The Royal Gospel

The Advent of God signifies many things, earth-shaking things, and among them that the Scriptures will be understood aright. Amazing that in the course of thousands of years (I think of Genesis) it is urgenty important that the Scriptures be understood. A collection of stories has been set before us. We are told from the time that we are children that these are holy. The most holy events of the family will be recorded on the flyleaves of this book: the births of precious children, marriage that are permanent, beloved family members that have passed on the greater life. And when this book is handled, it is handled with reverence.

And what the book contains are storied that endlessly deep and deeply mysterious. I have been reading them all of my life and formally as a student of Scripture for half-a-century .... and tomorrow, I know, they will reveal something I never saw before. The eighty-year-old Sisters could attest this same extraordinary fact. And is not as if there are thousands and thousands of pages. The Gospel of Mark could be read in an afternoon.

The Holy Scriptures are not to be entered into lightly, for they are as dangerous as God's holy mountain is dangerous. Reading them will lay us open to be probed to our inmost thoughts and desires:

And once entered, we cannot leave, for they have taken hold of us. They are God's will for us. You know, by longtime tradition people would let the book fall open and let their finger point where it will to understand God's will. And lection divina, practiced for centuries, invites the Scripture "speak into our lives" for beyond their nominal contexts. St. Paul famously called them the "oracles of God" (Rom 3:2). But this was a belief apparently held by all the Apostles (1 Peter 4:11).

Following the Passion of the Christ and His Resurrection, what happens next? Are there revels? Does Jesus regale His followers with tales of battle? Does He tell them how He shattered the hinges of Hell? No. Instead, He unlocks the Scriptures:

This is the hallmark act of the Risen Christ. This is the longed for moment. Indeed, over the course of forty days, He delivers a master class on this subject. What a shame a voice recorder was not running. What He taught over the course of those forty days will forever remain a sacred mystery.

In another mystery the Holy Scriptures continued to be written. This New Testament goes to a deeper level, for its describes the Birth, Life, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Son of God. That they must be understood is made clear from the beginning. At Jesus' Nativity, King Herod was driven nearly to madness trying to interpret the Scriptures relating to His extraordinary birth (Mt 2:3). Wise men from the East, the East renown for its depths of knowledge, pilgrimage to far off Bethlehem (of all places) visiting a cave to pay Him homage (Mt 2:10). A venerable sage of the Zion Temple has awaited His appearance for many decades, and when he sees Jesus, he interprets Him to be "the Sign of Contradiction," Who will overturn the order of things (Lu 2:25-34).

A decisive test of right interpretation comes at Caesarea-Philippi, in particular a mountain and cave at Banias. Jesus seats His followers before a scene of supreme power and meaning for the ancient world. They look upon the Grotto of Pan, the pagan god of all nature. They see statues of other pagan deities in booths (skene) carved into the mountain side. They view the imposing temple to Augustus Caesar, called divus, (man-become-god) by the Romans. In the foreground sits the One whose parables they have been striving to interpret and whose teachings that have tried to understand. They have been assembled here for what turns out be a kind of examination. There is one question on the test. But it is the question, the one which explains all:

Hasn't this been the essential question all along? "How can this be?" asks the Most Holy Theotokos bowing to an archangel. "Who can this be?" asks King Herod marveling at a star. "What is this birth?" the Persian wise men ask.

Has not the answer already been divulged to the Disciples? They ask, "Who then is this Who commands the winds and the seas, and they obey?" They have seen Him raise the dead .... three times, and one man after four days. He enacted His true role as God, feeding multitudes in the wilderness with a kind of manna.

The charges laid at His arrest involve His identity as a king, which Jesus declares plainly, but "not of this world." His subjects, He says, are "everyone who is of the truth." And on these grounds, which Pilate considers to be thin tissues of nothing, Jesus is acquitted:

But, you see, Pilate is caught in a rhetorical trap also having to do with kingship:

Pilate realizes that he could be implicated in sedition, whose penalty is death. After all, this is said not in passing but in a public forum whose precedings are recorded by a scribe. They could be interpreted wrongly by Caesar.

