DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS
Saint Luke 7:11-16
(10/9-10/22)
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Glory to the Lifegiver: Saint
Luke 7:11-16, especially vs. 16: “...they
glorified God, saying, ‘...God has visited His people.’” People
of every culture and religion inescapably must deal with human mortality, our
universal reality. We die, a
certainty that the Prophet Job faced and recognized: “For mortal man born
of woman is short-lived, and full of wrath. He falls like a flower that blooms. And like a shadow, he does not
continue” (Job 14:1,2).
Saint Luke reports a meeting between Christ and a dead man
being taken to his grave. The
Lord approaches the man’s mother in the funeral procession. Her circumstances are most poignant, for
she is a widow. Sadness
envelopes her. She is bereft
of her only son and of livelihood.
But Christ, the Life-Giver and Destroyer of death, changes everything.
Concerning this scene Saint Cyril of Alexandria says:
“But there meets him Christ, the Life and Resurrection, for He is the
destroyer of death and of corruption; He it is ‘in Whom we live and move
and have our being’ (see Acts 17:28); He it is Who has restored the nature
of man to that which it originally was; and has set free our death-fraught
flesh from the bonds of death.”
The meeting upsets the inevitability of death, for Life Himself comes
with compassion and triumphs over death.
He gives us cause to glorify Him as The Lifegiver.
Being Jews, the people of Nain responded to the astounding
turn of events there in an appropriately Jewish manner: they perceived the Lord
Jesus to be a great Prophet through Whom God had “...visited His
people” (Lk. 7:16). As is traditional with Jews, most did
not believe in immortality of the soul, a theory among many religions and
cultures. Undoubtedly, some, at
Nain, believed in a general resurrection (Jn. 11:24), but most others believed,
as did the son of Korah: “I am counted with
them that go down to the pit; I am become as a man without help, free among the
dead, like the bodies of the slain that sleep in the grave, whom Thou rememberest no more, and they are cut off from Thy
hand” (Ps. 87:4,5). They did not perceive Christ to be the
Life-giving Wisdom of God Who tramples down death.
Among the peoples of earth who believe in immortality of
the soul, an awareness persists that the physical end
of life is not the entire story. In
the Far East, the great sages and practitioners of Buddhism and Hinduism
believe that each soul travels through a succession of physical bodies, one
after another, until it reaches full, irreversible enlightenment, to merge with
the great Mind and leave forever the delusions of the cycle of birth and death. The believers in Islam hold that
righteous and worthy Muslims, after death, go to an eternal paradise with all
the blessed ones who have followed the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. The world’s shamanistic believers,
like the followers of Shinto in Japan and like many of the world’s tribal
peoples, hold similar beliefs in the endurance of the soul beyond death.
Be attentive: Christ, the Wisdom of God reveals and frees
us from longing for ‘life after death’ or from resignation in the
face of final extinction. At Orthros on Sundays, the Angel’s words to the
Myrrh-bearing women are recited: “In that He is God, He is risen from the grave.” Today’s reading likewise
discloses, “in that He is God,” He naturally resuscitated a corpse,
having mastery over death and life.
The revelation of resurrection that the Jews had received from God was
correct, but incomplete. Christ
Jesus is “...the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep;”
what is more, in Him “...all shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:20,22). Give glory
to Holy Wisdom Who is Life in Himself, and seek mercy
from Him (Jn. 5:26).
O Giver of life, Glory to Thy Resurrection! Glory to Thy Kingdom! Glory to Thy providence, O Thou Who alone art the lover of mankind.
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