7th Sunday after Pent. Gosp. Matt.9:27-35; Epist. Rom.15:1-7

Today is the 7th Sunday after Pentecost and we celebrate the Fathers of the first 6th Ecumenical councils. Who Christ is, His full and complete humanity, and  full and complete divinity, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the foundational teachings of the Church were carefully defined during these ecumenical councils. The boundaries of our faith were established in the first 2 councils in 325 and 381 which gave us the Nicene/Constantinople creed which is to this day our “statement of faith.” We repeat the creed before we receive communion at every liturgy. Let us pay special attention today when we reach this stage of the liturgy, and give silent thanksgiving to these fathers who we are venerating today and who gave us this creed as we pray these eternal words. Knowing what the Church has always believed and taught is most essential and fundamental to our faith. Orthodoxy is translated “right knowledge” and this knowledge is not open to different viewpoints based on our own private interpretations, as it has been passed down directly from Christ to His apostles, and through them to the bishops of every succeeding generation. It is to be treasured and faithfully guarded and passed on intact to the next generation.

Thousands of bishops and clergy from all parts of the church met and agreed on the boundaries of the faith at these councils These venerable fathers while establishing the true faith threw out many heresies such as:

Arianism – Christ isn’t really fully God but rather a created being;

Nestorianism – Christ’s mother can’t be called the Theotokos – Mother of God – as she only gave birth to Christ the human, who was separate from Christ God.

Gnosticism – Spirit only is real and good and physical matter is evil and false and only a few “enlightened ones can receive the truth and be illuminated with true knowledge.

Dualism – Spiritual things are pure and superior to material things which are contaminated. Spirit good, matter bad. The Church confesses God created all things both visible and invisible good.

These heresies are still alive and kicking today. Dualism is not so subtly prevalent all throughout the new age movement and especially in the various forms of Buddhism. The Jehovah Witnesses are classic Arians, the Mormon’s are Gnostics and on and on. Almost our entire culture thinks dualistically. The key question regarding any group claiming to be Christian would be “Is the Christ they worship the same Christ that all of the ecumenical councils and the creed proclaim?”

In today’s gospel we encounter Jesus travelling about Palestine healing the blind, casting out demons and fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah. The last verse in today’s reading tells us (Matt.9:35)“Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” All through the gospel’s we see Christ fulfilling the signs that the Old Testament scriptures said the Messiah would do. The eternal Logos, He who created all, took human flesh and entered chronological time in our history. When you add up the signs that will reveal the Messiah when He comes all through the Old Testament and then read the Gospels, you will see that Jesus was very clearly establishing that He was the Messiah through His actions; traveling throughout the holy land and continuously healing the sick, the mute, the blind, raising the dead, and demonstrating power over nature and the demons. Every detail; His birthplace in Bethlehem, the miracle of His birth from a virgin – our beloved Lady Theotokos, the appearance of John the Baptist, His entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, His hands and feet and side being pierced in His crucifixion, His clothes being divided up by the casting of lots, His death on the cross, His glorious resurrection on the 3rd day, and so much more, is all prophesized and foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament. Christ was not performing miracles to increase His reputation, or to gather a large group of followers. He was not indulging in self-promotion, He says to the two blind men in today’s gospel, and many others whom He healed “See that no-one knows it.” Christ was and is before the world began. He is the focus and the purpose of the entire Old Testament. He came to complete our formation as true human beings and sons of God. This is what was “finished” on the cross when He said, “It is finished.”

His focus when here in the flesh almost 2000 years ago was on completing the creation of human beings of which He is the first born. He healed the blind, deaf, sick, mute and even raised a few selected people from the dead to establish that He is God the Messiah, that we all might choose to worship and follow Him as God. There were only a few that received healing miracles from Christ during His 3-year ministry years compared to the great masses who were sick and needy, and even Lazarus, who Christ rose from being 4 days dead was destined to die again many years later as a bishop in Cyprus. So the point was not simply to heal a few people during His 3-year ministry period, but to take on full humanity as God, and establish our humanity in the heavens at the right hand of God the Father – completing the creation of man. In today’s gospel we simply see Him going about fulfilling what had been written about Him in the Old Testament scriptures.