From His birth to the present moment, the nature of Jesus' Royal Identity has been the cause of tumult: from Herod's mania leading to the Slaughter of the Innocents to Jesus' promise to destroy the Temple, He indeed would be the One to overturn the order of things.

He says plainly,

But has not this tumult come through willful misinterpretation? He has clearly revealed Who He Is, but He and His Authority have been rejected. The story is told in the Scriptures: how He had washed a disobedient world away in the generation of Noah, how He had erased the rebellious cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and how He will cause the apostate temple on Mt. Zion to be torn down. Indeed, He will cause the whole of Jerusalem and its Babylonian-Persian cultus to be reduced to rubble. The program is clearly announced .... if you understand the Scriptures.

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I have heard that God became Man in order to die on a cross because of our sins. I have been told that all humans are gravely ill from their birth, that they suffer from a kind of cancer, that they are terminal, that their condition is inoperable. For this reason, they are helpless to do for themselves. And they are victims in the case of their immorality. So Jesus, the Good Shepherd, descends from Heaven to live among the wretched and to sweep all humans, in their immoral state, into Heaven with Him. I have heard it said.

I have heard it said that He would die on a cross that we might "wash ourselves in His blood." He would be the "sacrificial Lamb of the Passover" with His blood daubed over our door lintels.

But this is allegory, after all. It is a particular reading of the text. But as Jesus would say, "You are mistaken not knowing the Scriptures" (Mt 22:29). The problem with these interpretations are that they are chronically contradicted in the Gospels. In His parables we hear:

Wait a minute! You mean this man is responsible for his reprobate life? (the wedding garment signifying a clean soul). I thought no one was responsible because of our wretchedness which not of our doing. And he's not being swept into the Heaven on account of Jesus' famous mercy .... the Gospel according to St. Matthew.

In the Gospel narrative we see:

The Gospel counter-examples are too many to list in this reflection. For they go on and on and on. Jesus says that failure to heed His words will result in catastrophe "and the ruin of that house was great" (Lu 6:49). He curses the cities to destruction that have failed to receive His apostles (Mt 10:15). And He predicts that most people will be consigned to eternal perdition (Mt 7:14).

The interpretation of Scripture proposing Jesus to be "the sacrificial lamb" of the Passover arises from texts sacred to Judah, but are to one side of the purposes of Jesus and His followers, who are from the historical Kingdom of Israel.

The picture of humanity as irretrievably wretched, passive, and immoral was drawn by a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, Augustine, more than three centuries after Jesus' death, and is profoundly influential in the West. But the Orthodox picture of humanity is taken from Genesis. It is the picture of man living in an alien landscape but striving always to present before God a virtuous life. Our hero is Abraham called out of the Ur-city (that is, the original city) who always keeps to the cleansing wilderness. It is the story of his grandson Jacob, who encounters angels in the wilderness and the Ladder to Heaven. It is the story of Jacob's son Joseph who, surrounded by immorality and its temptations, nonetheless, chooses virtue. Joseph is superlatively virtuous man .... and a forgiving one. It is the story of John the Forerunner, who lived in the wilderness wearing only natural clothes and feeding on manna. It is the story of the disciples of Jesus who picked up their crosses and followed Him to ends of the earth. It is the story of suffering in the aspiration to "something better" (Heb 11:40). It is the story, my brother and sisters, of theosis. Why would anyone undertake the process of theosis if they are not responsible for anything and will be swept into Heaven at the end of the day?

But most of all it is the story of the Teacher, a title by which Jesus is addressed sixty-seven times in the Gospels. And what does He teach? All of His teachings, either direct or indirect, turn out to be on the royal subject of kingly nobility, of how we should behave. Through parables — of the Prodigal's Father, of the Good Samaritan, of the Forgiving King, to name three — He reveals different dimensions of royal virtues.

Through dramas that He manages through the people He meets — through the Canaanite woman, through St. Photini, and through the virtuous centurion, to name three — He teaches faithfulness. His teachings are tireless, through both example and counter-example, the subject is always the same.

