From Tabor to the Empty Tomb

Welcome to Hill Country Homilies. Weekly homilies from Holy Annunciation

Orthodox Church in Liberty Hill, Texas. Holy Annunciation is an

old calendar Orthodox church sharing the faith of the Apostles

and the love of Christ with all who seek His truth. Now,

let's listen to this week's homily, and.

Then the Father and Son the Holy Spirit Glord to

Jesus Christ. Have a seat if you wish, my dear

brothers and sisters in Christ. On this twelfth Sunday after Pentecost,

we continue in our regular Sunday electionary, but we are

also in the after feast of the Transfiguration. And this morning,

rather than talking about the Gospel of the Rich Young Ruler,

I instead want to talk to you about our reading

for the Epistle from the First First Letter to the Corinthians.

And in this reading, Saint Paul reminds us of the

foundation upon which all Christian life stands. I declare unto

you the Gospel which I've preached unto you, which also

ye have received, and wherein ye stand by which also

ye are saved. We have all heard these words before.

We know that Christ died, that he was buried, that

he rose on the third day. We confess it in

the Creed, we sing it throughout the postle season, and

we proclaim it constantly throughout the liturgical year as part

of our life in the church. But Saint Paul was

not merely reminding the Corinthians of something familiar. He was

calling them back to the truth upon which their salvation depends.

Some among them had begun to waver in their faith

concerning the resurrection. And though they had received the apostog

preaching from none other than Paul himself, and they belonged

to the church, doubts had begun to arise with them.

And so Paul takes them back to the beginning. I've

delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received,

how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,

and that he was buried, and that he rose again

the third day according to the scriptures. Now, notice how

carefully Paul speaks. He does not say that he invented

this message, or that he wrote this message, or that

he developed it through his own special insight. Instead, he says,

I delivered unto you that which I also received. Saint

John Christ system comments upon precisely these words. He says,

Paul doesn't say merely I taught you, but I delivered

unto you that which I also received, demonstrating that the

apostog faith is not something originating from men. Paul in

instead is handing on what was entrusted to him by

Christ himself. And this remains the pattern of the Church

to this day. The Gospel is received, it is preserved,

is proclaimed, and it is received again, transmitted through generations

by the successors to the Apostles. The Church has never

called to reinvent the faith or discover new doctrines, but

to safeguard faithfully that which it has received. The Gospel

which saves us is the same gospel that was preached

by the Apostles. And for Paul, the resurrection is not

simply one doctrine among many, but it is the heart

of the Christian faith. Christianity is not merely a philosophy

of life or a collection of moral teachings. It is

the proclamation of something that has happened in history. The

Son of God entered death itself and conquered it. Saint

John Christen draws particular attention to Paul's words that Christ

died for his sins. This phrase, which Christians toss around

almost frivolously today actually bears deep and profound meaning. Christ

himself was without sin, and he did not die because

he was subject to sin or to corruption. Rather, being

without sin, he could only have willingly accepted the bodily

death that belonged to us, and being the sinless one

and the author of life, having entered into death, he

shattered it from within, because he was never able to

be bound there in the first instance. This week past

we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

The disciples beheld the divine glory of Christ shining through

his humanity. His face shone like the sun in his garments,

became radiant with light. The one who was revealed in

glory upon Tabor is the same one who would soon

and be led to Golgatha. And the face that shone

with divine light would soon be struck on the sides,

and the beloved son of the Father would be mocked

and scourged and crucified. But yet the darkness of Golgatha

could never extinguish the light of Tabor. The glory revealed

on the mountain pointed beyond the cross to the resurrection itself,

as the Chosen Disciples beheld Moses and Elijah, both bodily

present and conversing with Christ. Christ entered into death not

as its victim, but as its conqueror. Saint Athanasius speaks

beautifully of this mystery, saying that the death, intended by

Christ's enemies to shame and dishonor him, became the very

moment of Death's defeat, and through his death, Christ overthrows

death itself for our salvation. And this is why the

resurrection changes everything. For mankind had always lived beneath the

shadow of death. The powerful and the weak, the rich

the poor, all eventually entered the grave, and human glory faded.

