In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today, when the Apostle Peter is confessing to Christ that he believes that He, Jesus, is truly the Christ, our Lord says : “‘Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in Heaven’”. For us who are confessing that Jesus is the Christ, this is sometimes revealed to us by the Lord, more or less directly. I mean to say that some people have an experience a little bit like that of the Apostle Paul. It is possible that the Lord will reveal Himself to a person, and show Himself to be the Christ. A person can also come to understand this sometimes by reading the Bible, sometimes under very many other circumstances. Those, however, are exceptional circumstances. The main way in which people learn to confess that Jesus our Saviour is the Christ, is that He is revealed to them through human beings, through the living witness of Christians. When we say that Jesus is the Christ, we mean that Jesus is the Messiah, the One who is anointed, the One who is sent for the redemption of the world.
This is how, for instance, Alaskan Aboriginals came to Christ during the time of Saint Herman and the other missionaries. Saint Herman was an ordinary monk. He was not ordained to anything. He was simply a monk. Recently, when I was in St Petersburg, we went to visit the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in the area of Petrodvoretz. In this monastery which had been recently re-opened and now is functioning, I found out that Saint Ignaty Brianchaninov had been Archimandrite there 150 years ago or more. Decades before that, in this same monastery Saint Herman was tonsured into monasticism even before he went to Valaam Monastery. Saint Herman remained an ordinary monk. When he was living on Kodiak Island (and afterwards on Spruce Island), it is true that he was telling people about Christ, but mostly he was showing Christ by his life. He specialised in baking cookies for children. He saved the people from an earthquake by placing the icon of the Mother of God on the ground. He saved them from a tsunami by putting the icon of the Mother of God on the shore. He saved them from forest fires by placing the icon of the Mother of God in the path of the flames, and saying that the fire would come no farther. In every case the Lord protected the people.
However, the importance of Saint Herman for us is not only that he was a wonder-worker (although these things confirmed it), it was his daily witness of love for Jesus Christ no matter how difficult the circumstances of life were. His circumstances of life were not pleasant very often because the Russian-American Company at that time liked to take Aboriginal people almost as slaves in order to do hunting and trapping so that they would be able to get fur. Saint Herman was protecting the Aboriginal people from the money-grubbing fur traders. The Russian-American Company was not so different from the Hudson Bay Company, or from the North West Company of our own experience. It is sad to have to admit it – but that is how life goes. Human beings are human beings. Saint Herman, an ordinary person, lived the love of Jesus Christ. That love of Jesus Christ, that daily love of Jesus Christ, brought very many of these Aboriginals to Christ. Because of the conversion to Christ by so many people through the witness of Saint Herman, they and their descendants remained faithful Orthodox Christians even until now. Let us remember that after the sale of Alaska to the United States, there was strong opposition to Orthodox Christians, and there was a great difficulty in supplying priests. These Aboriginals, remembering Saint Herman, and passing on the personal experience of Christ in Saint Herman from generation to generation after him, stayed faithful to Jesus Christ as Orthodox Christians and did not budge.
It is important for you and for me to pay attention to our lives in Christ, because other people are measuring Christ by how we behave, by how we live our lives. Whether they will become Christian or not, whether they will persevere in the Christian life or not, can very much depend on how you and I live out the love of Jesus Christ in our daily lives. If our lives are filled with the love of Jesus Christ, and if people can see this stable love in us, if they can see this joy and life which comes from Christ in us, then they may, if they are already Christians, be encouraged to carry on even if they are severely tempted. It is our patience, our ability to persevere in the face of every sort of difficulty, and our joy (which is the main characteristic of Christians everywhere, always), which foster an increase in love in believers and the beginning of the fire of love in those who want to believe. If they are not Christians, they may very well decide to come to Christ because of our love. We, ourselves, confess with the Apostle Peter that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One of God, the Messiah. He is the One who is sent to save us, who did save us, and who does save us.
It is also important for us to put the communion with Jesus Christ, and the renewing of our personal relationship of love in Jesus Christ as the first priority of every day. Historically, Orthodox Christians are not people who intellectualise Christ. There is much intellectual activity, but that does not come first. The love of Jesus Christ comes first. This love is lived out and nurtured in very practical, material ways, and not only in spiritual, non-physical realms (as Orthodox Christians are often misrepresented as being).
