing to His love, and the truth of His love. His Truth, by the way, is rooted in love. It does not consist in or of some sort of rules, regulations and philosophy. Jesus Christ, Himself, is the one and only Truth. Only He is the Truth. There is only one truth : living truth, loving truth. This same Saviour, who is Love, who put on flesh, who is Love incarnate, has been active amongst us. When we are singing at the top of our lungs, pouring out our hearts with love in praise of Him, no-one, I think, could deny that they feel the mutual love of Jesus Christ expressed amongst us here.

Thus, as much as the Lord has been building us up, and as much as the Lord has been working amongst us, we cannot at all become complacent in any way. Yes, the Lord has done a lot of good with us. He will do a lot more yet. He has united very many people to Himself through the work of this community. He has increased the community of faith through the life, love, and service of the believers here. However, there is a whole city of almost a million people, the vast majority of whom do not know the whole truth of Jesus Christ. Many of them do not even know anything at all about Jesus Christ. We, and those who come after us, have much work to do. It is not a five-minute job to make this city into a right-believing city. However, living His love, we allow Jesus Christ, the Lord of love, our Lord, Emmanuel, who is with us and amongst us all the time to multiply our meager offerings. He does this, and we allow Him to bring those scattered and lost sheep to Himself by our love, by the exercise of our love. There is much to be accomplished yet, but let us not forget that God is with us. That is one of His titles, and it is not merely a title, it is a fact. It is the expression of Who He is. He is with us. He always will be with us. He promised never to desert us or forsake us (see Matthew 28:20).

Therefore, holding on to our Saviour and being faithful to Him, let us help Him to grow this flock as He wills. Let us help him bring His life, His love, His salvation, and His unity to this city in which we live, so that this whole city may eventually glorify Him with us, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.