Kingdoms pass away, and death appeared to have the final

word over everything. But Christ entered into the tomb and

broke its power. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem therefore calls Christians

to rejoice. As the Cross brought sorrow, so the resurrection

brings joy and gladness. The one who endured the crown

of thorns has arisen victorious. The one who entered the

realm of the dead has become the deliverer of all

those who had fallen asleep. The sins which subject us

to bodily death, while they sorrow us because here on

this earth they separate us from God. They no longer

chain us to Hades. And as the resurrection changed the

weeping of the merbearers into joy, so to our momentary

sorrow is supplanted by the postle joy. The resurrection is

not merely the survival of our soul. Christ rose bodily

the grave. The Apostles saw him touch him, spoke with him, Moses,

Elijah bodily present with him on Mount Tabor. The tomb

stands empty. God has come not only to save souls,

but to redeem our human nature bodily. Saint Paul reminds

the Corinthians that the risen Lord appeared to Peter, to

the twelve, to more than five hundred brethren at once,

to James and all the Apostles, and finally to Paul

himself on the road to Damascus. Christianity rests not upon

myths or private of experiences, but upon the witness of

those who encountered the risen Christ, and this truth changes

everything about how we understand life and death. Because of

Christ is risen, then death is no longer the end

of the story. When we bury our loved ones, we grieve,

but not as those who have no hope. We await

the day of the General resurrection. Win As the disciples

beheld the divinity of Christ at the transfiguration, we too

will behold Him face to face. And if Christ has risen,

then our struggles for holiness are not in vain. No

sincere prayer can ever be wasted, no sin can ever

be beyond remission, and no labor offered to God can

be meaningless. If Christ has risen, then despair itself is

exposed as a lie. And every sorrow, every trial, and

every suffering must ultimately yield before the victory of the

risen Lord. So Saint Paul's teaching is not only about

christ resurrection from the dead. It's also about the power

of the risen Christ to transform our human lives. Paul

describes himself as one not worthy to be called an

apostle because he persecuted the Church of God viciously. He

sought to destroy Christianity and the Christians by every human nature.

He was the least likely by every human measure, he

was the least likely candidate to become an apostle. Yet

Christ appear to him. Saint Cyril marvels that God granted

such providence for such prominence to the former persecutor. The

church's enemy becomes one of her greatest teachers and defenders.

In this God demonstrated the truth and the power of

the Gospel. For when one who was zealous in his

wars against a faith testifies to its truth, no accusations

of falsehood can stand. But Paul himself boasts of none

of this. Instead, he says, by the grace of God,

I am what I am, and those words reveal what

the resurrection accomplishes in a human life. The risen Christ

did not merely teach Paul that there is life after death.

He transformed him in the present. The persecutor becomes a preacher,

the destroyer becomes the greatest builder of the Church, and

the enemy becomes the very apostle of the Lord. The

same grace is offered to each and every one of

us in our holy baptism. We all carry sins, failures, weakness, wounds.

We often convince ourselves that real change is impossible, that

we're doomed by our own shortcomings. You have the conversion

of Paul stands before us as a witness that no

one is beyond the reach of God's grace, No sin

is greater than Christ's mercy, no habit stronger than His grace,

and no heart is so hardened that it cannot be

renewed through repentance. Brothers and sisters, Saint Paul reminds us

today of the gospel we have received, the gospel in

which we stand, and the gospel by which we will

be saved. Christ died for our sins, buried, rose again,

He conquered death, He changed the persecutors into apostles. And

let us therefore not treat the resurrection just as a

familiar doctrine, not easy words to throw away. Let us

not treat the transfiguration as a glorious event remembered annually

in the church calendar. The glory manifested in the resurrections,

the same glory that was revealed beforehand on Mount Table

and that same light that shines through the cross, that

same light that shines through the cross that breaks open

the tomb, and has offered even now to illumine transform

our own hearts. And because Christ has risen, the glory

shown to the disciples on Mount Tabor is no distant vision,

but a foreshadowing of what He intends for all who

stand in His Gospel, to be changed by his grace,

to be filled with his light, and to be brought

at last into the joy of his eternal kingdom. To

him who was transfigured on Mount Table for our salvation,

be all glory, honor, and worship, now heaving to the

ages of ages.

Thanks for listening to her country homilies. For more information,

visit Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church at www dot DENUNCIATIONTX dot com,

and please join us again next week. M