Hesychasm

This comes from the Greek hesychia, meaning “stillness” or “quiet.” This is the theological backbone of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It focuses on the pursuit of theosis – divine union with God. At its core, Hesychasm is a tradition of prayer that seeks to find God through inner silence & the cessation of all thoughts.

The “engine” of Hesychasm is the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” (We think that even if you aren’t religious/spiritual, we’ve all prayed this prayer before!) Unlike Western meditation, which often involves visualizing scenes from the Bible, Hesychasm is apophatic (negative).

The goal is to strip away images, concepts, & intellectual chatter to reach a state of “pure prayer.” Practitioners (known as Hesychasts) aim to move the prayer from the lips to the mind, & finally, into the heart.

In the 14th century, certain techniques were popularized to help the mind. These include:

• Breath Control:
  • Syncing the prayer with the rhythm of breathing.
• Posture:
  • Sitting for long periods with the chin resting on the chest, eyes fixed on the “place of the heart.”
• The Goal:
  • To achieve a state where the prayer becomes “unceasing,” continuing even while the monk sleeps or works.

The history of Hesychasm is defined by a massive 14th century intellectual “cage match.” On one side, Gregory Palamas, a monk from Mount Athos. On the other side, Barlaam of Calabria, a Western-influenced scholar who thought the monks were essentially deluding themselves with “belly-button gazing.”

Barlaam argued that God is absolutely transcendent & unknowable. Therefore, any claim to “see” God was impossible or heretical. Palamas countered with a distinction that saved Eastern mysticism: The Essence vs The Energies.

The Divine Essence:

God’s inner nature, which remains forever hidden & inaccessible to any created being.

The Divine Energies:

God’s “activities” or “operations” (like Love, Grace, & Light) that permeate the world & can be directly experienced by humans.

Palamas argued that when the Apostles saw Jesus glowing on Mount Tabor (the Transfiguration), they weren’t seeing a metaphor. They were seeing the Uncreated Light of God’s Energies. Hesychasts claim through intense prayer, they too can see this Taboric Light.

Palamas wasn’t just a “cloud-dweller.” He was a brilliant aristocrat who gave a promising career at the Byzantine imperial county to become a monk. When Barlaam attacked the monks’ practices as “superstitious,” Palamas wrote the Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts. He bridged the gap between the experiential “feeling” of the monks & the rigorous theology of the Church.

Palamas was even imprisoned for a time during a civil war. But he was eventually vindicated.

In 1351, his theology was officially adopted by the Orthodox Church. To this day, the Second Sunday of Great Lent is dedicated to him. He’s the reason Eastern Orthodoxy views God not as a distant object of study. But as a personal presence to be participated in.

For centuries, Hesychasm was mainly confined to monasteries like Mount Athos. In 1782, a massive anthology called the Philokalia (“Love of the Beautiful”) was published. It collected the writings of the desert fathers & Hesychast masters from the 4th to the 15th centuries.

This book sparked a massive revival. In Russia, it was translated into Slavic (The Dobrotolyubie), fueling the “Elder” (Starets) tradition seen in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. In the 19th century, a tiny book called The Way of a Pilgrim (about a wandering Russian peasant practicing the “Jesus Prayer”) became an international sensation introducing the “Jesus Prayer” to millions of non-Orthodox Christians.

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The Son of God’s attributes

For with God nothing will be impossible.” Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. Luke 1:34-38

#Attributes #faith #jesus #Messiah #NothingIsImpossibleForGod #salvation #SonOfGod #SonOfMan

https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/christians-issues/the-son-of-gods-attributes/

The Son of God’s purpose

Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
John 12:27

#faith #Godspurpose #jesus #lightforthelastdaysmagazine #Messiah #salvation #SonOfGod #SonOfMan

https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/christians-issues/the-son-of-gods-purpose/

Epiphany: God for Us

https://youtu.be/YrKuhrrXSns

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

At times, in the cool, dark of January and after all the festivities have wound down and the decorations and ornaments have been packed up, one can feel alone, unseen, unheard. Going from Thanksgiving to New Years is a tour of parties and engagements, concerts and events, gatherings and celebrations. One can feel swept up and out of banalities of regular life, being entertained from one moment to another.

