Transformed, Part Two

Last week, we arrived full circle, returning to the Pharisee and the Publican, who represent two ways to salvation: the ritual of blood sacrifice and the way of inner transformation — one false, the other true. Now, I do not mean to be harsh. But when the subject is as grave as eternal life, we must be clear. Jesus declared that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that there is no other way to the Father (Jn 14:6). We must understand that He is our way and our truth and our life. We must be Him. This is profoundly personal. He said nothing about offering blood sacrifice, which is impersonal.

We need not ask where "the way of transformation" comes from. In the Gospel of St. John (which is the theological norm for Orthodoxy), the Evangelist gets right down to business. We proceed from the Creation of the world to a man who came to "bear witness of the Light" (Jn 1:7), St. John the Forerunner. He was that voice from Isaiah crying in the wilderness:

And what is this "way of the Lord"? John's ministry was one of purification. And all Jerusalem and across the Levant and beyond answered his summons. His ministry of washing away one's former life through baptism swept over the world like a tsunami (1 Peter 3:20-21).

The first word of Jesus' ministry was also a cry to purify oneself: "Metanoeite!, Be transformed!" All four Gospels meticulously record this way of transformation: from our lesson two weeks ago describing the transformation of Zacchaeus to our lesson last week describing the transformation of the Publican to our lesson this morning, arguably the locus classicus of personal transformation: the Prodigal Son.

But I am breaking a butterfly upon a wheel. No one needs convincing that Christianity is about personal transformation. The question is, where does this tradition of blood sacrifice come from? It had been a Babylonian rite for at least seventeen hundred years before Jesus and was current in the Zion Temple. While the Gospels are preoccupied with the many permutations of transformation, they mention blood sacrifice not at all, nor do the Apostles, nor do the earliest Church Fathers, but quite the opposite.

Origen wrote that Jesus did not need to go to the Cross to mankind. He said that humanity had become like a dull coin. The image of the emperor had been reduced to an indecipherable slug. Man forgot what he was supposed to look like. At the Incarnation, the coin was re-struck restoring the Emperor's Image.

St. Irenaeus wrote that Jesus' primary work was as an example for right living in God's sight. Adam and Eve had been created as infants maturing to adults. They had become headstrong teenagers. In particular Eve impatiently demanded now what she would have received later anyway. In this, she foreshadows the Prodigal Son. It would be Jesus Who would exemplify spiritual maturity. He bore all manner of trials patiently. He persevered to the end, showing us how to complete the course.

St. Athanasius the Great agreed that humankind had forgotten who they were (God's children by adoption) and where they were headed (the Kingdom of Heaven). They did not understand nobility of soul, for the family portrait had been hopelessly defaced, and no one remained to sit for it. So Jesus would be the model. The portrait, now being restored, would enshrine His noble Image for all to follow. He said, "Follow me."

But setting man on a right course would not be enough. After all, were not the just, who had never strayed, imprisoned in Hades? So the Incarnation of God, the Person of the Creator touching the Creation, produced a shock so great that it flipped the telos of the human lifeworld from death to life — rocking the House of Death and setting a new blueprint upon all, not toward withering finitude, but toward eternal life. I say, at the Conception of Jesus the world was redeemed.

Humans, however, retained the freedom to sin, consigning them to an end of eternal death. What would be the remedy? Athanasius answered that it would be the Image of Jesus. Fixing our eyes on the Lord of Life, emulating Him, would keep the way to eternal life alive, would keep it open.

Naturally, the Holy Fathers meditated on salvation. But neither they, nor the Apostles before them, proposed Jesus as a blood sacrifice offered for our sins. Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, a great theologian of our era, wrote that

Jesus Himself said that He would

This principle is repeated in St. John's Gospel:

He articulates the most profound act of love: offering one's life as a guarantee of safety for those we love .... mother-love, father-love. In Jesus' time this was not only a category of mind. It was widely regarded as the highest act of the noble soul. And there was an exemplum for it, a universal reference point, the story of Damon and Pythias.

