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Homily
for the Epiphany 2008
Titus
2:11-14; 3:4-7
“The
grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all and training us to renounce
impiety and worldly passions and to live in the present age lives that are
self-controlled, upright, and godly.
When
the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not
because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his
mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit
he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”
The
feast of today is called “The feast of the Theophany of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ”. Theophany (from Greek, Theos = God, Phaino =
appear) is the appearance and manifestation of God. God appeared to us
as he is: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is what we proclaim in the
troparion: “At your Baptism in the Jordan River, O Christ, the worship due to
the Holy Trinity was made manifest, for the voice of the Father bore you witness
by calling you ‘beloved Son’, and the Holy Spirit, in the form of a Dove,
confirmed the immutability of this word.” The feast of today is about our
salvation. We are saved by the manifestation of the Holy Trinity and by our
rebirth through our union with the Holy Trinity.
I
want to stress today on 4 words which explain this idea of salvation:
Consecration, Conscious Knowledge, Contemplation and Consolation.
1) Consecration: This word means to be make “sacred” “with” (from
the Latin “cum”). When we are saved we become sacred, holy with God,
holy by the holiness of God. That is Grace. That is what
St. Paul
says: “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation”, and “God
our Savior saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we have
done, but according to his mercy.” We are made holy through the water
of rebirth. Bu Baptism we become a new being, we become children of
God.
God loves each and every one of us, because he sees in each and every one of us
a bit of himself. After our Baptism he said to every one of us, “This is my
beloved Son.”
2) Conscious Knowledge. To know is good. But any knowledge, any science
does not give salvation, because it is limited and finite, and we are created
for the infinite. Only the knowledge with God (cum, science) gives
us the perfect knowledge. In his priestly prayer Jesus said: “The eternal
life is to know you, Father, and the one you sent, Jesus Christ.” When we
know God, and we know our identity with God, we are saved, we are in the light,
and we are in the truth: we know where we came from and where we are going. We
know our origin: we came from the love of God; and we know our destiny: we are
going to live eternally with God. And this knowledge of the truth gives us
happiness.
3) Contemplation. (From the Latin also: cum and tempus = time).
We are saved by spending our time with God and according to God’s will.
That’s what
St. Paul
says: “to renounce impiety and worldly passions and to live in the present
age lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.” There are in Greek
two words for ‘time’, chronos and kairos. The chronos
is the chronological time, which spans the surface of life, with its events,
good and bad, sometimes meaningful some other times meaningless. The kairos
is the contemplative time which goes down into the depths of wisdom and true
knowledge, and gives our life its true meaning. It is the time of God, the time
of the
Kingdom
of
God
. As saved Christians we believe that time is a time with God, because it is the
time of God with us. When Jesus came, he was called “Emmanuel”, that means
“God with us”. With the coming of Jesus, “God with us”, the chronos
became kairos, the time became filled with the presence of God. From all
eternity we were with God. Before the foundation of the world we were in the
mind and the love of God. Then in the time he decided to create us. Before the
foundation of the world God had decided to send his Word to save us. Then in the
fullness of time he sent him to us.
4) Consolation. Consolation means that we are no more alone. In our
solitude God is with us (cum, solo). Jesus is Emmanuel, that means God with us, and the Holy Spirit Jesus
called him the consoler, because, after the departure of Jesus, the Holy Spirit
is with us, so that we do not remain alone. Woe to the one who is alone, living
in solitude, without any consoler.
These
four words explain our salvation and our identity as saved Christians.
1)
We are consecrated, that means we are made holy by the grace of God, and we
commit ourselves to live in holiness with God and accordance to God’s will.
2)
We are conscious of our identity; we know who we are through the knowledge of
Christ who is the truth and the light.
3)
We spend our time in company with God, through contemplation, prayer and reading
of the Holy Scripture. And in our secular life we live the time according to the
time of the
kingdom
of
God
, in holiness and according to God’s will.
4)
And in our whole life even in the most difficult times, in illness or in
presence of the death of our loved ones, we believe that we are never alone. The
Spirit of God is with us. And Jesus is with us until the end of the world.
This is the meaning of the feast of today, “The
feast of the Theophany of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
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