ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

A TIME OF HOPE

Sermon for the Sunday after Theophany, preached by Father Patrick Radley at the Parish of the Holy Transfiguration, Walsingham, 13 January 2008

Eph.4:7-13       Matt.4:12-17

The icon of the Theophany remains at the centre of our worship to-day.  Not just because we are still in the time of the Afterfeast, but also because we have entered a period of hope, a looking forward to that second Theophany, the final glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, which is to come at the end of the ages.

St Paul made it clear in his letter to Titus that when, in the Baptism in the Jordan, ‘the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit’.  That is the source of our hope.  And he went on to say that this appearance was ‘so that we might be justified by God’s grace and become heirs of eternal life’.  And now, at this time of the Afterfeast , the Apostle, writing to the Church in Ephesus, explains the significance in the lives of each of us of that blessed hope, that expectation of the second coming of Our Lord.

He reminds us of how, in Christ, God came down to earth and experienced human life to the full, even to the hell of a despairing death, before rising from the dead and taking our redeemed nature with Him into heaven.  And now, he says, grace has been given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift through the Holy Spirit.  This grace is for the building up of His Church, His Body, so that the prayer of Our Lord to His Father may be fulfilled in preparation for His coming: ‘Thy Kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.

That preparation begins with the grace that is being given to us here and now within the celebration of this Liturgy.  For we are gathered as one body, the Assembly of Christ’s Church, to experience, insofar as we are able, what St Paul calls ‘the plan of the mystery’, namely the ascent to the Kingdom.  The entrance among us of the Gospel assures us that indeed ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand’; and the reading and teaching of the Word, with mutual acceptance of that, takes us further in our ascent.  In all this we recognise Christ’s presence among us, both accompanying and leading us.  We have, in prosphora and in gifts, made our own offering, and now the Body and Blood is brought among us of Him that offers and Him that is offered.  Joined in recognition that all is gift, we, the faithful, are confirmed yet again as His Church and we raise our hearts in thanksgiving.

For now, in this ascent to the Kingdom, Christ gives to His Disciples and to us the ultimate gift, His Body and Blood, all of us partaking so that we may all become a part of His living Body in preparation for the final washing of regeneration, the final renewal in the Holy Spirit.

To-day, in the Gospel reading, Jesus comes to begin His mission in our lives.  Last Sunday we witnessed and gave thanks for His Theophany.  Now His call to us is unambiguous: ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’.  Let us all, in hope and with pure hearts, welcome Him and say: ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’

Amen.