A Short Sunday Homily - Christ Walks On The Water

 

Christ walks on the water to his Apostles in the midst of the lake, at around 3 am, the fourth watch, as they toil, tormented, against the storm. Behold the miracle, but we have to ask, why did Christ perform it, why did he choose this particular way to cross the sea of Galilee?

Consider the Old Testament context, where we find many aquatic miracles, including Elisha parting the Jordan with Elijah's mantle, Joshua parting the Jordan and preeminently Moses, who famously parts the Red Sea so that the Israelites can pass through, unscathed.

Granted, great signs of divine power in the persons of God's messengers and leaders, but Christ is more than this, and he does something only God can do, he walks on water. Scripture is clear, this is God's domain, "The Lord alone stretches forth the heavens and walks on the waves of the sea," (Job 9:8) which is exactly what Christ does. He says as much.

In the fourth watch, in the dead of night, as the storm blows fiercely, Jesus comes to the men on the boat and says, "Take heart, it is I, Have no fear." It is I; in the Greek, ἐγώ εἰμι, literally I Am. We've heard this before, Christ is telling the Apostles that He is the same God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. Accordingly, they should have no fear. Our Lord then gets into the boat and the storm is stilled, leaving them "astounded."

Yes indeed, here is a man who is also God and the Apostles attempt to grapple with this fact. We leave them, astounded, in the boat. The same boat which we see from our vantage point as a model of the Church, making her progress through the waters of the world. The Church to which Christ comes in the fourth watch of Antichrist's storm and saves her, at his second coming, putting an end to evil and sin for all time.

Christ comes to us today, no matter how high or fiercely the tempest blows against us, and says as he said to his Apostles, "Take heart, it is I, Have no fear." And neither should we. In him, Jesus, who died and rose again we have found salvation, the forgiveness of sins and resurrection to eternal life. Nothing, not even the Olympic marketing team itself, can take that from us.

So be of good cheer and give God the glory.

Your Apocalyptic Pal,

LSP

Martyrs

 

Crazed leftist Bolsheviks slaughtered these people, "until the floor ran slick with blood." Think about it, there you are, a Red Commie, and what do you see? A woman, her daughters and a man in a basement. You HATE them and stab and hack them to death. This is working class retribution. No, it is satanic hell.

The same devil-possessed persons tore with their nails at the icons and iconostases of Russian churches, like enraged beasts. They hated Christ and his image. They hate him today. They will do all in their power to abolish and destroy his body, the Church, the Mystici Corporis, from the face of the earth.

That in mind, how can Christians in good conscience count themselves as Marxists or Progressives or whatever the hell they're currently passing themselves off as. Cut it out.

Instead, believe in the revealed Word of God and the Faith once delivered by Christ to the Apostles and find life instead of death.

ENDEX,

LSP

Jesus Walks On Water - A Short Sunday Reflection

 

Thanks to our newfangled three year lectionary, we reflected on St. Matthew's account of Jesus walking on the waters of the lake, where he meets his disciples in the fourth watch of the night. There they are, a long way off from land, making no headway because the waves and the wind are against them. Terrified at the dimly seen presence of Christ they cry out, thinking they've seen a ghost. Jesus replies:

"Take heart, it is I, have no fear," Θαρσεῖτε, ἐγώ εἰμι· μὴ φοβεῖσθε. Then, after rescuing a drowning Peter, Jesus enters the floundering boat, stills the storm and the disciples worship him, "Truly, you are the Son of God." What does this teach us?

To state the blazingly obvious, that Jesus is God, Psalm 29 come to life, "The voice of the LORD is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; * the LORD is upon the mighty waters." And that's worth the emphasis, the miracle happened, the Word made Flesh, the I AM who spoke to Moses from the burning bush, note the Greek, ἐγώ εἰμι, (I am) now speaks in power to his disciples on the water. 

The miracle is real and by it Jesus reveals himself as God to his friends so that they might put their faith in him and be saved, in this case from the storm, but we can go further. The Fathers of the early Church, no small authority, saw the miracle as an allegory or symbol of the Christian life, the life of the Church. Thus:

The disciples represent the faithful, their boat the Church, the ark of salvation. The waters of the lake are the waters of the world and its waves are its tribulations, at every level, which pound against the ship. And the wind is the tempestuous blast of Satan, who would blow the Church off-course from the far side of the lake, which is the Kingdom of Heaven, paradise.

Yes indeed. In every age the Church sets sail across the waters and is pounded by the world and by Satan, both of which hate and would destroy her. And note, apart from Christ the disciples make no headway, as Jesus says elsewhere, "I am the vine, you are the branches... apart from me you can do nothing."

Exactly, but with him, with the Lord upon the waters, we find salvation, both corporately as the Church writ large, the Mystical Body of Christ visible and militant on earth, and personally, as the Church writ small. Here Peter's experience speaks powerfully. It is a miracle within the miracle which illustrates the whole.

