His Invitation And His Judgment
Clean Wednesday confronts us with the invitation to step into the Light and have our deepest reality revealed to us for our spiritual healing.
Let’s face it, we had it great in Paradise! It was the perfect place to get to know God and each other. It was set up specifically for that purpose. But, alas, we had to leave that paradise because of the mortal danger of eating from the Tree of Life, unprepared and enslaved to our rebellion.
God, in His infinite love for us, kept us away from that danger until He came among us as one of us in His Son, our Lord Jesus. He came as one of us to do for us what we could not do for ourselves: defeat death once and for all. When He did this for us, He opened the gate of Paradise again so that we could eat from the Tree of Life, the Holy Eucharist.
Now, we are invited by God’s grace to walk in His Light and do what we were created to do—know Him and each other in love and peace and to be made “like Christ” by grace!
And this isn’t new information. The Lord prepared us for this Good News even in the Old Testament.
Look at our lesson today in Isaiah 2:3-11:
Thus say the people: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
For thou hast rejected thy people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of diviners from the east and of soothsayers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with foreigners. Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots. Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made. So man is humbled, and men are brought low — forgive them not! Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust from before the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty. The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the pride of men shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
The prophet Isaiah seems to be describing our very day in his words when he tells the nation of Israel that “there is no end to their treasures.” He reveals a land where the unfaithfulness of idolatry grips the people. They worship their own works. They have all kinds of horses and power, but they have forgotten God. His description of a land filled with material riches but poverty-stricken regarding faith sounds so much like our own society today.
And how does the Lord remedy this sad state of affairs?
He invites, and then He judges.
First, the Lord invites us to wake up from our delusions. He calls us to come to Him on His holy mountain, to ascend to Him through the effort of seeing the emptiness of our material riches and the revelatory power of His Light to pierce through the fog of our unfaithfulness to the true spiritual illnesses that enslave us to the blindness of this world. By the way, it isn’t a mistake that the mountain imagery is used. Moving towars God, the Highest Good, is always the labor of ascending the mountain! Our challenge is always to ensure the best is at the top of our priorities. There is no eternal future for those who blindly trust temporary things like physical riches. These temporary riches always fail us because they cannot heal what is truly broken in our lives. They offer only false hope and temporary comfort.
Then, He judges rightly, revealing the emptiness of the darkness of unfaithfulness. This judgment isn’t based on retribution or anger as much as love. This love refuses to leave you in the fantasy of a life without Him. Confronting this reality is always painful for those who refuse to see Him. This judgment comes not from an impartial lawyer but from a loving King whose only desire is your healing and joy. This isn’t the judgment from a courtroom as much as it is the court where the king presides and rules with pure insight into your motives and actions.
The end result of this salvation is peace and a singular devotion to God. This good result comes from your willingness to hear the truth about yourself and your willingness to embrace then the spiritual medicine of the disciplines laid at your feet during this holy season!
A man named Cuthbert was born in Britain around 635 AD. He entered the monastry of Melrose by the River Tweed. He struggles with the passions for many years, seving as a faithful priest to his monk bretheren and also the isolated villages around the area. He entered the solitary monastic life in 676 AD on Farne Island. After eight years of this strict discined life, the people insisted he come and take the ministry of Bishop of Lindisfarne, the fabled center of Christian holiness there off the cost of northeast Britain. He served his people and was also a wonderworker. Two months befpre he died in 687 AD, he was able once again to live in solitary prayer. Eleven years after his death, his holy relics were found to be incorrupt. The whole of English citizens and soveriegns held St. Cuthbert in high regard and asked for his holy intercessions. This holy Orthodox saint knew the value of doing the labor to “ascend the mountain” of piety to reach his True Love, Jesus Christ.
Today, where are you deluded into trusting temporary riches to make you happy? Where does this blindness keep you in the dark of self-centered living? The ministry of Great Lent is meant to heal you from this fantasy life and invite you to walk in the Light and ascend the mountain to commune with our loving God. Only then can you ever hope to live a truly Normal Orthodox life!
P.S. While still in your youth you layed aside all worldly care and took up the sweet yoke of Christ, O godly-minded Cuthbert, and you were shown forth in truth to be nobly radiant in the grace of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, God established you as a rule of faith and shepherd of His rational flock, O converser with Angels and intercessor for men.
