Rebellion and Return
by: Father Anthony Michaels
The following was presented on Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 as the featured sermon at Vespers at the 47th Bi-annual convention of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Christian Archdiocese of North America.
The plans of God are always slowed by those persons who won’t forgive and by those who don’t repent! Repentance is much more than having compunction, as important as this is. For us repentance is a condition not a decision as such. It is not put into a legal metaphor of judge, jury, sentence, punishment, etc. It is not an introspective self-analysis and examination.
Repentance is the flip side of love. Love always brings us to Him, and it is stronger than sin. Pride says I can’t; a broken and contrite heart says I can – I can trust God when He says though your sins are like scarlet I will wash you white as snow, or when He says “You shall be as gods.”
It’s not so much that we believe in God, God believes in us. God is like a good mother who always sees her child as the best, the brightest and the most beautiful. It is as if He is always making the heavenly host sit by His throne and watch home movies of His children growing up, every little detail which is fascinating only to Him. Or He is like Baby Heuy, the enormous duck, who always wants to play with the little ducks but His shear ponderousness makes it almost impossible. God is a ponderous presence. He is like the father who cries more when he has to punish his children who should be disciplined. There is a little song verse that goes: “The redeemed never knew how deep were the waters crossed or how dark was the night that the Lord went through until He found the sheep that was lost.”
In the prayers before communion we read: “Sunk in the depths of sin, I call on the unfathomable abyss of Thy compassion. . .” “But I also know that neither the greatness of my transgressions nor the multitude of my sins surpass the great patience of my God and His extreme love for mankind.”
And the priest is given by Christ a great power to extend divine forgiveness to effect lasting, ever-lasting reconciliation: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained (Jn. 20.23)” “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Mat. 18.18)” The beautiful story of Joseph forgiveness of his brother really captures the essence of godliness and repentance.
Repentance is often defined as “metoniana” or “meta – nous” after or above and beyond the mind, something that transcends the earth and becomes a heavenly apprehension, a vision of God.
Apostasy means “apo” from “standing” or off or falling away from a stationary position, being off center, unstable, falling away or desertion of duty, being AWOL. In a sense its not being able to stand with God, to be His beloved. The prophet David had the courage to repent, to turn around and face the magnanimous God, because sinful man is only held together by piano wire and duck tape, he is cobbled together, flesh and blood – not having the stability of glory as before. So he cannot face the fire of God’s perfect loving presence: “Now, therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of our Lord God anymore. For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire, as we have, and has still lived?”(Deut. 5.25-26)
The world of the passions in which we live is always falling away. In the Bible there is a recurring pattern: Apostasy, captivity, repentance, and deliverance. That is the way it is in the spiritual journey for each of us. “As the world turns,” is a soap opera, in a sense life in this world is always a soap opera.
There is a tradition in the Church described by spiritual fathers like St. Isaac the Syrian of “Apocatastasis” which is akin the “Eschatais” or “Apostasis” . It is the return of all things after the end of all things. Falling away is somehow a prelude the drawing near to the Kingdom as one half of the circle of existence.