Devil, Be Gone!

Several days ago, I wrote how the Anglican Communion, specifically the Church of England, is hastening its own destruction.  Its clergy and bishops have declared "Full speed ahead" with its abandonment of anything resembling Christian orthodoxy and these same bishops and clergy now are vying for the dubious honor for piloting the ship into the iceberg causing it to sink. 

Recently, the baptismal Liturgy of the Church of England has undergone some changes, rewriting certain passages and flat-out omitting others.    Here are some of the particular changes and their comparisons to the original:

Original:  "Do you reject the devil and all rebellion against God?’
Change:   "Do you reject evil, and all its many forms, and all its empty promises?"

Original:   "Do you repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour?’
Change:  Omittted completely.

Original:   Do you submit to Christ as Lord?"

Change:  "Do you turn to Christ?"

The change in verbiage is being spun by the Anglican Church, and in particular by its primate, the Archidiot  Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to conform with the "times."  For instance, the word "submit" has negative connotations, especially for women.  Women shouldn't be expected to submit to their husbands, hence why St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 6, is almost NEVER read in Western Wedding ceremonies because "submission" is, in their mind, to reduce someone to second class status and we can't have that in an era of equality by any means necessary.

The second change of omitting the devil and the striking of sin is also very telling.  I remember a line from the great movie, The Usual Suspects, when Kevin Spacey says that the "greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."  Now, I'm not saying that the clergy and the theologians of the Anglican Church are trying to say that the devil no longer exists, but the clergy is responsible for guarding the deposit of the faith.  Simply exorcising the devil from the church does not make him any less potent of a force.  In fact, it empowers the devil.  The devil is not some representation of evil; he is the bona fide sinner and rebel against God and has removed himself from any chance of salvation and always works to win others to his cause.  His heart is hardened against God and seeks out others to do the same.  In Hades, Satan and the other sinners are in torment because even the Love of God is ever present there, as well.  They cannot stand that God loves them even when they turned away and still turn away from Him. 

To rid the Baptismal Liturgy of submission to God and the references to sin and the devil just makes baptism a ceremony that people go through because it's traditional.  Being baptized into Christ, says St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, is to put on Christ, to put on His very self, His incarnation, His Baptism, His teaching, His arrest, His derision, His Crucifixion, His Burial, His Descent into Hades and, ultimately His Resurrection.    Christ did all this because of sin and the work of the devil in God's creation. 

These changes are not entirely popular.  One bishop says that the changes amount to PR by soundbites.  Another says that this is a benediction from the Good Fairy rather than the Church.  Another says that any humanist non-Christian can say that he renounces evil.  That is true.  If a humanist and a Christian sacrament both say the same thing, then what is the point of having the church service?

Such is the problem with the Anglican Communion and the other Liberal Protestants.  They're too worried about "offending" people that they scrap the belief and praxis of the Church.  Why can't the church just be the church?  If people don't want to be part of it, that's their problem.  The Church exists  to draw people away from sin and the devil to Himself, not to make them more comfortable in the world where sin and the devil reign supreme.

It is rather fitting that I should write this on the day when the Eastern Churches who follow the Revised Calendar and those that have not separated Christmas from Theophany (e.g. the Armenians) celebrate today the Baptism of Christ, Theophany, the manifestation of the Trinity.  Christ, by His Baptism, redeems all of creation and draws it to Himself.  The Father says, "This is My Son in Whom am I glorified."  The Church calls people to Herself; rather the Church of England says that the World should call the Church to it.  It may get you more people in the churches, but they will only be fed with catchy soundbites of moral theology and only a tincture of theism.  That is not the Gospel.  Sin, devil, repentance are all, as a result, thrown out.

Now, this is a "pilot" program.  Hopefully, it will be rejected after Easter for continued use.  But, this is the Anglican Church, and they are very proud of destroying Christianity bit by bit.

