One with the Father

Today we encounter a phrase never heard before it was written in the Gospel of St. Luke: the Bosom of Abraham.

Or, if it were written, no instance has survived apart from this Gospel account.

What is this "Bosom of Abraham?" From the outset we realize that it must be something very great, reaching even to highest Heaven. Consider that we are presented, not with abstractions, but with painstaking details. You see, Lazarus does not simply die and go to Heaven. Angels carry off the beggar who is covered with sores. The rich man does not simply die and go to Hades. He, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, is now engulfed in flames. The tormented man does not simply thirst. He begs that the tip of Lazarus' finger be dipped in water to cool his tongue.

Do you see the difference between these two? .... the difference between abstract generalities and these exquisite details?

He lifts up his eyes toward Abraham. Notice how the rich man's gaze frames the image of Lazarus lying in Abraham's bosom. This is no simple declaration. It is "cinematic." This attention to detail and visual perspective (we would say today) is as through the lens of a director's camera. But in first-century language terms, let us say, it is iconized. It has iconicity. And, certainly, the Evangelist who is taking these pains with his language is in fact the most famous icon writer of all, who painted the Iveron Icon Mother of God: the Apostle and Evangelist St. Luke.

His subject now before us, goes by other names, as well: Paradise or Eden or Heaven — where, at the end of life's torments, we are comforted (Lu 16:25).

All of this is interesting, but we pass into a realm I can only call revelation when we begin to explore the language. The Greek word underlying bosom is κόλτος / kólpos meaning lap or bosom. Kólpos also means "the depths of the sea" — that unreachable place having no boundary or limits.

Instantly, we recognize that, beyond this otherwise, the sea represents the domain of YHWH, Who alone could master its destructive chaos, represented by monsters like Rahab or Leviathan from the Psalms, which YHWH alone could master. We have also have the restless void of chaos found at the Creation, from which YHWH alone might wrest order. But we also think of the Son of God Who commands the heaving swells and tempests of the sea at His ease.

We should not, then, be surprised to encounter this mind-boggling, additional entry in the Cambridge Greek Lexicon: that kólpos signifies unity with God the Father, represented by Abraham. Is this hard to picture? Then let us picture the people of God passing through the Red Sea, which YHWH has mastered, which is a superb image of unity with God, in the palm of God's safety. This same unity we see depicted in Lazarus lying in the safety of God's bosom, surrounded by the chaos of Hades. Do you see that St. Luke reprises the Creation story here? Rampant Hell which cannot intrude on God's domain surrounds the Bosom but cannot encroach. Says Father Abraham:

The icon printed with this reflection is typical depicting a multitude of souls lying in the folds of Abraham's tunic. Others depict a multitude within his bosom itself. These folds, by the way, are yet another definition of kólpos, listed in our Greek lexicons.

But it is this next fact which commands our attention. Kólpos is exceedlingly rare in the New Testament and, then, touching on only the most holy subjects. It appears in only one other passage in St. Luke, which turns out to be an exultation of forgiveness, which is to say, the Divine:

These are otherworldly dimensions.

Here the bosom is clearly equated to the soul.

The only other place kolpós appears, in all of the New Testament, is the Holy Gospel According to St. John, and there only twice. In the first instance, it is used to signify Jesus' One-ness with the Father:

The other instance causes the hairs on the back of neck to come to attention. The other instance depicts the only other figure in the New Testament who lies upon the Bosom of God, the Beloved Disciple, St. John the Theologian:

Let us pause to be clear about thee remarkable facts: the only two figures in the Bible who are seen to lie upon the Bosom of God are the beggar Lazarus and St. John, the Beloved Disciple. Both clearly signify the high point of life in God's sight.

Forever after the Bosom of Abraham, depicted in countless icons and paintings, signifies that longed for Oneness with God, the seamless unity. That this scene in St. John's Gospel should occur at the Mystical Supper completes the conversation concerning unity.

As we have said, the phrase Bosom of Abraham is itself a singularity: never heard before the appearance of the Gospels. It is in a class with other singularities: Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven, which also were unknown before the Gospels. Hearing these phrases, we are stunned. But with Bosom of Abraham, we are overwhelmed with a convergence of the vast and cosmic, on one hand, with the intimate and personal, on the other. Where else could we hope to find a more trenchant expression of Heaven, both cosmic and personal? Indeed, where else in all the Scriptures do we find any such direct description of Heaven?

