In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today, we are still within the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Today, our Lord says to us : “‘Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his Cross, and follow Me’”. We are not taking up the Cross in a literal fashion, but we are imitating Jesus Christ and His life. If we are to follow Christ and imitate Him, then it is important that we first know Him and that we love Him. For us to know Him and love Him means that we have to be reading the Bible regularly. When we are reading the Bible, we are encountering Jesus Christ personally. When we read these words, Jesus Christ comes to us. He fills us with His love. If we are filled with this love, then it becomes possible to follow Him. As He Himself tells us, this love is not like the usual love of human beings. I used to like to tell this illustration very often, and I will revive it again for this occasion. When we go to the United States and we want to drink tea, we find that the tea bag has a string attached to it. This is how usual human love is. Human beings say to each other : “I will love you if …”. There is almost always some sort of condition attached to this love.
Sometimes we approach God in the same way, and we say to God : “I will love You if You give me what I am asking for”. Not one of us likes it, when we know that this is how people are treating us. Things have changed, but when I was young, Canadian tea bags used to be always different from the American ones : Canadian tea bags never had strings attached to them. I suppose this is because Canadians still knew how to make tea correctly in a tea pot. Now we seem to be forgetting that. Nevertheless, a tea bag without a string helps us to understand the love of God. There are no conditions attached to the love of God. There are no “ifs” attached to the love of God. God simply loves us.
Anyone who reads in the New Testament about the love of God will see and understand that God Himself is Love. This is why He does love us – because He is Love. If each one of us exists at all, it is because He loves each one of us, and each one of us is one of His creations. We tend to think that somehow everything is automatic in human life and in animal life. However, there is nothing automatic. Everything lives because God loves. If we have anything good in life, it is because He loves us.
Therefore, how do I know that there are no strings attached to the love of God ? In the middle of the church we see the Cross. On this Cross our Saviour is hanging, and His arms are stretched out. Because of His love, He allows us to crucify Him. When I say that we are crucifying Him, I am saying that we contributed to it, and we are also responsible for what happened. Every time we are rebelling against the love of God and doing things against His love or doing things our own way, we are contributing to that Crucifixion. However, when Christ is hanging on the Cross with His arms stretched out, He voluntarily allowed Himself to do this for us. When His arms are stretched out on the Cross, He is, at the same time that we are killing Him, embracing us with His love. From the Cross He forgives the people who are killing Him, and He forgives us from the Cross as well. When He died and descended into Hades (the place of the dead), He gathered people who were believers, and He brought them up out of Hades with Him. We see this in the icon that we are venerating at the time of Pascha. Christ is breaking the doors of Hades. He is bringing Adam and Eve out, and He is bringing everyone else out. When He is rising from the dead, He is not alone. Because He is Light, because He is Love, He gives light and love to everyone.
When we are living our lives, and when people are sometimes mean to us or hurting us in some way, it is important for us to remember Jesus Christ on the Cross, and how He suffered because of love. When we are suffering because of love, He will help us. Since He forgives us from the Cross, we, in love, can forgive other people who hurt us. Because Jesus Christ loves us, He will give us the strength and the love to forgive as He forgives.
Through the intercessions of His Mother, let us behold how much the Lord loves us. She, an ordinary human being, shows us that the Christian life can be lived. In this icon of the Mother of God of Port Arthur which is visiting us today, we see broken swords under her feet. By her prayers, the Mother of God can bring peace and break wars. She has sent away foreign armies more than one time when people have prayed to her. Now that this icon has come to Canada, the Lord, through the prayers of the Mother of God, has been helping people who have come to pray to her. The Lord loves us. The Lord helps us. He gives us everything we need.
It is important that we be faithful to His love, and every day turn to Him and ask Him for help. In this way, we take up the Cross. In this way, we follow Christ, and we glorify Him together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.