As a parent of three children, each of whom is in a different stage of education, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of sweet returns and homecomings as semesters end and all the kids come home to stay, the onslaught of various concerts and parties threatening to overlap, and the rush of shopping, dining, traveling, and being ushered from one family visit to the next. This energy carries all the way through the first week of January. And then… Silence. And everything slows all…. the…. way…. down as if being caught in mud.

It’s not just parents who suffer the experience of the radical shifts between up and down, loud and quiet, active and inactive. Everyone feels it. The first few weeks of January, in the stillness, darkness, and coldness of the month, pose the greatest challenges for mental health; these can be the hardest weeks for our friends and family working with and through depression and grief, sorrow and loss, anxiety and despair, loneliness and alienation. The big drop after the cessation of the holiday feasts and fests paves the way for a dark cloud to loom over vulnerable humanity.

Thus, our orientation outside of ourselves is even more important as we tumble out of celebrations and land on that regular and blah day to day. Last week, Luke guided us to refocus our attention on the initial vibrations of the beginning movement of God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the tween Jesus. Today, Matthew continues that refocusing outside of ourselves and on to another. Matthew tells us a story of the divine Son, Jesus the Christ, who identifies with us in all aspects of our life from the greatest of great to the lowest of lows.

Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus has no need for a baptism of repentance[ii] like the one Matthew tells us John is offering to those gathering to and in the river Jordan.[iii] And yet, Jesus shows up. Matthew tells us, At that time Jesus arrives from Galilee to the Jordan toward John to be baptized by him (v13). The sinless one, the Son of Humanity and the Son of God, shows up for the purpose of being baptized by John like everyone else. However, everyone else in that river needed to confess, needed to be washed clean, needed to repent.[iv] But Jesus is not like everyone else; John knows this. John nearly refuses Jesus this event, as Matthew tells us, But John was hindering him, saying, “I, I have need to be baptized by you, and you, you come to me?!” (v.14). Our English version makes it sound like John was speaking it as if from a script but not acting on it. I think he was acting on it with all the passion of a Palestinian Jewish man. With the emphasis embedded in the original language, John is (literally) astounded[v] by Jesus coming to him; it wouldn’t be farfetched to imagine Jesus’s cousin holding Jesus back by the shoulders with wet hands, confessing such words. John’s astonishment and confession to Jesus showing up in the Jordan will be echoed in Peter’s similar astonishment and confession when Jesus goes to wash his feet. God on the move is always on the move in a way that defies human reason and common sense.

Jesus (lovingly) replies to John’s passion not with chastisement or offense, but acknowledges that John’s not wrong, but here in this moment God is up to something different, something that doesn’t make sense, something that is new, something that will fracture the stagnant and toxic status-quo (the status quo he witnessed all those years ago in his week-long stay in the temple). Matthew tells us, Now, Jesus answered him and said, “You permit me just now; for, in this way, it is fitting for us to fulfill all justice.” At that time, [John] permits him (v15). Jesus links his being baptized to the fulfillment of (divine) justice. But what divine justice is being fulfilled here in the sinless God-man being baptized like a regular sinful human being? It is the justice of God that is fulfilled in identifying[vi] with the plight and predicament of God’s people.[vii] And it is through this identification with God’s people—in their highs and especially their lows—that God’s justice is manifest among and in those who are oppressed (spiritually and politically).[viii] Divine justice, divine righteousness is not about what one has (as if it is something we can possess on our own right); it’s about having a fleshy heart and a humble mind that drives one to live life before God in a human way with the people of God[ix] for the goal of “keeping human life human.”[x]

