First Sunday of the Great Fast. Sunday of Orthodoxy. Memory of the Holy Prophets

Divine Liturgy of St Basil

Ambon Prayer 13

Our Holy Father Leo, Pope of Rome

Title

The Commitment that is called faith

Outline

We live in a world without trust and without commitment

Seeing is believing, we say, I will not trust beyond what I see.

I will commit to this project or group until I no longer see benefits - often unsaid in marriage ceremonies

The Holy Prophets committed fully and for life beyond anything they could see

They trusted the God they could not see

These included Moses, the greatest of them, whose trust and commitment was poorly expressed at first (he killed an Egyptian oppressing a Hebrew) but who nevertheless made a lifelong commitment. And it resulted in his leaving Egypt behind.

This included the victorious: Gideon and Barak (Deborah) and Samson and Jephthah, each with their weaknesses, but they took real risks before their victories. And these included a king like David and a prophet-judge like Samuel. They “conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.” And they did this because they trusted God and were committed to following his instructions.

But there was another side to all this: some were committed to God and trusted him completely, but their salvation was not this-worldly: “Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” We can put names to many of these heroes of the faith, and if the world was not worthy of them, they were worthy of God’s presence.

None of them, the victorious or the suffering, received the full promise, for God was waiting for us to come into the kingdom so that we could inherit together.

Among the people of trust and commitment were Philip and Nathanael

Philip had been called by Jesus one day and had stayed the night with him. He was so convinced that the next day, before Jesus could leave for Galilee, he called Nathanael. Notice what he says, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Those heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures, they had spoken and written about a coming one and I have met him!

Nathanael is rightly cautious: wrong town of origin and no evidence.

But when Jesus accurately points out his character - no guile or deceit - and then accurately says that he “saw” him before he Philip got to him, Nathanael responds with commitment: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

While Jesus welcomes his commitment, he gently points out that Nathanael has not seen anything yet: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” He would see him as Jacob saw God. But he would also see him crucified and then resurrected. But the trust, the commitment was there first.

The message is simple

All these OT and NT witnesses are alive now in the sphere of the spirit, a cloud of witnesses both to God and Jesus and to what we are doing.

The picture is that of runners in a stadium, the witnesses being in the stands. The runner strips off their warmup clothing and any other impediment - these says Hebrews are “sin, which clings to us closely.” And let us run the race of trust and commitment with perseverance, for we will need it. Yet while these are watching us, cheering us on, it is Jesus who ran the race first and ran the race with perfect trust in and commitment to God, who out of his anticipation of the joy of coming victory endured the cross. And whom we can see sitting there at the Father’s right hand.

The point is simple: all these worthies, those who won great victories and those who endured great sufferings have shown that we can do it. And Jesus is our great “pioneer” - he has run before us. The question is whether we will follow their examples and examine our lives to see if some sin is clinging to us, dragging us down, and run our own race after Jesus, accepting the suffering and anticipating the victory?

If we are committed to do this examination and follow him, great. But if not later in Hebrews chapter 12 there is one of the many warnings in Hebrews and the alternative is not pretty. It is better to keep our eyes on Jesus.