The new Ecclesiastical (Church) year began yesterday, September 1. We give thanks to God for the many ways that He made Himself present to us in the past year even as we look to grow in our Faith in the new Church year just begun. With the advent of the new Church year and the first Feast of the new year this Saturday—the Nativity of the Theotokos—we’re presented by God’s grace with an opportunity for a new beginning, for spiritual progress and renewal. The last Great Feast of the Church year is the Dormition or Falling Asleep of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos. So, how fitting that the new Ecclesiastical year begins with her Nativity.
The passing of time causes us to think about how we’ve used the past year that God’s given us and entrusted to us, and we ponder what this year will bring. We know that everything temporal in our lives, those material things that consume so much of our time and focus, begin and come to an end, as do the cycles of the year, our human calendars, etc.
But everything born of God grows in perpetuity to eternal life. At Vespers we sing the beautiful verses of Psalm 104, “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. The sun ariseth, and man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor until the evening.” That sun knows its setting, but the Sun of righteousness, born of the Virgin in means past human comprehension, knows no evening, and has, according to the Apostle James, “no variableness neither shadow of turning (Js. 1:17). Keeping the ecclesiastical calendar is a reminder of the eternity of God’s Kingdom and the Light of Life, Christ our true God, who is Eternal Life.
We sing of this Light each Vespers when we sing the Phos Hilaron, (Lumina Lina), “Gladsome Light,” the oldest hymn of the Church apart from the Scriptures. Already in St. Basil’s day in the 4th century it was considered a “cherished tradition of the Church”:
O Gladsome Light of the holy glory of the Immortal Father, heavenly, holy, blessed Jesus Christ. Now we have come to the setting of the sun and behold the light of evening. We praise God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For it is right at all times to worship Thee with voices of praise, O Son of God and Giver of Life, therefore all the world glorifies Thee.
Christ God alone dispels the darkness of sin and fills our souls with this light which is the eternal truth of His being. It is to Him we look with anticipation for the opportunities to draw closer in our communion with God the Holy Trinity, in participation of the Life that God is.
Many people I meet these days make it clear when it comes to faith in God, that whatever they believe or do, doesn’t matter; they are confident that God will have to accept them anyway. There’s no need for communion or relationship to or with God, for repentance from sin, for growth in holiness to be in God’s holy presence. The thinking is that God has no right to judge them based on the criteria that He’s established, or, that if God does judge then they aren’t interested in being with Him anyway.
Those who have faith are often ridiculed or even rejected in today’s society. The attitude is similar to those in today’s Gospel who reject the gracious invitation to attend the wedding of the King’s Son:
The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”
The response to the invitation to “come to the wedding,” to participate in the culmination of all that the King has hoped for His Son, is, of course, an apt analogy for understanding the mystical relationship between Christ God and His ‘Bride,’ the Church.
In much the same way that those in Christ’s parable make light of the King’s offering to participate, so do many in today’s society make light of following Christ and think that they are justified in doing so on their terms. Elsewhere in the world the servants of God are beaten, beheaded, terribly persecuted, just like the servants of the King in Christ’s parable:
But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them.
The King in Christ’s parable did not stand for this, but instead destroyed those who would do such evil against His own servants who were innocent of any wrong, but simply were inviting the King’s guests to the wedding banquet much as those who are persecuted today for their faith do just by keeping the faith even in the face of the threat of death.
But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. ’Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.
There is certainly here a parallel in this parable with those Jews who rejected the prophets, beat, and killed others, rejected the Messiah. But there is also a parallel with those in the Church, who take Christ and His holy Church for granted, who see themselves as “in the club” of Orthodox Christianity, but reject the call to repentance, healing, and growth in communion with God, or feel they can have Christ and His Church on “their terms.”
Christ God gives the Church the command to “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…” (Matt. 28:19-20). In other words, people from every tribe and nation are called into life and communion with God through the new birth of “water and the spirit” (John 3). But sadly not all those who come and experience the truth of Christ and His holy Orthodox Church, remain; not all those ‘born into the Faith,’ act upon and own that Faith. All are called, but not all choose to live their lives for Christ and His precious Bride, the Church.
For this reason, the end of the parable is sobering:
But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.
As Christians we affirm that “Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead.” The calling, the invitation to life, to participate in the life of the Holy Trinity is real; so are the consequences of those who reject this life. Why? Because God is not only the Author of Life: In Him and in Him alone is eternal life. Rejecting Him, we choose death.
God in His great love and mercy for us offers us paradise; He offers us communion and relationship with Him. We’re invited to the wedding banquet of the Lamb, the culmination of all that God has prepared for mankind. Will we accept His gracious offer? Will we avail ourselves of life with Him? Will we now prepare to participate in that Great Feast of the Wedding of Christ with His Church at the end of the age?
Christ invites us to live with Him and all the Saints in the glory of His near presence, in the new heaven and the new earth, in the Eden that is once again be open to all.
As in the first three days of Holy Week, we call out now in repentance with that judgment day and our last days in mind, readying ourselves for the day that will have no end. As we approach the Great Feast of the Nativity this Saturday, let us beseech her to intercede for us before the King that we may yes to Him who is Light and Life and no to sin and all that is unworthy of so great and merciful a gift as eternal life with God.
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Fr. Robert Miclean
2 September 2018—Invitation to the Wedding Banquet
Epistles: Cor. 1:21-2:4
Gospels: Matt. 22:1-14