His primary activity as revealed in the Gospels is to awaken us to our identities, out royal identities as heirs to a kingdom about which we had never heard: the Kingdom of God. He reveals the universal birthright to Heaven and our just claim to a noble birth. To this end, He encouraged, He taught, and He exhorted us to conduct ourselves according to the royal standard He had ordained when He made us.

You know people. How inspiring to meet with a noble soul! And how discouraging to meet someone who has recklessly abandoned what is most precious.

He set His Image upon us and His noble heart planted within us. Is it not true?

Yes, the fallen world is basically defective, but "Death to the world," for He has overcome the world (Jn 16:33).

He had prepared thrones for His disciples (Lu 22:19, Mt 19:28). Shall He do less for His faithful followers today? We are His brothers and sisters. We are royals. And do not all the workers in the faithful vineyard receive the same wage (Mt 20:1-16)? What, then, is His requirement upon us?

At His Conception, He renovated the Creation flipping its telos from death to eternal life (Athanasius, On the Incarnation). And in this new situation of all possibility, He called us to kingly nobility forbidding that we deface the royal Image. For we who follow the Great King

And the first and final proclamation of that praise is holy life, every day and always, to live holy life befitting our royal dignity. "Be perfect," He said (Mt 5:48).

Holy and royal people do not accept that the Teacher should lay down His life for His friends (Jn 15:13). That is what noble people do! It's not how they respond! They leap up and say, "No! This will never be! I will be the one to be put at hazard?" I know you two lion-hearted sisters. You would be the first to leap to your feet! But even a humble mother would do the same. Heaven forbid she should offer her little child so she could save her own hide! Damon stepped forward boldly to be a ransom for Pythias; Pythias stepped forward boldly to be a ransom for Damon. But no one stepped forward for Jesus.

Pilate gave them their cue. He gave to them more than once. He brought Jesus out before them, "saying, 'Do you not want me to release your King?'" (Mk 15:9). He had fed multitudes in the wilderness. He had taught them and exorcised them and healed them, even raised them from the dead. And now, one word was all that was required. Were they not capable of a resounding roar in their numbers. But just one word.

Shall we today celebrate this, memorialize this, take comfort from this, even claim to wash ourselves in His blood? Or shall we take up our own crosses at the foot of His cross, weeping, and soldier on, suffering in this world, even crucified by our persecutors?

The offer of a sincere and virtuous life, even at the last hour, is all that He requires. Jesus looked upon the rebellious spirit on His left, Gestas. He knows this man well enough, and he shall receive his just deserts. But His lively interest is on the man to His right, Dismas. This man has made the good confession. He truly regrets the ignoble things He had done. He asks not for reward but yearns only to set things right. He wants to be done with the past! And Jesus will crown this man who has decided down to the foundations of his soul for goodness.

The chaos, lies, and betrayal surrounding the Lord's crucifixion is the stuff of our lives today. Shall we throw in with the way of the world, or will we withdraw to a personal wilderness? Shall we give in to immorality and its temptations around us, or will we choose virtue if only because it is right? Shall we continue to despoil our lives, or will we embrace the godly image of our own royal selves?

All these things greatly matter. For standing behind Gestas is a lost world. It is a vast chaos, whose mind is sarcasm, irony, and cruelty. Its deceptions are many and dangerous.

Standing behind the man on Jesus' right are the sincere, the virtuous, and the good, whose mind is kindness and compassion. It is a coherent world, the most coherent and integral world, a world of trustworthiness, a world of reliability, a world that is rock solid. And that world is called the Kingdom of Heaven. Its destiny is a "marvelous light." Oh, yes, there may have been darknesses and shadows along the way, but those valleys have been erased through the graces of sincere regret and absolution.

It is the now that will matter from here on — living in the now, being true to this way of life, and being faithful to the Teacher who revealed it, doing whatever He has commanded (Jn 15:14-15).

We are a chosen generation through our faithfulness, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and God's own people. Praise Him! Give thanks to Him! Glorify Him! And we do all this by living the life He has ordained and commanded.

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