Matthew continues the story, telling us about what happened after Jesus is baptized, Jesus immediately ascended from the water. And, behold!, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove coming upon him. And, behold!, a voice out of heaven saying, “This one is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well-pleased!” (vv16-17). Something new is afoot and God is making Godself known in and through Jesus ascending out of the water and the dove descending to alight on him. Here we have clear images of new creation, of love, of life, of liberation. Jesus ascends from the midst of the water like his ancestors before him crossing the Red Sea to find themselves liberated from the oppression of Egypt; the dove descends and lands on firm ground that is the Christ, the son of God and the son of Humanity, much like Noah’s dove after the flood.[xi]

But what is significant here is the way God makes it known (directly and without mediation[xii]) that God identifies with Jesus and Jesus identifies with God. This is my son, the Beloved…Jesus identifies with the people and identifies with God. In that God identifies with Jesus, who identifies with the people, means that God identifies with the people in and through Christ. In this way, Jesus represents God to humanity and humanity to God.[xiii] In Jesus the Christ, the son of God and the Son of Humanity, humanity and God are united forever. In this way, humanity, the yous and mes of this world, participate by faith in being the Beloved with whom God is well pleased.

Conclusion

We hear this story every year, but do we pause long enough to consider the significance of Jesus taking a baptism of repentance he didn’t need? There’s no logical conclusion except for his desire (thus, God’s desire) to identify with the plight of humanity in its ups and especially in its downs. The Sinless one identifies with the sinful ones, and it’s this profound and earthy and fleshy identification that marks the very beginning of Jesus’s active ministry. If you’ve ever wondered if God is for you, Epiphany gives us a resounding HECK YES, GOD IS FOR YOU!

And not just for you when you are up, when you are “too blessed to be stressed,” when you are clean, neat, put together, organized, straightened up, physically killing it at work and at the gym, spiritually killing it in your quiet time and charity. Epiphany highlights and emphasizes that God is with us at our worst: in our desperate need to confess, to be washed, to repent. God is with us when our acts are not together, when we can barely get out of bed, when we just can’t anymore, when we are depressed and despairing, when we are consumed with grief and emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual pain, when we bare tremendous burdens of loss and sorrow, when we want to quit and when we do. God is with us when we fail. God is with us when our shoulders and backs feel as if they are about to break with the burdens. And what’s more? God is with us when society is against us, threatens us when we are different, and condemns us because we have need, because we lack, because we can’t rise to the demands of a system dead set on devouring us.

Epiphany is the unmediated voice of God telling you, telling us, that we are unquestioningly, undoubtedly, unconditionally accepted by God because God chose to identify with us on no other condition than God’s love and pleasure made known in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 117. “The first appearance of the adult Jesus in Matthew’s story takes place in the context of John’s baptism, with Jesus as John’s Galilean ‘follower’ … who receives baptism along with the repentant Judean crowds.”

[iii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 50. “John has been preaching a baptism that signifies repentance. Why would Jesus need to be baptized? What does he need to repent? Our theological tradition has insisted that Jesus is without sin.”

[iv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 51. “Regular ritual washing with water was widely practiced within Judaism and its symbolism of cleansing form sin was understood. This singular experience of ‘baptism’ that John was practicing is more reminiscent of the practice of ‘proselyte baptism.’ When Gentiles converted they were baptized. In extending this practice to everyone, John is in effect declaring that everyone stands in need of conversion, signaling their repentance and turning to God. Even the religious leaders stood in need of baptism.”

[v] Merriam-Webster “Astounded”, “feeling or showing great surprise or wonder”

[vi] France, Matthew, 120. “The most obvious away in which Jesus’ baptism prepares for his mission is by indicating his solidarity with John’s call to repentance in view of the arrival of God’s kingship. By identifying with John’s proclamation Jesus lays the foundation for his own mission to take on where John has left off.”

[vii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. “One way we might understand Jesus’ presenting himself for baptism is a sign of his solidarity with sinners. In this context, ‘to fulfill all righteousness’ is to be with God’s people, stand in their place, share in their penitence, live their life, die their death.”