Normally, in the morning every day Orthodox Christian families take a piece of prosphora that they have brought home from church from the last Divine Liturgy, and making the sign of the Cross, they eat it. Some people also take a sip of Holy Water first thing in the morning to go with it, while they make the sign of the Cross. They then say their prayers before the icons and ask the Lord to bless the day that is coming. In the course of the day, with the sign of the Cross, they bring Christ’s blessing on everything that is happening. It is traditional, for instance, when parents are sending their children out of the house in the morning to go to school or to play or whatever, that they send them after first signing them with the sign of the Cross. When they go out themselves, they make the sign of the Cross. They bless the door when they close it, asking God to protect the house. When they get in the car, they make the sign of the Cross, and ask God to bless the journey and give them protection. Every time something is happening, Orthodox Christians normally bring Christ’s blessing upon everything. Innumerable times I have seen that a loaf of bread is signed with the sign of the Cross with the knife that is about to cut it. It is an uncountable number of times I have seen and heard in my life how people who are making bread (or making anything else) bless with the sign of the Cross everything that is going to be done. This is simply the normal Orthodox way of living : bringing the blessing of Christ upon everything, giving thanks to God, calling to Him for help, always referring everything about our life every day to Him. In North America, this is not done very much anymore.
North American society used to know something about this way of life, but whatever was known is mostly gone by this time. It is hard for Orthodox Christians in North America to keep up these very good and life-giving habits. Many people lose them because the environment is a quite critical, and people are shy ; they do not want to stick out. However, if we are going to be Orthodox Christians, we have to be honest, and faithful to Christ. We cannot be ashamed of Christ. He said that if we are ashamed of Him here, He will be ashamed of us in the Kingdom of Heaven (see Mark 8:38 ; Luke 9:26). We cannot be ashamed of Him. We love Him. He loves us. He is our life. Our way of life is important for us, even if people think it is odd. Really, it is no more odd or strange than wearing a turban, for example. What is different ? Sikhs are very happy to show who they are by wearing a turban. That is a sign of their faith. Therefore, why should we, who are Christians (in this country which advertises that everyone is free) be ashamed of our Faith ? We are not criticising the Sikhs (or anyone else) by making the sign of the Cross. Rather, by doing this, we are being faithful to Jesus Christ. I still remember a few years ago on a CBC programme at Christmas-time, that there was an interview of a Sikh elder. The question was whether talk about Christmas was offensive to the Sikhs. This Sikh elder said : “If you are Christians, why should you not talk about it ? It is normal for you to talk about it. Just do not force me”.
Being who we are does not imply that we are forcing anyone else to be who we are. No-one can force anyone to be a Christian – not honestly. We can only love them into Christ. This is the only way. In order to be able to be seen and understood, we have to allow ourselves to make the sign of the Cross when it is normal and natural to do so. This is our way : blessing ourselves, people, things, the environment, everything, blessing with Christ’s love, honestly, uprightly, with love, with joy, blessing everyone and everything. In fact, I could have gotten myself accidentally into “hot water” when I was in Suzdal, because I was not at all thinking that there would be non-Christians working in that place. There were some men working on a roof in a monastery and doing all sorts of repairs. As I was walking by, I blessed them, and they did not seem to object, although the guide said : “Oh, they are Muslim”. They were from Kazakhstan. Well, anyway, they did not object. In fact, I think that many Muslim do not object so much as all that, as long as what is offered is offered in love.
Let us do our best, as the Apostle Peter, to confess Christ in everything in our lives. Let us ask Him to help us because we are weak, and it is difficult, and we are shy. Sometimes we are afraid – it is true. Let us ask Him to give us strength, and to send His guardian angels even more often to remind us, to keep us on the right way. May His angels help us to be faithful to Jesus Christ, and to show His love by how we live, by what we do. Let us ask Him to give us the strength so that in every part of our lives, referring everything, always, to Him, we may glorify Him, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever and unto the ages of ages.