Instruction for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (3)

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Mt 1:1).

Today the holy Church celebrates her weekly feast—the Sunday resurrection of Christ—and at the same time keeps the forefeast of the Nativity of Christ; therefore at the all-night vigil the Gospel of Christ’s resurrection is read, while at the Liturgy the Gospel of the forefathers of Jesus Christ according to His humanity is read. The Liturgy Gospel begins with the words: the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Let us pause on these words and make them the subject of our present sermon.

What do they tell us? This: that the only-begotten Son of God, consubstantial and co-beginningless with God the Father, all-good, almighty, the hypostatic Wisdom of God who ordered the world and everything in the world, the Almighty Himself, who upholds all creation visible and invisible, having taken up human nature, entered into kinship with men—men whom He Himself had created in His own image and likeness, but who had sinned through bold disobedience and had become utterly corrupted through countless transgressions; the Son of God became the Son of Man, that is, a man, like us in all things except sin, without ceasing to be the beginningless and almighty God; full—He emptied Himself; rich—He became poor; untouchable in His essence—He became touchable for our salvation. What goodness! What mercy, what utmost condescension! What voluntary poverty! Having taken on our nature made poor by sin, He is born in poverty too, of a poor mother, though of royal lineage, and of the most pure Virgin, in a wretched cave!

O man! Awake from your sinful slumber, and consider what this wondrous dispensation of God for you means, this wondrous self-emptying of the Son of God for your sake, and respond to the loving voice of God calling you. What does He say? He says: I have come to seek and to save you, the lost (Mt 18:11) sinner. Repent, then; correct the paths of your heart, your whole conduct; be renewed, put off the old age of sin, love righteousness and hate lawlessness, for only those who keep His commandments are kin to the Son of God. Only call upon Me with your whole soul, and I will help you in everything; in My Church I have laid up every means to your salvation; make full use of them with diligence, and you will be saved with ease.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. According to the flesh, Jesus Christ descended from Abraham and David. What great forefathers! What venerable names! Abraham was the friend of God, to whom promises were given by God that from his seed the Savior of the world would be born (Gen 22:18); from him the Lord, according to His promise, brought forth nations as numberless as the sand of the sea and the stars of heaven (Hebr 11:12). David was king of Israel, a man after God’s own heart (1Sam 13:14), meek and without malice, to whom likewise the promise was given that the Savior of the world would be born of his descendants. And behold, the Lord fulfilled His promise: the Son of God was indeed born, according to His humanity, of the line of Abraham and David.

You who are children of Abraham by faith and children of God by the grace of Christ, strive to imitate the great forefathers, the ancestors of Jesus Christ: Abraham—in faith, simplicity, hospitality, obedience to God, and the cutting off of one’s own will from every worldly attachment, in welcoming strangers, in friendship, in constancy of faith, hope, and love, in patience and long-suffering; David—likewise in faith, hope, meekness, freedom from malice, in repentance, in ardor of love, in prayer, doxology, thanksgiving, and in patience amid sorrows and misfortunes.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Hearing of the Lord’s kinship according to flesh and spirit with Abraham and David and the other forefathers, among whom were men not without sin—remember, brother, remember, sister, that with you too the Lord has entered into close kinship; He has become not only your God and Savior, but your Brother according to humanity, for it is said: He is not ashamed to call them brothers (Hebr 2:11); He has become one blood and one body with us, so that we are members of Him, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph 5:30); and when we estrange ourselves from Him by our sins, He again invites us to restore our union with Him, calling us to repentance, and, when we sincerely repent, again receives us into spiritual communion with Himself, imparting to us His Holy Spirit, by whom we cry to God, Abba, Father (Rom 8:15)! He renews His bond with repentant sinners in a manner of ineffable love, granting us to taste His own flesh and blood, and proclaiming with boundless meekness and love: take, eat: this is My body, and: drink of it, all of you: this is My blood, of the New Covenant (Mt 26:26,28). What condescension, what salvation, what an honor—to taste the most pure body of the Lord Jesus Christ and to drink His most pure blood! This is the highest honor! This is the most wondrous salvation! For everyone who sincerely communes, being dead in spirit, is brought to life, is loosed from sins, is sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and is deified with a most glorious deification.

Remember, then, O Christian, your kinship with the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation, and strive with all your might to conduct yourself worthily of your calling; flee sin in all its forms, resist every sin as a faithful soldier of Christ, be zealous for holiness in your whole manner of life, as it is said: be holy in all your conduct (1Pet 1:15). Whoever sins and does not repent with his whole heart is in kinship with the devil, the murderer of mankind. Such people the holy Forerunner of Christ, John, called a brood of vipers (Mt 3:7), and the Lord Jesus Christ said of the Jews: you are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you wish to do (Jn 8:44). May God deliver us all from such a fearsome kinship with sin and its author. And so, however many times you sin, repent at once, secretly, before God, break your bond with the devil and restore your bond with God at appointed times before your spiritual father. Amen.