"Come!"

Today we confront one of the greatest riddles of our lifetimes and of all lifetimes, which is the refusal of God. I say "riddle," for it is not a mystery. That word would dignify it with holy vesture. It is an "anti-mystery" with nothing of holiness about it but rather its opposite: indifference, recklessness, a careless discarding of the infinitely valuable. We see it every day. It surrounds us wherever we live or go. It is the most grievous act imaginable .... and among the most common, greatly magnifying its tragic dimensions.

This morning we read a vivid account of this twice-told tale. It is a beautifully crafted story in three parts, a kind of "dress rehearsal" for the Ascension. First, the Lord goes to a high mountain alone. Next, the Disciples are sent into the world on their own. Finally, a vision of the Kingdom of God is displayed.

The Twelve are commanded to board a boat and then set sail on the Sea of Galilee. Meantime, Jesus has gone to the top of a mountain to pray. In the fourth watch of the night, the boat has reached the middle of the lake. The "wind was boisterous," and the boat was "tossed by the waves," we read. The Disciples are afraid. Then, they behold the Lord Jesus walking on water coming to them. In their fear, they declare, "It is a ghost!"

Jesus seeking to calm them offers the greeting of God and of angels: "Be not afraid!" then adding, "It is I. Be of good cheer!"

Peter responds by saying, "If it is You, command me to come to You on the water." Peter then walks on the water but immediately, seeing the wind and the waves, panics and begins to sink. "Save me!" he cries out.

St. Matthew in a feat of compression, presents us with the human condition as people still experience it today. In broad-brush, life is aimless. We drift into the middle of many waters, neither here nor there. We do not really know where we are. We have no real destination. Many interpretations of life's meaning pass through our minds, but we settle on no particular one.

When I ask people privately what their aim in life is, what they are "looking for," most say, "I want to be happy." Recently, a day laborer on the Hermitage farm told me he needed some days or weeks off (he did know how long) because he needed to do things that made him happy. I asked him, "What things are those?" He did not know. I hold him, "Happiness is not a destination, nor even a goal. It is an outcome of a destination, the right destination. When you find that, then you will have peace. The path itself will be enough." (We, of course, acceded to his wish as we accede to all such wishes from our helpers.)

Meantime, the Disciples are alone and confused and unclear of their destination. Everything they encounter makes them jittery, therefore — wind, waves, a rocking boat. When they see God coming, they cringe in fear and label Him a ghost. Think of it: the desire of the everlasting hills standing right before them, yet they wish it to go away, whatever it might be. On the other hand, had God been their goal, fixing their hearts and souls upon Him at every moment, they would have beheld His approach with rejoicing.

Of this entire account — of Jesus walking on the sea, and the conduct of the Disciples — St. Mark's verdict is succinct: "their hearts were hardened" (Mk 6:52).

Peter's state of mind is somewhere in the middle, not filled with longing anticipation but also not jittery or fearful. He sees the approach of God. The Lord tells him Who He is and to be of good cheer. Nonetheless, he responds by making conditions. He does not open his heart in faith, but rather creaks open his mind a crack in doubt: "If it is You," he says.

Is this not a fair depiction of life with us today? If we do not know where we are going, if we do not have our hopes pinned upon God, then life becomes daunting, and we become fearful. The only destination we can absolutely be sure of is death (at least in its outward appearance), which is the common destination of all. Of this we are sure.

The Lord Jesus has told the Twelve, and the multitudes,

But wait! The final sentence of our Gospel lesson has not yet been read!

For the land of Gennesaret overbrims with goodness and miracles intimately linked to a people who long for and look for God. In St. Mark's Gospel we read

The Lord of Life has come to their blessed shore, and abundance of life pours out in every direction meeting with gratitude and hearts filled with faith. And this is the point of Jesus' miracles. His purpose is not to heal per se. for He does not heal everywhere he goes. His purpose is communion with His people, which is always a locus of the Kingdom of Heaven. You see, whenever people come together in love where Jesus is, we have a breaking-in of the Kingdom of God into this broken world. "Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more." His miracles are not about Heaven on earth, but its opposite: to remind us and assure us that real life lies elsewhere with Him, Whose "Kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18:26).

