Holy Ghost Orthodox Church
Bridgeport, CT
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“The Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me, and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
Today, as we celebrate the Leave-taking of the Myrrh-bearers, Our Lord reminds us of a fundamental aspect of the life of the Church, his Body and his Bride. Our Lord is himself uniquely fully divine and fully human, though a single person. In a similar way, in his Church, the divine and human operate together.
The Spirit of God testifies of Christ within the company of the faithful and within the heart of each believer, but then it is up to the Christian faithful to testify of Christ to the world.
The Spirit was sent by the Lord to lead his disciples into all truth, and he did so in order that the disciples themselves—the holy apostles, the myrrh-bearing women—could in turn share that truth with the world.
This movement or pattern does not apply only to that first generation of disciples, those who had been with him in the beginning. In today’s epistle reading, we hear how St. Paul, straightaway after his encounter with the crucified and risen Lord and his baptism, is already preaching Christ in the synagogues, speaking boldly in the Name of the Lord Jesus.
But, as Our Lord says in today’s Gospel, and as Saint Paul’s early career as a traveling evangelist illustrates, the world does not always welcome the good news of Jesus Christ with open arms.
In fact, Our Lord guarantees that, if we love him and one another, then the world will hate us. And the bold testimony of the newly-converted Paul proved this true when the Jews of Damascus hatched a murder plot and Paul had to be lowered from the walls of the city in a basket.
It is through the efforts of generations of apostles, preachers, and teachers—generations of witnesses, of martyrs and confessors—that we have received the Orthodox Christian faith. We have encountered and received the testimony of Spirit-bearing Christians, those still living in this world and those who live forever in heaven—the saints—and we have received the same Spirit that dwelt in them. Now that inheritance, that witness, belongs to us.
This means, on the one hand, that God is, as it were, relying on us to share the Gospel with the world. In the same way he chose generations of apostles and fathers and martyrs, so he has chosen us to bear witness to him in our time and place.
In the same way he chose the myrrh-bearers to share the Good News with the disciples, and the disciples to share the Good News with the world, so he has chosen us to share that news with neighbors, strangers, friends, and enemies—whoever may cross our path.
Does this mean that all of us are called to be preachers, to go out in the streets and evangelize passers-by, to sign up for missions in distant lands?
No, of course it does not. In one of his epistles, Saint Paul asks the question rhetorically: “Are all apostles? Are all teachers?” And the answer he expects from his audience is “No.”
And yet, we are all called to bear witness to Christ in some way.
In this day and age, merely to make the time to attend church services is an act of witness. To make a financial commitment to the church is an act of witness. To forgo some fleeting pleasure because of our obligation to fast and pray is an act of witness. To reject flagrant vice for self-restraint and modest, simple behavior—even this is an act of witness.
And, because these acts of witness testify of the Lord whom the world hates, we know that the world will hate us, too.
We commit to attending divine services regularly, but so many other activities rise up to stand in the way—sports, leisure, time spent in laziness.
We make a serious financial commitment to the parish—perhaps a tithe of our income—but then at the first small sign of money tightening up, we grow afraid and are tempted to renege.
We resolve to fast in accordance with the Church’s traditions and keep a daily rule of prayer, but sleep and comfort food and streaming services seem so much more appealing after our first hard day.
We desire to live as Christians should, laying aside every worldly vice. Greed, selfishness, lust, judging others, self-indulgence, anger, hatred, blaming others, complaining, despondency, despair—all of these are sins from which we must flee. But every force in the world, from media and entertainment to school to office culture tries to persuade us that these vices are in fact virtues.
When these small acts of witness provoke the hatred of the world—when these little resolutions result in such great spiritual warfare—we may be tempted to give up. We may ask ourselves: do such little efforts matter at all?
But of course, to judge our efforts does not belong to us, but to the Lord. Ours is simply to bear faithful witness; his it is to judge and reward as he sees fit. And we never know how our small acts of faith—the basic work of Christian living—may influence others.
As I said at the beginning, in the Church, the divine and the human work together. The Spirit bears witness in us, and we bear witness to one another, sometimes in ways we don’t expect, notice, or ever realize. We never know what potentially great saints may be out there, waiting to be inspired by our little works of devotion and faithfulness.
Just as the myrrh-bearers and apostles had their part, and the fathers had their part, and the ascetics and the martyrs have their parts, so do we have our part to play in bearing witness to Jesus Christ and carrying forward that witness to the world throughout space and time.
And if we are faithful in little, then we have the Lord’s promise that he will put us over much in the age to come—for even the smallest portion in the kingdom of heaven is much greater than anything in this world.
And so, bearing humble witness to him in faithful simplicity, placing our hope in his words, his help, and his providence, let us send up all glory to him: Our Lord and God Jesus Christ, together with his Father and the Spirit of truth. Amen.