No less an influential figure than Cicero had held up these young lives to be the highest example of spiritual excellence, widely circulated in his celebrated essay, De Amicitia (44 B.C.). Pythias, charged with plotting the overthrow of the Tyrant of Syracuse, was sentenced to death. But he wanted to say farewell to his family. So his friend Damon offered himself as a ransom. Later, when Damon was taken to the place of execution, it was obvious that Pythias would not show, the ignoble action of the lesser soul. But at the last minute, Pythias (who had been delayed by unavoidable obstacles) arrived in time. Seeing the brilliant nobility of these two young men, the Tyrant of Syracuse released them. Much had been hazarded, but all were saved.

The Apostles understood that they sailed under a banner such as this. St. Luke wrote,

Now, why should he comment on this detail in a narrative that does not make "small talk"? The "twin brothers" with reference to "Syracuse," of course, represented the high ideal of Christian life: "no greater love." Damon and Pythias are twins in the sense that all Christians are twins — indistinguishable as sons of the Father.

But there is another layer. The underlying Greek word for twin brothers is ( Δισκούροις / Diskoúrois, ) associated with Castor and Pollux, drawn from Greek mythology. Theirs is a Damon and Pythias story as well. Castor was mortal, his brother immortal. So Pollux was given a choice: he could spend the rest of eternity among the deathless gods, or he could empty himself of his own glory giving a portion of his divinity to Castor. Both men, being semi-divine, would henceforth never be separated spending half the year in Hades and half the year on Mt. Olympus — yet another kind of ransom. The typology, the gift of Jesus' Divinity to ourselves, could scarcely be more plain.

There is no suggestion here of blood sacrifice securing our share in His Divinity. The redemption of souls, elevating them to Heavenly heights, is a way. It is not a thing But it is a way: one noble act answered by another. This is how noble friendship works. We seek the very best people around us to be our friends so that we be our very best. Jesus said, "But I have called you friends" (Jn 15:15).

But offering one's friend as a blood sacrifice to save your our neck is too vile to contemplate. The very notion of it would have been abhorrent to St. Luke. And it produced the most extreme reaction in Jesus. He scoffed at the ritual in His Parable of the Good Samaritan, and He expelled men from the Temple in riotous fashion who sold animals for sacrifice.

I have read that Jesus did this to save the little animals. Let us not mock God. He did this in a fury, making a whip of cords (Jn 2:15), because the highest spiritual ideals of the Father had come to this: blooding-letting in exchange for Divine favor.

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Last week, I concluded with words of St. John the Baptist:

What does this passage mean? The original words are these:

But the word that matters greatly is αίρω (translated "takes away") whose meaning includes "to raise up" "to increase," "to set sail," "to move on," "to bring to a heightened state of emotion," "to have sexual intercourse," as well as "to carry" and "to take upon oneself." The Cambridge Lexicon, in fact, lists thirty meanings and even more shades of meaning within these definitions.

This passage is a crux in Holy Scripture determining our Christian theology. I read it as follows:

The Baptist had cleansed every sort of sin. His ministry was to purify by means of transformation. He would have cleansed the whole world if he could. Then, encountering Jesus, he reached the high point of his ministry. He had never met a man in whom there was no sin. He tells the Savior that he is incapable of bringing Him to a higher state of purity. Truly, this is the Man of Eden.

All who meet Jesus come to a crisis point, for in His clarity the truth will out, no matter how deeply hidden. In this sense, the Baptist's famous declaration repeats St. Simeon's words (Lu 2:34): Jesus is the sign of contradiction. Was this not the experience of the demons? At the mere approach of Jesus, they cried out in terror.

The meaning of αίρον is "to bring to a heightened emotional state." In that sense He takes away the sins of the world. Jesus is the crucible. He brings the world to a boiling point. He will baptize, the Baptist warned, with fire (Mt 3:12).

This last word translated, division, is diamerismón, from which we derive our phrase "diametrically opposed." The sense is a process of high temperature necessary to separate the pure from the impure.

Christianity is fundamentally about sanctification. Encountering Jesus, we experience a crisis, for we see ourselves as we really are. The radiance of His purity is a blinding light in which our every flaw is revealed. At the same time, it is a consuming fire which purifies .... if we will but turn our souls fully toward Him. The good thief did this; the bad thief turned away.

Lamb of God interpreted as "sacrificial lamb" is not proposed for a thousand years. An Italian Benedictine monk named Anselmo would assert this in the eleventh century. The idea was further developed by Jean Calvin in the sixteenth century and thence to the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant preachers of the American nineteenth century. By offering Jesus as a sacrifice, the scheme goes, the debt of our sin is wiped away.