[viii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. Righteousness/justice according to Hebrew thought, “It is about the establishment of God’s will that justice should everywhere prevail. God’s righteousness is connected with ‘vindication,’ ‘deliverance,’ and ‘salvation’…God’s righteousness is seen in God’s special regard for those who are powerless or oppressed and stand in need of justice.”

[ix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. “Thus righteousness is not to be conceived as a static quality that one possesses (what one is) but rather a matter of what one does in living life before God.”

[x] Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context.

[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50-51. “That he is baptized in the Jordan (v. 3) recalls the crossing of the Jordan into the promised land. That when he comes up from the water, the Spirit descends like a ‘dove’ reminds us of the links between water and Spirit in Genesis, as ‘a wind from God swept over the waters’ (Gen.:2). After the flood Noah sends out a dove. Themes of creation and new creation are reverberating here.”

[xii] France, Matthew, 122. Divine voice, “…the most unmediated access to God’s own view of Jesus.”

[xiii] France, Matthew, 120. “Further, as Jesus is baptized along with others at the Jordan, he is identified with all those who by accepting John’s baptism have declared their desire for a new beginning with God.” (representation)

#AnnaCaseWinters #Baptism #Beloved #DivineLiberation #DivineLife #DivineLove #Epiphany #GoodNews #HumanPlight #HumanPredicament #Identification #January #Jesus #JesusTheChrist #JesusSBaptism #Liberation #Life #Love #RTFrance #SonOfGod #SonOfHumanity #TheGospelOfMatthew

Quote of the day, 30 November: St. John of the Cross

Let us rejoice, Beloved,
and let us go forth to behold ourselves in your beauty
to the mountain and to the hill,
to where the pure water flows,
and further, deep into the thicket.

The Spiritual Canticle (Redaction B), Stanza 36

To the mountain and to the hill

That is: to the morning and essential knowledge of God, which is knowledge in the divine Word, who in his height is signified here by the mountain. That they may know the Son of God, Isaiah urges all: Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord [Is 2:3]; in another passage: The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared [Is 2:2].

“And to the hill,” that is, to the evening knowledge of God, which is God’s wisdom in his creatures, works, and wondrous decrees. The hill suggests this wisdom because it is not as high as the morning wisdom. Yet the soul asks for both the evening and the morning wisdom when she says: “To the mountain and to the hill.”

The soul in urging the Bridegroom, “Let us go forth to the mountain to behold ourselves in your beauty,” means: Transform me into the beauty of divine Wisdom and make me resemble that which is the Word, the Son of God. And in adding “to the hill,” she asks that he inform her with the beauty of this other, lesser wisdom contained in his creatures and other mysterious works. This wisdom is also the beauty of the Son of God by which the soul desires to be illumined.

The soul cannot see herself in the beauty of God unless she is transformed into the wisdom of God, in which she sees herself in possession of earthly and heavenly things. The bride wanted to come to this mountain and to this hill when she asserted: I shall go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense [Song 4:6]. The mountain of myrrh refers to the clear vision of God and the hill of incense to the knowledge of creatures, for the myrrh on the mountain is more choice than the incense on the hill.

Saint John of the Cross

The Spiritual Canticle, st. 36, nos. 6–8

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: King Range National Conservation Area near Whitethorn, California, is the first National Conservation Area in the United States, designated in 1970. The King Range encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of California’s dramatic north coast, where the landscape was too rugged for highway building. Accessible by only a few back roads, this remote region of mountains and seascapes is also known as California’s Lost Coast. Image credit: Bureau of Land Management – California (Some rights reserved)

#beauty #mountain #sonOfGod #stJohnOfTheCross #wisdom

The divinity of the Lord Jesus

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, Romans 1:20

#divinity #faith #jesus #Messiah #salvation #SonOfGod #SonOfMan

https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/christians-issues/the-divinity-of-the-lord-jesus/

Who denies the relationship between Father and Jesus the Son?

Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. 1 John 2:22-23

#Antichrist #jesus #Messiah #salvation #SonOfGod #SonOfMan

https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/christians-issues/who-denies-the-relationship-between-father-and-jesus-the-son/