The physician came close

Visitation of healing

Blessed feast of Nativity. It has been quiet an interesting year for us full of blessings and challenges.

In this past year at SBSS we have made a collective effort to be present and active in our local community. We have served meals on a monthly basis with an emphasis on Thanksgiving and Christmas, provided school supplies, invited kids in and spoke to them of the gospel, and had an amazing Christmas party for the neighborhood.

In the process people have begun asking us about our church and what orthodoxy. Part of the answer is that we are an Apostolic Church.

What does it mean to be an apostolic church?

COMMON ANSWER: Christ taught the 12 disciples and they taught their disciples and so on. We hold on to the apostolic succession.

BUT what did the apostles do? The went out every and EVANGELIZED...

They told everyone everywhere about the the good news of Jesus Christ. That God came to us, humanity, as a human to heal and to save.

THE MESSAGE OF THE GOSPEL STARTS WITH THE NATIVITY

There wasn’t a demographic, race or geographical region that they excluded from the message.

It was both what they taught and what they did that made them apostles.

LIKEWISE IT IS BOTH WHAT WE TEACH AND WHAT WE DO AS A CHURCH THAT MAKES US AN APOSTOLIC CHURCH

Their acts of apostleship was modeled after our Lord, who came to us on this blessed day of Nativity.

Christ in coming to us through His incarnation desired to share with us and this world, healing and salvation to all who would receive Him.

His Holiness spoke about a light that shined overcoming the darkness of night. That was and is the template of evangelism. To shine in the darkness.

Bishop Kara’s in his festal letter said...

“When Christ has room in our hearts, our countenance will be in His likeness. We will be the salt of the earth and a light to the world, as an epistle of Christ read by all.”

The message of healing and salvation for all is made possible because of the incarnation.

For Jesus the King when about to become our Physician, girded Himself with the linen of humanity , and healed that which was sick. The perfect Teacher of babes became a babe among babes, that He might give wisdom to the foolish. The Bread of heaven came down on earth that He might feed the hungry.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical lecture 12

FINAL THOUGHT

I pray in this upcoming year that we would continue to grow as an apostolic community both in what we teach and what we do knowing that it was modeled after the coming of Christ who both taught us and served us.