But the concept that our sins constitute a debt to the Father would have to wait a thousand years to be invented. Moreover, the conceit of the "lamb of sacrifice" derives from the Passover of hated Judah. Jesus probably did not celebrate that Passover. The Passover of the Essenes focused on personal transformation and the offering of a clean heart to God, according to Philo, their contemporary (Quom omnis, 75).

Why did this theology of blood sacrifice gain such popularity? Because it offered the possibility of Heaven without our having to lift a finger. You see, all we have to do is believe Jesus is Lord. St. James wrote, "The demons believe .... and tremble" (James 2:19). Indeed, it was insisted, there's nothing we can do. Meantime, the long established orthodoxy of transformation, rooted in Jesus' teachings, requires that we do everything, that we lay it all down.

Peter says. And Jesus replies:

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At the first crossroads, he was given three chances:

And again,

And again,

Following the Resurrection, the Risen Christ interviews Peter. The Lord asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" using the verb form of agápe indicating a love that sacrifices everything. Yet, even then, fully aware of the Resurrection and the Heavenly glory it promises, Peter refused. He replied with the weaker filía, suggesting, say, a man's love for his work. Significantly, Jesus addresses Peter as "son of Jonah," the one whom God called but ran.

Concluding the interview, Jesus reminds the short-sighted Peter that we all grow old and die anyway:

At each of the three points of refusal (saying filía), Jesus replies, saying in effect, "You love your job, then do your job!": "Feed my sheep."

Tradition holds that Peter encounters the Lord one last time, outside Rome. Peter has abandoned his flock, leaving them to be slaughtered, alone, by Roman troops. Surprised to see the Lord walking towards the city, he asks, "Quo vadis, Domine?" (Where are you going, Lord?) And Jesus replies, "I am going to be crucified a second time." That is, He is going to lay down His life for His friends. No doubt, Peter had heard this teaching repeatedly along with the other disciples: "Greater love hath no one than this."

Jesus had said He would offer Himself as a ransom for many. But who returned to save Jesus? Assuredly, each one could have spoken up, say, when the Temple party cried out, "Crucify Him!" A much, much larger crowd, drawn from multitudes all over the Levant and beyond, tens of thousands whom He had healed, whom He had exorcised, whom He had cleansed, whom He had fed, whom He had raised from the dead .... could have cried out, "Give us Jesus!" But they did not. In point of fact, His owns disciples (save several women and a boy) ran. They ran.

Here is Damon, standing alone at the place of execution, but there is no Pythias. Here is the Castor doomed to die, but there is no Pollux. My brothers and sisters, it is not too late to raise our voices. All around us, the teachings of Jesus are being desecrated to support an agenda of sexual liberation. (Not coincidentally, our Epistle lesson this morning was all about sexual liberation as a defilement of the Holy Spirit.) What has not been sacrificed on the sacred altar of decency and sanity in order to give us a world illicit sex and incurable disease, pornography, pedophilia, homosex, and trans-sex. Our own culture has been destroyed, and the other countries of the world do not want it.

Last week, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has sent a communique to U.S. diplomats all over world warning against "harmful, exclusionary messages" conveyed by the use of terms like "mother/father," "son/daughter," and "husband/wife" (Blinken, "Gender Identity Best Practices"). As a group of nine senators has stated in a letter to Blinken:

"Do you want our money?" the United States says. "Then you must first kow-tow to our gods of homosexuality, abortion, etc."

My brothers and sisters, do you picture America making an about-face?

The demise of the U.S. dollar may be laid at this doorstep and the ruin of the U.S. economy soon thereafter.

Make no mistake about it. We are on the brink of a nuclear war fought over this same agenda as "woke values" are being exported into Russia's birthplace in Kiev in 988 A.D. We have gone too far!

"The night is far spent" (Rom 13:12). When will we finally speak out? Or will we, like Peter, look for a way of out? But there is no compromise position. With Jesus, there is no halfway (Rev 3:16). And everything is at stake: the safety of our children, the integrity of our families, even the survival of the world, which our loving God created and for which He gave Himself as a ransom.

We will all grow old and die anyway. When will good people finally say, "No!" to this madness? We must take a stand! We must write our representatives in Congress! And we must speak out in our workplaces and neighborhoods and simply declare, "Give us Jesus!"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.