Right Side Up Again
What if everything you take for granted about the world has been quietly inverted, and the Resurrection is the only thing that can turn it back right side up?
Christ is risen!
The old apocryphal Chinese curse seems innocuous at first, but when you really think about it, it is truly a curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
Wishing for someone to live in times of turmoil and upheaval is really an ironic wish, don’t you think?
But most of human history is turmoil and disruption. The United States has been around since 1776 and has had more years of conflict than peace.
But conflict is essential if you are going to grow and mature. Peace, at least as Christ describes it, isn’t the absence of conflict but the Presence of wisdom that navigates conflict well and reorients me to the perspective of God’s wisdom rather than the upside-down mindset of the selfish temporary!
“These men who have turned the world upside down.”
To be sure, even Jesus Himself said in Matthew 10, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” And, true to His word, His message really did, and does, disrupt the world. But this disruption isn’t caused by hatred or by political, racial, or economic differences.
The disruption of the Message of Jesus is due to Humanity being upside down, and turning the world right side up again will shake things up.
Today is Monday of the Sixth Week after Pascha. As we draw nearer to Pentecost, we continue to see the consequences of the Resurrection through the missionary work of St. Paul.
Today’s Lesson: Acts 17:1-9
In those days, when the apostles had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and for three weeks he argued with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded, and joined Paul and Silas; as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked fellows of the rabble, they gathered a crowd, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the people. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren before the city authorities, crying, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them; and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard this. And when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
The angry crowd in Thessalonica had a complaint. These Apostles were turning their world upside down. They were preaching that there was another king named Jesus. They were drawing devout Greeks and prominent women into a new way of seeing reality. The whole social order seemed to be tilting under their feet.
The crowd was right about the disruption. They were just wrong about the direction.
What Can We Take From This?
First, the world we have inherited is already upside down, and we have grown comfortable with the inversion.
There is a beautiful tradition that when St. Peter was crucified, he insisted on being turned upside down because he was unworthy to die as his Lord had died. One commentator observed that hanging there inverted, St. Peter saw the world as it actually is. Upside down.
Our world really is inverted. Our culture treats appetite as a virtue and self-denial as an illness. It treats permanence as bondage and impulse as freedom. It treats the unborn as inconvenient and the elderly as expendable. It treats sin as authentic and repentance as oppressive. It treats God as a problem and the self as the only reliable authority.
Most of us have grown so accustomed to this inversion that we have stopped noticing how strange it is. We breathe its air. We watch its programs. We absorb its assumptions. We unconsciously accept the categories it gives us, even when they contradict everything our Faith teaches.
This is why the Resurrection is so disruptive.
The Risen Lord exposes the inversion. He shows us that what the world calls progress is often just the opposite. What the world calls freedom is often slavery. What the world calls love is often just an excuse for indulging undisciplined passions.
The Gospel does not adapt itself to our upside-down world. The Gospel turns it right side up.
Next, the Holy Spirit does the necessary work of righting our inverted lives.
The Apostles in Thessalonica did not turn the world upside down by their cleverness or their personalities. They turned it upside down by proclaiming the Risen Jesus. The disruption came from the Person they preached, not from anything they themselves possessed.
The same is true in our own lives.
We cannot self-correct out of the cultural inversion. We are too immersed in it to see all the ways it has shaped us. The Holy Spirit must reveal what is upside down in our own hearts and reorient us toward Christ.
When the resentment you have nursed for years suddenly looks petty in the light of the Lord’s mercy. When the priority you have arranged your life around suddenly seems hollow compared to what God has been offering you. When the relationship you have neglected reveals itself as more precious than the achievements you pursued instead. When the sin you defended for so long finally appears for what it actually is.
These moments are the Holy Spirit’s gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) work of righting what has been inverted. The disruption is uncomfortable, but it is mercy. The Risen Lord does not leave us in our upside-down patterns. He keeps inviting us toward the life we were created to live.