Do you see St. Matthew's literary art inspired by the Holy Ghost? An image of the ascended Lord begins this beautifully crafted verse. A vision of the Kingdom of God concludes it. Within this frame we find the hard-hearted Disciples muddling through. What a contrast is struck! Jesus has launched His Apostles into the world on their own. They become anxious to the point of terror ... though He clearly has identified Himself, even telling them not to be fearful. And their first instinct is to issue a demand, a condition: "If..." The passage ends with Jesus coming to the shore in the land of Genneseret, where faith in God, even expectancy for God's arrival, is palpable: lively faith meeting with Divine Life.

This is the scene of the Great-Martyred Saint Panteleimon, whose feast we celebrate today. The background of his life at the dawn of the fourth century is uncertainty and tumult .... we might say, fearfulness. Historians of classical antiquity call this era the "Crisis of the Third Century (235-284)," seeing no fewer than twenty-six claimants to the imperial throne with the jittery Roman Senate turning none away for fear of reprisals. By the year 300 the population of Christians in the Empire had expanded to ten percent, reflecting the Eurozone of today, where 10% are Orthodox Christian. Early fourth-century churches were plentiful. The hierarchy was well established, and pagan religious leaders felt threatened by them. Diocletian, an emperor dogged by chronic illness and desperate to hold together an Empire that was coming apart at the seams, blamed Christianity for the Empire's endless woes. Accordingly, here on the eve of Christianity being established as an official religion, Christians saw the largest scale martyrdom of ancient history: 3,500 tortured and killed with many churches desecrated and destroyed.

Our saint's name at birth (275 A.D.) was Pantaleon, "a mighty lion in all things." His family was influential in a capital city, Nikomedia (a kind of twin city across the Bosphorus from Constantinople). He was trained at the best pagan schools, and during the Tetrarchy of several imperial rulers, he knew the Emperor Maximian personally. He was talented in all that he touched but settled on the medical arts for his vocation. Along with Ss Cosmas and Damian, he is venerated as one of the Unmercenary Healers. Practicing this art of "life and death" (we might say), he saw something among the Christians that he saw nowhere else, which was life resilient to death.

His conversion to Christianity followed upon a miracle. A viper laying beside a dead child it had just killed grieved the physician, and he prayed that the viper might die and the child's life be restored, which immediately followed his "Amen." When his new Christian faith came to the attention of Maximian, Panteleimon was swept into the general dragnet of official persecution. Accounts of his torture and death follow the pattern of many hagiographies: throughout his trials the saint remained unhurt. Boiling oil, the rack, stoning ... none of these had any effect. The overall picture is clear: the world devoid of God is a place of death, dying people destined for eternal death. Life alone is found in God and His Kingdom of Life. Who seek bodily safety by renouncing God, for example — for that's all you had to do if you werer persecuted: renounce God — will lose his life. But who loses his life for God's sake will find it.

Let us conclude where we began. Which scene is hardest to bear? The torture and death of 3,500 Christians who could walk on water and never sink or the many, many millions already drowning and always sinking into eternal oblivion? Many millions .... many trillions over the centuries. Happiness was their only goal and purpose, yet most reported feeling depressed. Small wonder.

God has made us and His world in a particular fashion. When we see life through eyes of faith, ever-yearning for the approach of God, "all of these things — all of our needs — will be added unto us." "One thing is needful," Jesus told Martha (Lu 10:42), and that is to gaze upon the Lord of Life, loving Him as He loves us. Seeing His approach, Peter rightly asks the Lord Jesus to command him. And God will always reply with that word which every true soul longs to hear: