WHAT A JOY is that for man banished from God’s presence having descended to the misery of earth and the bitterness of toil, pursued every moment by the devil, his life disturbed and prevented from raising his face towards God!

Is there in this human being who accepted damnation in himself, nay the earth was cursed because of him, and all creation had to suffer and lament, chased by famine and viciousness due to man’s sin and the earth’s curse; is there any hope for this man?

Today we hear that the new Leader of human-kind, who alienated Himself from His Father’s glory, left His glory as an only beloved Son and bears in His flesh full Divinity to become the Father of renewed humanity, and guide all to His preserved glory in expectation of the redemption of our bodies so as to become openly revealed to all the heavenly hosts, and for creation that is distressed to return to its Liberator submissive, obedient, joyful and happy.

That day is the day of renewed creation which miserable man donned and became in the stature of God, God having released Adam from the shackles of bondage and the fetters of the devil and sin. Nay God in His exceeding love, mercy, kindness and forgiveness gave to each man the fullness of the Son as all became full in Him in the splendor of His Divinity. Man thus was transported from serfdom to the height of the kings of heaven as the Bible says: “And have made us kings and priests to our God.”1

If man only knew the bounty he has received when the Divine fullness descended in Christ’s body, and sinful man justified through Christ’s blood became a partner in that Divine fullness, he would not have ceased to praise, exult and raise hymns of thanksgiving day and night to God, who filled him with His grace and invited him to His eternal Kingdom, making him a saint without blame in His presence in the fullness of the Father and Son’s love.2

To say that the body of Christ was filled with Divinity is above the imagination of man. As for saying that we became filled in the fullness of the Divinity of Christ it is as if our nature has changed to Christ’s nature, and we have become members in the Kingdom of Heaven even though we still tread the earth of our misery. The creation of mankind is therefore no more weak, humbled or the swallowed prey of the enemy’s tyranny.

O man, lift your head up now because the earth is no more the center of our attention nor the focus of our abidance. We now look upwards to Heaven where the Savior of our kind exists in His glory, inviting us to fight the fights of the Lord to get rid of our blemished life and live our future as members in God and Christ’s glory.

Is it worthy of God’s children who are filled with the Divinity of Christ to live as the children of this Age? They live an erring life of corruption and recklessness spending their lives as sons of the ancient curse heedless of Christ’s sorrow, as if he was not crucified nor had resurrected and conquered the world for them, all matters He delivered to us as members in His suffering and crucifixion to become members in His glory.

Dear loved ones, he who lives a life of sin despising Christ’s crucifixion and the promises He fulfilled for us is as if he trampled upon the cross, disparaged the Spirit of grace, and fraternized with the devil without realizing that he is losing his eternal inheritance3. It is an unimaginable loss because it is a loss of life and of future; a stupid choice of darkness instead of light, of death instead of life, of dissolution and contention instead of the preserved glory for those who love the Lord. As Peter the Apostle told the Jews crying to know the truth: “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off … Repent … that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.4”

19 June, 2005

1 Rev 5:10.

2 Note Eph 1:1-6.

3 Heb 10:29.

4 Acts 2:39, 3:19.

||    The Orthodox Faith (Dogma)    ||    Family and Youth    ||    Sermons    ||    Bible Study    ||    Devotional    ||    Spirituals    ||    Fasts & Feasts    ||    Coptics    ||    Religious Education    ||    Monasticism    ||    Seasons    ||    Missiology    ||    Ethics    ||    Ecumenical Relations    ||    Church Music    ||    Pentecost    ||    Miscellaneous    ||    Saints    ||    Church History    ||    Pope Shenouda    ||    Patrology    ||    Canon Law    ||    Lent    ||    Pastoral Theology    ||    Father Matta    ||    Bibles    ||    Iconography    ||    Liturgics    ||    Orthodox Biblical topics     ||    Orthodox articles    ||    St Chrysostom    ||   

||    Pope Shenouda    ||    Father Matta    ||    Bishop Mattaous    ||    Fr. Tadros Malaty    ||    Bishop Moussa    ||    Bishop Alexander    ||    Habib Gerguis    ||    Bishop Angealos    ||    Metropolitan Bishoy    ||

||    Prayer of the First Hour    ||    Third Hour    ||    Sixth Hour    ||    Ninth Hour    ||    Vespers (Eleventh Hour)    ||    Compline (Twelfth Hour)    ||    The First Watch of the midnight prayers    ||    The Second Watch of the midnight prayers    ||    The Third Watch of the midnight prayers    ||    The Prayer of the Veil    ||    Various Prayers from the Agbia    ||    Synaxarium