Finally, the Resurrection breaks the pattern of death and destruction that has held humanity captive.
Notice the language in today’s reading. The crowd accuses the Apostles of saying, “There is another king, Jesus.” The world’s kings rule through fear, force, and the threat of death. They misunderstand strength as power and control. The Risen Christ rules through love, freely given, that conquers death itself.
This is the deepest reason the Resurrection turns the world upside down.
The pattern of human existence since Adam and Eve has been a long story of death and destruction. Sin produces death. Death produces fear. Fear produces more sin. Around and around the cycle goes, generation after generation.
The Resurrection breaks this cycle. Death itself has been defeated. The Risen Jesus walks out of the tomb on Pascha morning, and the entire pattern of human futility is shattered.
This is why we must let the Holy Spirit make Jesus' Resurrection Life real in our lives every day.
Not as a doctrine we agree with, but as a power that transforms us. Death and destruction are not our fate. Sin does not have to keep producing more sin in us. Fear does not have to keep ruling our decisions. The Risen Lord has opened a different way, and the Holy Spirit makes that way real for those who say yes to Him.
The world will accuse us of turning things upside down when we live this way. Let them. We are simply catching up with what the Resurrection has already done.
The Holy Martyrs Peter, Dionysius, and Their Companions
Today, we commemorate the Holy Martyrs Peter, Dionysius, Andrew, Paul, Christina, Heraclius, Paulinus, and Benedimus, who suffered martyrdom around 250 AD during the persecution under Emperor Decius. They came from various places and walks of life, including a young virgin named Christina, but they shared one unshakable conviction: that Jesus Christ is the true King and that no earthly power could compel them to worship Rome's false gods.
For their refusal, they were tortured and executed. Their faithfulness scandalized the world that watched them die. The Roman authorities saw them as troublemakers turning the world upside down. The Risen Lord saw them as His own, finally living right side up.
These Martyrs teach us that the Resurrection produces people whose lives confront the inversions of their age. We do not need many words. Faithful lives are already a disruption.
Your Response Today
Here is one practice for today. Sometime when you find yourself agreeing with an assumption the culture takes for granted, pause and ask:
“Is this assumption eternal wisdom, or has it been inverted by a world that no longer remembers Christ?”
Then pray simply:
“Lord Jesus Christ, by Your Holy Spirit, turn me right side up. Let Your Resurrection Life be real in me today.”
The world is upside down. The Risen Lord is at work setting it right, beginning with His people. Let Him begin with you.
Being Orthodox on Purpose means letting the Holy Spirit make the Resurrection Life of Jesus real in you, so that your faithful life becomes part of how the world is being turned right side up again!
A note from Fr. Barnabas: This devotional uses our refined format. If you find these changes helpful, or if you have suggestions, please let me know. Your feedback shapes this ministry.
May the Risen Lord turn every inverted place in your heart right side up today, and let His Resurrection Life flow through you into the world.
P.S. Holy Martyrs Peter, Dionysius, Andrew, Paul, Christina, Heraclius, Paulinus, and Benedimus, you confessed Jesus as the true King and your faithful deaths confronted the inversions of your age. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Keep an eye on this space as we get ready for a busy Summer and the start of filming our new video series this Fall!
You can help make this possible by donating here:
Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV
Amen🙏. May the risen Lord disrupt my delusions also.
In his Prologue of Ohrid, St Nikolaj Velimirović mentions several times that people are wanting to "play the comedy", which seems to mean "play the fool" — as in ancient Greek theater. Just like today, Greek drama was intended to convey cultural values to the people, and consisted of tragedy (frowning crying mask) that expounded the tragic nature of human life, and comedy (laughing mask) that exposed the foolish side of human life. Fools were not meant to be imitated, but to expose human foolishness so it could be avoided.
Today fools rule and are highly valued as role models, and the cultural values taught by modern media are Self love, and pleasure seeking through material things (Mammon worshipping love of money).
"All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players . . ." — William Shakespeare
Play it well.