Today, we remember St. Mary of Egypt.
Our Savior, Both God and Man
We confess one and the same individual as perfect god and perfect Man. He is God the Word Which was flesh.
For if He was not flesh, why was Mary chosen? And if He is not God, whom does Gabriel call Lord?
If He was not flesh, who was laid in a manger? And if He is not god, whom did the angels who came down from heaven glorify?
If He was not flesh, who was wrapped in swaddling clothes? And if He is not God, in whose honor did the star appear?
If He was not flesh, whom did Simeon hold in his arms? And if He is not God, to whom did Simeon say: Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace?
If he was not flesh, whom did Joseph take when he fled into Egypt? And if He is not god,who fulfilled the prophesy: Our of Egypt have I called my Son?
If He was not flesh, whom did John baptize? And if He is not God, to whom did the Father say: This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased?
If He was not flesh, who hungered in the desert? And if He is not God, unto whom did the angels come and minister?
If He was not flesh, who was invited to the marriage in Cana of Galilee? And if He is not God, who turned the water into wine?
If He was not flesh, who took the loaves in the desert? And if He is not God, who fed the five thousand men and their women and children with five loaves and two fishes?
If he was not flesh, who slept in the ship? And if He is not God, who rebuked the waves and the sea?
If He was not flesh, with whom did Simon the Pharisee sit at meat? And if He is not God, who forgave the sins of the harlot?
If He was not flesh, who wore a man’s garment? And if He is not God, who healed the woman with an issue of blood when she touched His garment?
If He was not flesh, who spat on the ground and made clay? And if He is not God, who gave sight to the eyes of the blind man with that clay?
If He was not flesh, who wept at Lazarus’ grave? And if He is not god, who commanded him to come forth out of the grave four days after his death?
If He was not flesh, whom did the Jews arrest in the garden? And if He is not God, who cast them to the ground with the words: I am He?
If He was not flesh, who was judged before Pilate? And if he is not God, who frightened Pilate’s wife in a dream?
If he was not flesh, whose garments were stripped from Him and parted by the soldiers? And if He is not God, why was the sun darkened upon His crucifixion?
If He was not flesh, who was crucified on the cross? And if He is not God, who shook the foundations of the earth?
If He was not flesh, whose hands and feet were nailed to the cross? And if He is not God, how did it happen that the veil of the temple was rent in twain, the rocks were rent, and the graves were opened?
If He was not flesh, who hung on the cross between the two thieves? And if He is not God, how could He say to the thief: Today thou shalt be with me in paradise?
If He was not flesh, who cried out and gave up the ghost? And if He is not God, whose cry caused many bodies of the saints which slept to arise?
If He was not flesh, whom did the women see laid in the grave? And if He is not God, about whom did the angel say to them: he has arisen, He is not here?
If He was not flesh, whom did Thomas touch when he put his hands into the prints of the nails? And if He is not God, who entered through the doors that were shut?
If He was not flesh, who ate at the sea of Tiberias? And if He is not god, on whose orders were the nets filled with fishes?
If He was not flesh, whom did the apostles see carried up into heaven? And if He is not God, who ascended to the joyful cries of the angels, and to whom did the Father proclaim: sit at My right hand?
If He is not God and man then, indeed, our salvation is false, and false are the pronouncements of the prophets.
A Spiritual Psalter: Reflections on God, by St. Ephraim the Syrian. I recommend this version over the previously-linked PDF, though.
Beneath a stone grass is trying to grow
Beneath a stone grass is trying to grow, having become hunchbacked from seeking light and ashen-faced from lack of light. Great is my joy as a mortal, when I lift the stone and see the grass straightening itself up and becoming green.
Was not Your joy even greater, Immortal Lord, when You lifted the stone that the world had rolled over my soul, hunchbacked and ashen-faced?
St. Nicolai Velimirovich, Prayers by the Lake
Pandora’s Box
Protestant rejections of the authority of the Roman church produced an open-ended range of rival truth claims about what the Bible meant. Correlatively, they yielded rival claims about what the Christian good was and how it was to be lived in community.
Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation
The parallel world 90 years ago
There was a logical line from voting for Hitler to, at a minimum, standing silently by as Nazi behavior became more outrageous and systematically murderous …
It is an interesting thought experiment to wonder how Christians today might have voted in Germany in the early 1930s. … It was a world where it seemed that either the Nazis or the Communists must triumph and where the full evil of both was as yet not fully visible. But even as we can acknowledge these difficulties, it is important to note that there were still theologians who did see the problem in 1933 and who refused to strike a deal with the devils on either side of the political spectrum.
The most famous example is that of the Barmen Declaration of 1934, signed by, among others, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth. … But there was an earlier and better document that is today all but forgotten: the Bethel Confession of 1933, which Bonhoeffer had composed along with another Lutheran, Hermann Sasse … In 1933, … these two men saw the real problem of Nazism with a breadth and profundity not found in the Barmen Declaration.
… the reason Bonhoeffer and Sasse were able to understand their times was that they placed the transcendent God, his Word and sacraments, and his church above all earthly powers. They understood that the church was not to confuse itself with the state nor with worldly forms of power. And they knew that the church, from the world’s perspective, was necessarily weak and must not seek her own fame. Hers is the way of the cross.
… These were no passive pietists. Yet it was their grasp of the transcendent God and his gospel that immunized them to the blandishments of Hitler. They did not collapse the transcendence of God into the immanence of political exigency. And it was that very concern for the transcendent that made them wise actors in the world of the immanent.
This points to their value in today’s debates. One of the striking lacunae on both the right and left wings of the Christian political spectrum is the general absence of any reference to the transcendence of God and the supernatural nature of the church. Immanent concerns rule the day. The pundits on both sides seem more concerned with making sure that no criticism goes unmocked and no critic’s character goes unsmeared than with relativizing the affairs of this world in the light of eternity.
Carl Trueman, The Gateway Drug to Post-Christian Paganism (bold added)
… that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19 (NKJV)
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 