Holy Theophany

When Thou, O Lord, wast baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest, for the voice of the Father bore witness unto Thee, calling Thee His beloved Son and the Spirit in the likeness of dove confirmed the truth of His word. O Christ our God, who hast revealed Thyself and enlightened creation, glory to Thee!--Apolytikion of Nativity, Tone 1

Four verses! All we get for this feast from the Gospel according to St. Matthew is four verses? What great profound theological truth can be found in four small verses? The apolytikion quoted above is more or less a paraphrase of the last two verses from today's Gospel reading. That's it?

Yes. For comparison's sake, Transfiguration isn't a long, drawn-out narrative nor is teh Circumcision of our Lord, nor is the Annunciation to the Theotokos nor Ascension nor Pentecost (which aren't even in the Gospels). There are chapters upon chapters leading up to Great and Holy Friday and our Lord's Pascha, but Nativity barely yields a chapter. The Nativity of the Theotokos, her Presentation and her Dormition are nowhere in the canonical records. Some would argue that this is a deficiency in the Scriptures or that, being conspiratorial, we're not given the whole story. Rubbish!

The profound theological truth revealed to us is Christ Himself, revealed as being truly God and Man, a hypostatic union (to borrow from the Council of Chalcedon) where the two natures exist side by side, unified but not commingled. Scripture confirms the testimony of that revelation much as the Spirit confirmed the testimony of the Father's words to His Son, "This is My beloved Son, Whom I love, in Whom I am well pleased." This was no mere illusion of a man that stood before the Forerunner, John, this was the very Lord Himself. Being the Lord's cousin, he must have known about our Lord's special and different nature for a very long time and still he shuddered at the time appointed for him to baptize the Messiah!

In four short verses, we are made to understand all this. The Gospel writers didn't need to expound upon what had happened, waxing wisely. The Church Fathers and hymnographers certainly did that.

We have the whole story in Theophany, nothing edited, nothing added, nothing subtracted. God came in the flesh to be baptized by John. He was and the heavens opened and God called out to His Son, saying that He loved Him and, by extension, loves us because He sent His Son to His creation. Does this passage need more commentary than that?

A few "random" thoughts on Theophany

This particular entry won't have any one concrete theme or train of thought save for the fact that I will concentrate everything on the Feast of the Theophany which we celebrate this day. Yesterday, the Paramon, I was able to chant the Royal Hours of Theophany, which I never have been able to do before and then celebrate, later that night, the full Orthros and Liturgy followed by the Blessing of the Waters. I had a whole range of thoughts because of this so I will share them in no particular order.

1) Do you realize that the Gospel texts for this feast are among the shortest pericopes? It's true. The Orthros Gospel is from St. Mark and is only 2 verses. The Liturgy Gospel is from St. Matthew and is only 4 verses! And yet this feast is one of our most important ones, a first class feast of the Master! Our Lord's Pascha, Palm Sunday, Crucifixion, Nativity and Meeting are given so much more treatment by the Gospel Writers. Only Transfiguration and the Circumcision of our Lord are treated less. To top it off, Pentecost is not even recorded in the Gospels, it is in the Acts of the Apostles. I think that this proves that what is the Gospel is not found strictly or given meaning only by the Gospels themselves.

2) At the feast of Theophany as for all other first class feasts (excepting the Exaltation of the Cross) we sing the anti-trisagion hymn from St. Paul, "As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ!" (Gal. 3: 27). For this feast, this hymn is particularly appropriate? What does it mean, precisely to put on Christ? The Greek word for this is "enedusasthe." This word can be found throughout the Scriptures as well as in other hymns for this feast. We see it in the Prokeimenon for Great Vespers on Saturday nights from Psalm 92 when we sing "The Lord is King; he is clothed (enedusato) with majesty." (This same psalm is the opening psalm of the Ninth Royal Hour on Theophany Eve). We also see it in Psalm 103, with which we begin every Vespers, Great or otherwise, when we sing that "Thou art clothed (eneduso) with honor and majesty." The verb "enduo" simply means "to put on" as like a garment. Thus, when we put on Christ, we are literally "wearing Him." He covers us with his very self and makes us His. Also, at our Lord's Theophany, we clearly see that to put on Christ means, in mystical fashion, to become Christ-like. Thus, we are also made into Sons of the Father as well. At our baptism, the Father and the Spirit are both there revealing us as true sons of God. And as we have put on Christ and become like him, we are also to take on his earthly life. Archimandrite Sophrony wrote a book entitled "His Life is Mine." And as we are baptized into Him, His very life on this earth becomes or should become ours, from his humility to his healing and forgiveness to others and even to his crucifixion and death. To put on Christ is to put on everything about Him and to show ourselves as adopted Sons of God.

