Sotirios Theologou

 

Today Christ gives all of us an invitation which concerns our life and the course we wish to pursue.

In the Gospel reading, we hear about the call of Christ’s first apostles and their acceptance of his invitation. Andrew and Peter and the sons of Zebedee, became his first disciples, abandoning all their possessions in order to follow the Lord.

In worldly terms, they might be considered mad, because they left everything in order to follow him. But by the criteria set by Christ, they gained the supreme gift which he bestows on people: eternal life. These men sacrificed all they had, for God and other people.

The question which Peter addresses to Christ is very much to the point. He says: ‘We’ve given up everything. What will we gain? What benefit will we have?’. And he receives the answer from Christ that: ‘Those who abandon everything for my sake will inherit eternal life’.

But we, too, have received an invitation from Christ.

He’s called upon us to become believers in him and to be baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity.

We may have accepted this invitation, but in life we’ve often strayed from his path.

Our life is like the ships which the first disciples abandoned, which they would have had to trim in order to go out into the open waters of the turbulent sea. The rough waters are the world in which we’re called upon to live and survive.

The Lord sends us messages on a daily basis to follow him properly, to follow him and to make progress along his path, but we close our ears and believe that we’ll achieve everything just through our baptism and the occasional participation in Holy Communion.

We shouldn’t forget that some of Christ’s disciples were illiterate, but had hearts big enough to make room for obedience to God. By taking this decision in their life, they gained everything.

Why?

Because they believed in eternal life. They believed in the Kingdom of God and became Christ’s first disciples.

This ‘Follow me’ is addressed to us today by Christ. It’s not an invitation to entertainment and enjoyment. It’s an invitation to hard work and dedication to him. It’s our free choice to decide whether we’ll follow him or not.

It’s not an easy path. It’s a rough, uneven way, which involves abandoning all worldly goods and comforts and finding the true light which illumines our life and existence.

Christ’s invitation is open to all of us and to all people; ‘for there is no favoritism with God’, as Saint Paul says. It’s the haven where each of us can anchor and find rest from the vanities of this world.

Let us ask God to give us the wisdom and illumination to become aware of this and to follow the path he’s called upon us to tread, and that we may becomes heirs of his kingdom. The answer we give is up to us.

Source: pemptousia.com


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Pemptousia Partnership

Pemptousia and OCN have entered a strategic partnership to bring Orthodoxy Worldwide. Greek philosophers from Ionia considered held that there were four elements or essences (ousies) in nature: earth, water, fire and air. Aristotle added ether to this foursome, which would make it the fifth (pempto) essence, pemptousia, or quintessence. The incarnation of God the Word found fertile ground in man’s proclivity to beauty, to goodness, to truth and to the eternal. Orthodoxy has not functioned as some religion or sect. It was not the movement of the human spirit towards God but the revelation of the true God, Jesus Christ, to man. A basic precept of Orthodoxy is that of the person ­– the personhood of God and of man. Orthodoxy is not a religious philosophy or way of thinking but revelation and life standing on the foundations of divine experience; it is the transcendence of the created and the intimacy of the Uncreated. Orthodox theology is drawn to genuine beauty; it is the theology of the One “fairer than the sons of men”. So in "Pemptousia", we just want to declare this "fifth essence", the divine beaut in our life. Please note, not all Pemptousia articles have bylines. If the author is known, he or she is listed in the article above.

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