☦

Let hold in mind now the contrast that would have loomed large in the minds of the first century audience hearing this lesson. Let us consider that quintessential book of Judah-ism, Deuteronomy, where God is depicted as being remote and aloof. He is not to be approached, nor even his holy mountain, lest you die. Those whom God summons must also be held at a distance. Nor is God to be glimpsed. And relationship with Him? That is impossible. Only blood sacrifice and obedience to His Law .... these are the only species of relationship with God within the scale and scope of Deuteronomy.

The Deuteronomy story is well known. King Josiah ascends to the throne of Judah at age 8 and, over time, develops a plan to consolidate control of his kingdom to Jerusalem. As religious life is the golden strand holding this Hebrew society together (we should say, "societies," for they were diverse), he undertakes religious reforms even establishing new Scriptures. One day he strolls through Solomon's Temple and is approached by a custodian holding a scroll. "What's this?!" he says. "We have found a new book of Torah!" As many have said, "How convenient that this aggressive reformer should discover a new book never before heard of, whichthat Moses has written, describing the very goals of his political and religious reforms!"

This new book will be called "the Second Law," in Greek Deuteronomy. As we read accounts in the Hebrew Bible extolling Josiah, we ought to remember that many of the altars and high places and sacred groves he is destroying and tearing down were erected or planted by the Patriarchs. The voices praising him for doing right in the eyes of God are voices Josiah has set in place as part of his propaganda machine.

Not long after Josiah's campaign to suppress the de-centralized religion of the Patriarchs, the Neo-Babylonian Empire invades Judah exiling one-third of its population to Babylon including the ruling classes.

Today, we reflect on two monuments of our spiritual landscape: the Bosom of Abraham, a scene of personal intimacy and One-ness with God, and Deuteronomy, a program for civil control and, above all, no personal intimacy with God. For this was the problem with the religion of the Patriarchs in Josiah's eyes. The religion of the Patriarchs was a religion that was not centralized anywhere. It was prevalent all through the Levant, with the many altars and sacred groves and pillars and wells which the Patriarchs had established. How could one control this? How could one tax it? And where one met with God was nothing other that the sacred precincts of one's own soul. This is the ancient and original religion, which Jesus and His followers, and the Essenes continued to practice.

Nineteenth-century Protestantism proposed that Christianity represents a "new dispensation" discontinous with the old dispensation of Mosaic law. Would not these men reject the idea that the religion of the Patriarchs is continous with, even a well spring for, Christianity? But these nineteenth-century innovators failed to recognize certain Orthodox truths: God is changeless and does not vary. The idea of there being a wrathful God in the Old Testament but a different, kindly God in the New Testament is an aburdity. And the Son of God does not come late to the game. He is the Original, born before all ages. From the top of Mount Sinai to the Mount of the Beatitudes He is God, the same yesterday, today, and unto the ages of ages. If an innovation is to be countenanced, it is the innovation of Josiah and of the returnees from Babylon, both of whom sought to impose a new religion upon the people of God.

Meantime, Jesus was born into the ancient Hebrew lifeworld, which only recently had become dominated by Judean religion. (We have reflected on this many times: Judaism only begins to dominate the Levant on the eve of the Birth of Jesus.) That the Incarnation of God, whose stated purpose is to gather the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, should come at this moment in Hebrew history can be no coincidence.

Today, our lesson affords us a glimpse into that ancient Hebrew lifeworld. Lazarus is carried by angels, whose existence the Zion Temple authorities deny. He is transported into Paradise, a place which the Zion Temple authorities repudiate. And He experiences personal intimacy with Father God, a category which the Temple authorities deem to be preposterous.

We need not point out that Jesus, in a riotous fashion, overturned the furnishings of this new, blood-sacrifice religion. In effect, He says you have taken my Father's House, where the people come for intimacy with God and turned it into a this-for-that emporium.

Let us conclude remembering that our teachings, the teachings of Holy Orthodoxy, proceed from this very bosom. Like Abraham, who is the Father of our faith (St. Paul writes):