Sometimes I hear people say how hard it is to understand the Old Testament. We have all this horrible killing and debauchery, the sacrifices of blood and what is the point of it all? When we read the Old Testament, we read it in light of Christ. We hear (2 Tim 3:15,16) “…from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration by God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” St. Paul is referring to the Old Testament scriptures. It would be another 300 years, from the time he wrote this letter to Timothy until we find our first list of the 27 books of the New Testament, which we now all agree are the books accepted as the New Testament cannon of scripture without additions or subtractions. Our first list is in St. Athanasius’s Easter letter in 367.

Everything is about Christ. The entire point of the Old Testament from an Orthodox Christian perspective is to reveal Christ, the Saviour, the Messiah. He comes to save His creation, the race of Adam, because there is no way that we can live the Godly life of holiness which God created us to live, by our own efforts. We try and constantly fail miserably. We need the Messiah, Christ the redeemer or we are lost. The Old Testament is the story of how God chose His people the children of Israel, revealed Himself to them and made a covenant, a deal, with them. (Duet.30:15,16,19,20) “See, I set before you today life and death, good and evil. If you hear the commandments of the Lord your God I command you today, to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His ordinances and judgements, then you shall live and multiply…I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live and love the Lord your God, Obey His voice and cling to Him.” God is telling His people over and over again to listen to Him and all would go well. But from the very beginning, throughout all of history, we self-willed human’s fail miserably to listen and to follow God’s laws, disobeying God’s clear instructions – doing what we feel is best instead.

But, all throughout the Old Testament we see that a way back to God is coming. From before all of creation, Christ’s coming for our salvation was planned. All of the Old Testament prophets prophesy and look longingly for His arrival. What a glorious and blessed privilege is ours to be living under the New Covenant, with the resurrected Lord!

We easily recognize the signs of the Messiah demonstrated by Christ in today’s gospel when He heals the 2 blind men and casts out the demon healing the mute man, agreeing with the crowd, “And the multitudes marvelled saying, ‘It was never seen like this in Israel.’” Of course as usual, the leaders, the Pharisees, who are very comfortable in their present position and committed to keeping the status quo alive, immediately try to discredit Christ. But the common people, those with nothing to lose, who have a great awareness of their broken humanity and great neediness, immediately recognize the reality that there has never been anyone like this man Jesus and have great hope. The entire Old Testament is anticipating and foreshadowing His arrival, and the entire New Testament is written because of His arrival and the new reality this brings to our world. We can only hope to have understanding of the scriptures through Christ.

After Christ rose from the dead, the first order of instruction He gave to His followers was to enlighten them as to how all of the scriptures revealed Himself. Not instruction on how to live a good moral life, but rather instruction on Who He is. In Luke’s gospel we have Jesus appearing to Luke and Cleopas on the road to Emmaus saying (Luke 24:25-27,30,31) “Then He said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself…He took bread blessed and broke it and gave it to them… Then their eyes were opened, and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.” It is very significant that Christ spends 3 years with His chosen apostles explaining and showing them who He is, but they finally get it when He reveals Himself as present in the breaking of the bread and disappears in His human physical form to them. When Christ first appears to the Apostles after His resurrection, He instructs them (Luke 24:24,25) “Then He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the scriptures.” It is most important that we understand Who Christ is and then learn to turn to Him in faith for help and protection and forgiveness and restoration. When we learn to call on Him in all things, we will then have some success in following His teachings. Trying to follow His teachings without His help and power will simply not work and cause us to get bent and grow away from the truth.

At every liturgy, before we read the gospel, we pray that we might comprehend the scriptures, “Illumine our hearts O Mater who love mankind with the pure light of Your divine knowledge. Open the eyes of our mind to the understanding of Your gospel teachings…” We cannot hope to begin to understand the scriptures – old or new testament, without the mind of Christ. For He has come into the world to save us and open our eyes to know Him, even as He healed the blindness of the two blind men in today’s gospel, for He loves us and all of mankind. Glory to Jesus Christ!