Fulfilled in Your Ears

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.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit, glory to Jesus Christ.

Today, brothers and sisters, we celebrate the indiction, the beginning

of the ecclesiastical new year. And I think for many

Orthodox Christians, certainly non-Orthodox Christians, this feast can.

Seem a little unusual.

We understand Nativity, Pascha, Theophany, Pentecost, but celebrating the church

new year can strike us as maybe a little bit administrative,

almost as though the church were simply turning a page

on the calendar.

And historically, there.

Certainly are reasons for why we celebrate on the 1st

of September. The Roman Empire marked the beginning of a

new taxation cycle. It corresponded with the completion of the

previous harvest and the beginning of a new agricultural year.

The crops had been gathered, the storehouses were filled, and

people were preparing to begin another cycle of work and

of plantings. And these customs might help us understand why

September was regarded as the beginning of the first year

in many parts of the ancient world. But the church

doesn't preserve feasts simply because they are ancient customs.

The deeper reason.

For the indiction is found in the gospel that is

appointed today. Christ enters the synagogue at Nazareth. He takes

the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he reads a

passage that the.

Jews knew well.

They had heard these words all their lives. Their fathers

had heard them. Their grandfathers had heard them. Generations had

listened to Isaiah's prophecy concerning the coming Messiah.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

And he, because he has appointed me to preach the

gospel to the poor, he has sent me to heal

the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering

of sight to the blind. And Christ closes the book

and he says, this day is the.

Scripture fulfilled in your ears.

It's difficult to overstate how astonishing those words would have sounded.

The hope of Israel, the expectation of the prophets, the

promise made throughout the scriptures, all of it centered on

the coming of the Messiah.

And now Christ proclaims that the waiting is over.

The prophecy stands fulfilled in him. And that is why

the church places this gospel before us at the beginning

of the ecclesiastical year.

Because the indiction is.

Not merely the beginning of a calendar. It's the remembrance

of the beginning of Christ's public ministry and his revelation

to the world. Every year the church returns us to

Nazareth and places us among those listening in the synagogue.

We hear the same proclamation, we encounter the same Christ,

and we must answer the same question. Having been given

the gospel, having received the holy.

Mysteries, having inherited the fullness of.

The Orthodox faith, what are we actually doing with these gifts?

This is an important question because it's very easy to

drift through the Christian life year to year.

We attend the feast, we keep the fast, we celebrate.

Pascha, Nativity is coming, the offening, and before you know it,

another year has passed and we're at yet another addiction.

But our spiritual life is not measured by the passage

of time. It's measured by our growth in Christ. A

year spent drawing nearer to God is a blessing. A

year spent standing still is a tragedy. The beginning of

the church year, therefore, gives us an opportunity to examine ourselves.

Where do we stand versus a year ago? Are we

more prayerful? Are we more patient? Are we more charitable?

Are we more faithful in our attendance? Are we kinder

with our brothers and sisters? Are we struggling earnestly against

our passions? Have we made progress in overcoming our sins?

These are the questions that matter as we walk through

the ecclesiastical year and we look back at what has

passed and we look forward to what is to come.

Time is one of the greatest gifts that God has

entrusted to man. But once it's spent, it can't be recovered.

So the year that begins today is yet another gift

from God. Whether it becomes a year of spiritual growth

or a year lost in distraction and indifference depends greatly

on how we respond to his grace. We have heard

the gospel. Today, that scripture has been fulfilled in our ears.

Brothers and sisters, as we begin the new ecclesiastical year,

let us receive Christ's words in the synagogue as though

they were being spoken directly to us. Let us renew

our commitment to prayer. to repentance, to faithfulness, and let

us determine that when we stand here next year, we

will not simply be one year older, but one year

closer to Christ. In the name of the Father, and

the Son, and.

The Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to Hill Country Homilies. For more information,

visit Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church at www.annunciationtx.com. And please join

us again next week.