Acts of the Apostles 5: 12-20
St. John 20: 19-31
Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
We have two parts of our history being described today: the first involves the interaction between the Risen Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples; the second, the continuing witness and power of the Orthodox Church. Today I want to make the connection between these two things, and between them and our Holy Orthodox Church, our Ukrainian Orthodox Archdiocese, and our parish of St. Michael’s here in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
Christ and His Disciples
Christ empowers His Disciples to continue His work. Up until then, the ministry had largely been conducted through His physical body. He taught with His mouth, healed with His hands, and generally witnessed to His Power and the Truth of Orthodoxy with His flesh and blood. This culminated in the witness of His Passion and the fact of His bodily Resurrection from the dead. This Resurrection was the purpose and fulfillment of His Incarnation. Throughout this earthly ministry, Christ had been carefully and intentionally grooming his disciples in the orthodox Faith and Orthodox ministry; grooming them not simply for their own salvation, but so that the Good News of His salvific work would continue through them. We see the fulfillment of this plan in today’s Gospel, when He assuaged any lingering doubts among the disciples, empowered them with the Holy Spirit through His breath (more on this in a few weeks at Pentecost), and delegated His authority to forgive (and retain) sins to them. This last scene from the Gospel of St. John (a witness to and participant in these events) shows the passing of earthly ministry from Christ to His disciples. But this was not like a military change of command, where the departing officer retires or moves on to another assignment. The disciples were given Christ’s authority to act as His Apostles, but Christ remained with them as the Head of the Church. He remains the Vicar of the Holy Orthodox Church because there is real sense in which His earthly ministry continues mystically through His Apostles, His Church, and the continuing healing and teaching ministry of His Flesh and Blood in the Holy Eucharist.
The Continuing Witness and Power of the Orthodox Church
Our reading describes how the apostles continued “in one accord” the ministry of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Through them “many signs and wonders” were performed. Christ had told them that their deeds would surpass even His own - the fathers teach us that the deeds are greater because they are done not by the God-man Himself, but by those He empowered to continue His work. What the historian St. Luke (another witness and participant of the events He is describing) is describing is the authority and Truth of the Orthodox Church. Just as Christ’s miracles witnessed to His legitimacy and the truth of His teaching, so the miracles performed through the leaders of the early Orthodox Church witness to their authority (in Christ) and the truth of their teaching. What I want you to note here is that there is no break between the work of Christ on earth, and that of the Orthodox Church. As I said before, Christ had been grooming His disciples long before His death, even empowering them to heal in His name. After His death and resurrection, His ministry continued unabated through these disciples, who were now acting as the Apostles of His Church (the Church of which He is the head).
And This Ministry Continues to This Very Day
Christ has continued to vest authority in His Church to this very day: a power that is incarnate most visibly through the office of the Bishop. The lineage/spiritual geneology of every bishop extends back to Apostles themselves. The apostles ordained the first bishops to minister to the communities they founded, then to lead the Church in sobornost as the apostles themselves went on to their reward. This coming Saturday, our bishops will do what our bishops have been doing for almost two thousand years: ordaining someone (in this case, Archimandrite Daniel) to continue the ministry of Christ. Just as there was no break between the ministry of Christ in his physical body, to His ministry through His disciples; so there was no break between their ministry and that of the bishops that followed them. Christ’s healing and salvific ministry continues today. Two thousand years ago, He ministered in flesh and blood. Since that time when He took His body up to heaven, He has continued to minister through the physical institution of the Church, and through the Eucharistic sharing of His Body and Blood through the sacraments that institution preserves. This is the same ministry being carried out here in our midst at St. Michael’s. We are not simply part of the Church - for Christ cannot be divided - we are in a real sense the Church in its fullness. Christ truly is in our midst.
The Faith of St. Thomas
Do you doubt the truth of Christ in His Church? Then have the faith of St. Thomas who believed enough to touch and learn from the Lord and His physical body. Do you doubt the truth of Christ in His Church? Open your eyes to the miracles that bear it witness. Touch the Church and its Mysteries. Some rejected the divinity of Christ because of His human form. Some still reject Him in His Church because of its institutional form. Do not be like them. Be like Thomas and embrace Christ, so that He can say of you: “ Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen [my Resurrected Body] and yet have believed."
Fr. Anthony Perkins
St. Michael Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Woonsocket, RI
No comments:
Post a Comment