A HOMILY FOR THE SUNDAY AFTER THEOPHANY
About Repentance, and the Prayer of Jesus
Brothers and sisters!
After His Baptism in the Jordan by Saint John, our Lord was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert between Jericho and the Dead Sea. There He spent forty days fasting and was tempted by the devil, but He overcame all the foe’s suggestions and emerged from the wilderness victorious. Straightway, He betook Himself to Galilee, where He worked His first miracle – the transformation of water into wine at the marriage in Cana. Then the Passover drew near and He went down to Jerusalem and drove the moneychangers and the sellers of sacrificial animals out of the temple. Christ remained in the Holy City for the feast; but when Herod arrested John and put him in prison, the Lord returned to Galilee, going first to Nazareth and later, as we heard in today’s Gospel, to Capernaum. This city is on the coast of Lake Tiberias, near the border of the ancient territories of the tribes of Zabulon and Nephthalim. There He began to preach, in this way fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah: The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.[1]
Galilee, in particular the region around Capernaum, on the border of Zabulon and Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, would become the area where Jesus Christ would spend the better part of His public ministry, shedding great light upon the inhabitants, as the Evangelist says. Here, in this land of the Gentiles, populated not only by Israelites, but by heathen of several nationalities, Christ chose His apostles, except for Judas; here He preached the majority of His sermons; here He related almost all of His parables; here He worked most of His miracles. Rarely did He visit Jerusalem, and when He did go, it was for feasts. On the whole, the people of Galilee accepted Him and His message better than did the Jews; that is, the inhabitants of Judea. Some of the Galileans had gone to the Holy City that Passover, and they returned to tell their fellow-countrymen what Jesus had said and done in Jerusalem. As a result, the people of Galilee were eager to learn more about the new prophet. In Galilee there were not as many scribes and teachers of the Law as in Judea; therefore, being little-instructed, the Galileans were not overly scrupulous in observing the external details of the Old Testament faith as elaborated by Pharisaic tradition. Because they lived surrounded by pagans, there was considerable religious ignorance among the Galileans. However, they were not as persuaded of the current misconceptions about the Messiah as were the Jews. If they sat in darkness, it was only because they were simple, comparatively innocent folk. Their hearts were more open to the message of Christ than were those of their learned, but proud, stiff-necked brethren to the south.
When He began preaching to the Galileans, the Lord did not speak as yet about lofty mysteries, nor did He tell enigmatic parables. He only repeated, in synagogues, in private homes, in the fields, upon mountains, by the seashore – wherever people would hear Him – the most fundamental message of the Gospel, the message John had proclaimed while preparing the way for the Messiah’s coming: Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, what exactly is the “Kingdom of Heaven” or the “Kingdom of God” mentioned in today’s lection and in so many other places in the New Testament? These terms have three distinct, but somewhat overlapping meanings. The first is the eternal blessedness awaiting the saints and all the true faithful beyond the grave in eternity, and especially after the Final Judgment. The second is the visible forecourt of that blessedness, the Church Militant, the New Testament Church of Christ here on earth: the Holy Orthodox Church, which ushers us into the everlasting Kingdom. The third is the life of grace that every individual believer in Christ may lead in the depths of his heart: the kingdom that is within us. “The Kingdom” means all three things, for wherever Christ is, there is the Kingdom. Or, to put it another way: our Lord Jesus Christ, manifest in the flesh, is Himself the Kingdom. Wherever and whenever we are with Christ, we are in the Kingdom.
In today’s Gospel, the Saviour indicates very simply, with a single word, the principal means by which we enter the Kingdom; the means through which we beckon Him to dwell within us: repentance. Repentance binds man to God; it reconciles man to his own conscience. The beloved Apostle John explains that for us to commune with God, our heart must condemn us not.[2] If your conscience is clean, you have freedom of access to God; you feel the calmness of divine justification. But if your conscience is defiled, then this peace is disturbed and your access to Christ is impeded. To have something on your conscience means that you are troubled by unrepented sin. But the Apostle John teaches that we are constantly sinning, and he calls the man who denies this a liar. Only two types of people have a conscience that is long silent: the greatest saints, who have transcended every sinful passion; and people who are entirely estranged from God, who have no concern to do His will, and who have silenced conscience’s voice by repeatedly disregarding it. But we ordinary Christians sin every hour, so we should constantly be cleansing our conscience by repentance. Only by means of assiduous repentance can we truly purify the conscience; only by assiduous repentance can we enjoy Christ’s peace that surpasses understanding; only by assiduous repentance can we lead the life of the Kingdom of God; only by assiduous repentance can we fully experience the saving presence of Christ the Lord.
Our Holy Orthodox Church is the treasury of continuous repentance, which she especially teaches her children by means of the Prayer of Jesus: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. By frequently repeating this prayer with attention, compunction, and the remembrance of death, we attain a certain condition of inner stability. This produces a natural intensification of watchfulness, and this intensification results in deepened insight into spiritual warfare. This in its turn is succeeded by nearly unbroken perseverance in saying the Prayer of Jesus and finally by the state in which the soul, in complete quietude, enjoys splendid illumination and the most intimate communion with the Son of God. The last condition mentioned is the inner state of soul of saints, regardless of their outer circumstances. But even if we fall far short of this (as almost everyone does), we will certainly experience no small measure of the grace and peace of God and the life of His Kingdom, if only we strive with determination for persistent repentance by cultivating the Prayer of Jesus in accordance with the authentic spiritual tradition of the Church of Christ. This, dear brothers and sisters, is very great gain indeed, for it is an earnest of eternal life in the Kingdom!
When our Lord began to preach in Capernaum, He said that the Kingdom was at hand. This was true then in an historical sense, for He had already manifested Himself to the world and was about to accomplish our redemption. Now it is true in another sense. Christ the Lord is near, He is at hand: He is alongside every Orthodox Christian. Avail yourselves, dear brothers and sisters, of the means of assiduous repentance – especially the frequent repetition of the most holy name of Jesus – and Christ will not only be at hand, but with you and within you, all the days of your life and unto ages of ages! Amen.
[1] Matt. 4:15-16; cf. Is. 9:1, 42:7
[2] I John 4:21
