I Never Knew You

The most terrifying words in Scripture are not about what you did or did not do. They are about whether you were actually known.

Jun 10, 2026

“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?”

Shakespeare’s Hamlet holds the skull of his childhood companion and grieves. Not for a concept. Not for a memory. For a person he actually knew. The weight of that knowing, the rides on his back, the kisses, the laughter, the shared table, is precisely what makes the grief so devastating.

This is what it means to know someone.

“I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.”

These are the most terrifying words in all of Scripture. Not “you believed the wrong things.” Not “you did not perform enough good works.” But “I never knew you.” The judgment is relational. The absence is personal. And the people hearing these words are stunned, because they thought their religious activity was sufficient for the relationship itself.

It wasn’t.

Today’s Lesson: Matthew 7:21-23

The Lord said, “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.’”

Yesterday, we saw that the test of the Christian life is not what we say but what we do and who we are.

Today, the Lord takes that teaching one step further.

The deepest test is whether our actions flowed from loving Him and knowing Him. Whether we have pursued the relationship, not just the religious activity that can be mistaken for one.

This is the Orthodox emphasis on ontology. Being matters more than performing. Knowing matters more than knowing about.

What Can We Take From This?

First, knowing Christ is fundamentally different from knowing about Him, and religious activity can become a substitute for the real thing.

These people in the Lord’s parable were not idle. They prophesied. They cast out demons. They did mighty works, all in His name. By any external measure, they looked like serious, committed believers. And yet the Lord says He never knew them.

How is this possible?

Because they were using the name of Christ without being in a relationship with Christ. They performed in His name without being formed by His presence. The activity was real. The relationship was not.

Hamlet’s grief over Yorick is moving precisely because it was not abstract. He knew the weight of the man on his back. He knew the specific lips, the specific laugh, the specific songs. That is knowing. Knowing about Yorick would have produced nothing more than a biography entry.

The Orthodox Faith insists that salvation is not a transaction or a credential. It is a relationship. We are not saved by accumulating enough religious activities in Christ’s name. We are saved by actually being with Christ, known by Him, formed by Him, and transformed by His presence into people whose very being has been changed by the encounter.

I love Him. It’s as simple and profound as that.

The spiritual disciplines are not self-help tools. They are the means by which we actually come to know Him and be known by Him by having that which is unlike Him taken away!

Next, isolation feeds the illusion that religious performance is sufficient, while community reveals whether the relationship is real.

The Centers for Disease Control have declared loneliness a national health crisis. Isolation is killing people. Not just emotionally.

Physically.

The research is unambiguous. Isolated human beings sicken and die at higher rates, and their appetites for numbing the pain of that isolation drive them toward every kind of enslaving behavior.

I’m convinced the explosion of pornography in our culture is directly linked to loneliness.

This is not just a medical observation. It is a spiritual one. We are made for communion. We are made in the image of the God who is Persons in eternal communion, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To be isolated is to be cut off from the very pattern of our own existence.

The Normal Orthodox disciplines are not designed for isolated practice. We are meant to fast together. To pray together. To worship together. To confess together. To receive the Eucharist together. Not because community is a nice addition to private spirituality, but because it is in relationships that we are actually healed.

Isolation leads to spiritual illness. Community leads to spiritual well-being.

Finally, the will of the Father is always relational, always communal, always oriented toward knowing and being known.

“He who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

What is the Father’s will? At the most fundamental level, it is the restoration of communion. God’s entire work in history, from Creation to Incarnation to Pentecost, is the work of restoring the relationship that sin broke. He wants to know us and be known by us. He wants us to know each other with the same depth and fidelity.

This is why “I never knew you” is the ultimate judgment. It means the entire purpose of Creation and Redemption was refused. The relationship was offered and declined in favor of selfish indulgence.

The question is not “Did I perform enough?” The question is, “Do I know Him? And does He know me?”

Sts. Alexander and Antonina the Martyrs

Today, we commemorate the Holy Martyrs Alexander and Antonina, who suffered for Christ in the early fourth century during the Diocletian persecution. Antonina was a Christian woman condemned to a house of prostitution for her refusal to deny Christ. Alexander was a soldier who, moved by her witness and her faith, helped her escape by exchanging garments with her so that she could flee. He was discovered and arrested. Rather than denying Christ to save himself, he confessed his faith and was executed alongside Antonina, who returned voluntarily to share his martyrdom.

Their hymn says it plainly: “spiritual kinsmen in Christ, who were of one mind in the paths of godliness.”

This is knowing. Not just knowing about. They shared a genuine bond in Christ that was stronger than self-preservation. Alexander did not help Antonina because he had performed a religious duty. He helped her because he knew her as a sister in Christ, and he knew Christ as Lord. The relationship drove the action. The action confirmed the relationship.

Their mutual martyrdom is one of the most beautiful illustrations in the Church’s calendar of what it means to be known in Christ and to know one another in Him.

Your Response Today

Today, ask yourself honestly where your relationship with Christ is actually lived, and where you have been substituting activity for intimacy.

Is your prayer a conversation or a recitation? Is your fasting an act of love or a discipline practiced in isolation? Is your parish a community where you are genuinely known, or a gathering you attend while remaining safely anonymous?

Choose one step today toward being known rather than merely performing. Go to Liturgy and stay for the fellowship afterward. Call a fellow parishioner. Make an appointment with your spiritual father. Open your prayer to actual honesty rather than merely rehearsed phrases.

Then pray simply:

“Lord Jesus Christ, I want to know You and be known by You. Not merely to perform in Your name, but to be formed by Your presence. Let me be the kind of person to whom You will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”

Being Orthodox on Purpose means pursuing the relationship, not just the religious activity, so that on that day you will hear not “I never knew you” but the voice of the One who has known you all along!

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