He glimpses Christ and hears his voice and asks, "Lord, if it's you, bid me to come to you across the water." Jesus replies, "Come." Peter does, stepping off the boat and into the water, impetuous, only to be distracted by the wind. He begins to sink, to drown, and cries out, "Lord save me!" Jesus does, he catches him and brings him to the safety of the ship.

Is this not the story of our lives? We glimpse Christ, we hear his word and Christ answers our questioning faith, "Come." So we set off across the stormy water to meet him and be with him. Then calamity, catastrophe strikes. The waves pound, the wind blows and no earthly power can save us, so we cry out with Peter, "Lord, save me!"

It's the prayer of desperate faith and Christ, in his love, mercy and strength hears that call and lifts us up from the depths, de profundis, to safety, to union with himself, and puts us back on the vessel of salvation.

I tell you, I've been there many times, no fooling, and I know you have too in far more extremis than I. But take heart, have no fear, the Lord, who is God upon the waters, is with us and is even now guiding his Church and we ourselves to the far shore of paradise. Fall down then, with the disciples in the boat, and worship the Saviour.

Here endeth the Lesson,

LSP

A Mercifully Short Sunday Sermon

“Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able." (Lk 13:22)

Strive to enter by the narrow gate. It grates against post-modernist Marcusian ears, against the culturally ascendant air we breathe  because "narrow gate" sounds dangerously like narrow-minded, and so bigoted, intolerant and hateful.

"After all," says our Ivy League uneducated friend, "I've got my truth, you've got yours. Coexist!"

What a broad path and it sounds alluring; so free and tolerant, so very narrative. But let's apply this logic to mathematics. Imagine a classroom full of young children, pronouns mixed. Their teacher asks, "You have two rainbows in the sky and you add another two rainbows, how many rainbows are there?"

An impetuous youngster raises zhir hand, "One!" A pensive girl, she/hers, utters "three," another adventurer exclaims four, another eight and an enthusiastic child offers up "eighty eight!" The teacher beams, "Children, all of you are right!" And each receives a delicious unicorn cupcake, don't say Lambeth Conference.

But look what's happened. In the name of freedom, these poor children have been denied the liberty of doing mathematics because they haven't been allowed to go through the narrow gate of correct addition. The logic of salvation's similar.

As with 2+2=4, there's one solution to paradise and that's Christ; He is the gate. Only He unites humanity to God, He alone is true God and true Man. He alone offers the perfect, sinless, atoning sacrifice to the Father for the forgivness of sins and He, and only He, rises victorious from the grave only to give His resurrected life to the faithful.

So to get to heaven, the end or τέλος of desire, we have to go through Christ, the door, the gate of the sheep, the way, the truth and the life. And we must strive to do so, to make the conscious, deliberate effort to conform our lives to His.

The Savior's grace, frightened and gentle readers, will supply the deficiency.

Here endeth the Lesson,

LSP

Merry Christmas!

 

There's such beauty to Christmas Eve, anticipation of the Feast with all the intimacy of the thing itself; presents, family, friends, glittering lights on the tree and on, and joy seems to fill the air. Quite right too, we're celebrating the most miraculous and glorious of things, the birth of Christ, the Word made Flesh, and with it the advent of salvation.

What can we do but bow down in adoration, praise and wonder before the mystery and the Missions did just that, celebrating in fine style. Then it was back to the Compound with the specialist who opened a "tactical stocking" and something called a "gaming laptop." Apparently these are important for today's troops. 

Blue took it in stride and may have got a Christmas special himself. Hmmmm. And so we advanced to contact, in  good way.

Merry Christmas!

LSP

Merry Christmas!

 The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.

O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven; where with you and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

 

Merry Christmas!

LSP

Incarnation

In a bold attempt to find something positive in this dark and barbarous time, my mind goes to the Incarnation. Here's some Austin Farrer:

"We cannot understand Jesus as simply the God-who-was-man. We have left out an essential factor, the sonship. Jesus is not simply God manifest as man; he is the divine Son coming in manhood. What was expressed in human terms here below was not bare deity; it was divine sonship. God cannot live an identically godlike life in eternity and in a human story. But the divine Son can make an identical response to his Father, whether in the love of the blessed Trinity or in the fulfillment of an earthly ministry. All the conditions of action are different on the two levels; the filial response is one. Above, the appropriate response is a co-operation in sovereignty and an interchange of eternal joys. Then the Son gives back to the Father all that the Father is. Below, in the incarnate life, the appropriate response is an obedience to inspiration, a waiting for direction, an acceptance of suffering, a rectitude of choice, a resistance to temptation, a willingness to die. For such things are the stuff of our existence; and it was in this very stuff that Christ worked out the theme of heavenly sonship, proving himself on earth the very thing he was in heaven; that is, a continuous perfect act of filial love."

I like that, a lot.

LSP