3) As I chanted the Royal Hours yesterday, I couldn't help but see all the references, implied or explicit, towards our Lord's crucifixion. In the hymns, we see that the Jordan river turns back in trembling because the Lord has come to destroy the sea monster who inhabits it. The sea monster (the Leviathan) cannot be mistaken for anyone else except for the evil one, the devil. He is contained in the waters because Adam's sin not ony corrupted man but also corrupted the whole world. In short, the whole world benefits from our Lord's coming. As we kiss the Icon of Christ, we chant they hymn "We reverence Thy spotless icon, O Gracious Lord and ask forgiveness of our sins, O Christ God, for of Thy own free will thou wast pleased to ascend the Cross in the flesh so that Thou might deliver from bondage to the enemy those whom Thou hast fashioned. Wherefore, we cry aloud unto Thee: Thou hast filled all things with joy, O our Saviour, for Thou didst come to save the world." We do not say strictly, "to save mankind." The whole world is to be saved by our Lord's coming and his work here on earth. After all there is to be a new heaven and a new earth and the dead shall be raised.

Our Lord's crucifixion is referenced simply because it was God who was on the Cross, not some man of good repute with God, not someone looking like God, not a God who put on a magic show, but God Himself. Our Lord had another Theophany besides his baptism in the Jordan. Our Lord's second Theophany was at Transfiguration, which we celebrate on August 6, 40 days (seeing a parallel here?) before the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross! His Theophany (or Theophanies) testifies to the saving work He has done for us on the Cross!

A few days ago, I shuddered at Protestants who seem to only focus on the Cross of our Lord and pay little or no attention to the other feasts of our Lord which we celebrate. I said that the explicit devotion only to the cross cannot be fully compreheneded unless we also fully realize our Lord's incarnation, His baptism, Annunciation, etc.! All of these feasts point us to the Cross of our Lord and His Resurrection which is the Feast of Feasts!

4) Though I've realized this for awhile, I am constantly reminded especially in the Troparia of the various feasts that our God is a revealing God! The troparion for Theophany is as follows (Tone 1):

When Thou, O Lord, was baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest. For the voice of the Father bore witness unto Thee calling Thee His beloved Son, and the Spirit in the likeness of a dove, confirmed the truth of His word. O Christ our God, who hast appeared and illuminated the world, glory to Thee!

The word tranlsated as "appeared" in Greek is "epiphaneis" which is, of course, the soure of the word epiphany. What is an epiphany? It is a revelation; it is an appearance.

We know of God only because He has revealed Himself to us. At Orthros (except during the weekdays of Great Lent) we chant the hymn "God is the Lord who has revealed (epephamen) himself to us." We cannot come to God through reason (though it does help), we cannot come to God through guessword or experimentation. If we were to strip Christianity of all of its revelation, then all we would be left is a system of morality and only a tincture of theism! Such is extremely important. That is why it is sheer folly for anyone to inject their own reason as to what is God's will or to reject what is God's revelation as many Protestants have done with removing Scriptural books (what they call Apocrypha) from the Canon. Yes, there are a lot of question marks, but for those who presume that God's will can be neatly categorized and quantified are reacting in a manner that is a far cry from humility. God has revealed Himself to us. Could he have done more? Absolutely; He is God and there is no way the world can contain the knowledge of Him. Could He have done less? Again, yes, but we'd be more impoverished because of it. God has revealed Himself so taht we may begin to become like Him.

Such are some of my many random thoughts from Theophany. A blessed Theophany to all!