I spoke last Sunday in very high ways about the Eucharist. For example, I said that because Jesus Christ is the source and summit of our life, so the Eucharist, the blessed Sacrament of the Altar, is the source and summit of our life. The Eucharist is Christ, and Christ is Himself the Eucharist. I also said that no matter what our feelings may be on a given Sunday, or a given Liturgy of the Eucharist on a weekday, the very nature of the Eucharist is that it is Christ’s most precious Body and Blood. The Eucharist heals us because Christ heals us, and He is the Eucharist. The Eucharist strengthens us because Christ strengthens us, and the Eucharist is Christ. The Eucharist showers us with heavenly love because Christ is Love, Who became man in holy sacrifice for us.

That kind of understanding of the Sacrifice of Christ is central to a right knowledge about Jesus. He took our flesh so that He could dwell among us. He became flesh to dwell among us as the Eucharist, as the Blessed Sacrament. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of His Passion, indeed the Sacrament of His Sacrifice. Yet understanding that Christ indeed voluntarily sacrificed Himself took the Church time to realize. Really until Paul started writing his holy epistles–that is when the nature of Christ’s Sacrifice became widely known and widely understood.

Yet, there are small hints that the disciples sensed, or better, glimpsed, some of this during Christ’s human life. Saint Peter said to Jesus, “To Whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!” Peter also said of Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” Certainly the Blessed Virgin Mary had a strong sense of Who her Son was, and Who He always will be. Saint Mary Magdalene and the other holy myrrh-bearing women had some kind of sense, as well. Saint John the Apostle, the beloved disciple, shared this sense with the holy myrrh-bearing women.

Yet most of the disciples fled the Cross when Jesus was nailed to it; they would not have fled if they knew that the Passion of Christ was the most glorious sacrifice possible. They were confused and uncertain Who Jesus was, and uncertain of what His death meant. But somewhere, amid their confusion, there was a seed growing in them. This is how God works: He plants seeds in our heart that are intended to grow in us, so that we are able to conceive the holy Jesus in our hearts, and bear Him in our minds. It takes time, but the power of God’s seed is infinite. It always grows in good soil.

In our Gospel account from Saint Matthew, the Mother of Saint John and Saint James, the sons of Zebedee, named by Jesus as the “sons of thunder,” speaks to Jesus. She is doing so because her sons asked her to. They had seen the Transfiguration of Jesus and it opened the eyes of their heart, and began to transform them. Seeing Jesus transfigured–this most glorious and mysterious event–meant a seed of glory was planted in the hearts of James and John. In seeing Him transfigured they also witnessed Elijah and Moses appearing, one on the right of Jesus and one on the left. They heard a voice from the cloud which overshadowed them, say, “This is my beloved Son, Hear Him!” And they were told by Jesus, as they came down from the mountain after the Transfiguration, to tell no one the things they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. What they saw left a mark on their soul. This is the seed that was planted. Direct experiences of Christ plant a seed in us.

They wanted to be at the right hand and at the left hand of Jesus as He entered His kingdom. Why? Because they saw Moses at the right hand and Elijah at the left hand of Jesus as He appeared to them in His transfigured glory. That seed which was planted started to grow. They were filled with zeal, they were filled with a strong desire to be with Jesus. They wanted to imitate Moses and Elijah, two Saints of the Church, and to be able to speak with Jesus in His glory as Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus. James and John, in other words, wanted what we should all want. They had zeal which we should all have. They were filled with desire that we all should be filled with. And even us more so than them, because unlike them, we have the benefit of the New Testament writings and two thousand years of the prayer of Holy Church, and they did not. We have the Eucharist, and at that time, they did not.

And because of this, we know something very important, that had yet to be revealed to John and James: to enter into the glory of Christ and be with Him requires that we choose to be with Christ in His Passion. We must choose to be voluntarily with Christ as He voluntarily offers His Body and Blood in holy sacrifice: doing so both as the Sacrifice and the High Priest Who offers the Sacrifice which is Himself. The new covenant is the covenant made with Christ’s Body and Blood shed in His Passion, which is the beginning of all creation.

As Paul says, every time we receive the Eucharist, we proclaim Christ’s death. When we receive the Eucharist, we proclaim the Gospel, for Christ’s death means forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life–and this is the Gospel. Christ’s death, His Passion, is the source of all new creation, and the summit of earthly existences: for Christ is the Light of the world, through Whom all things are made, and all things through Him are remade. This is why the Eucharist, which is Christ, heals us, strengthens us, and showers us with heavenly benediction. Because of the Passion of Christ, He is able to live in us, and we are able to live in Him, Christ the King of all Creation, Who lives and reigns with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost: ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Every Lent, my parish—Saint Paul’s, New Smyrna Beach—offers what we call “Lent Friday Worship.” The weekly festivity begins with Plainsong Evensong, and then is followed by Stations of the Cross, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, then to the parish hall for a community meal, and Rector Forum given by yours truly.

This year I am focusing on the Epistle of Saint James. The aim is, by the end of Lent, to go through all of it, line by line, offering my reflective commentary along the way. And to aid the commentary I offer, I will also be consulting and sharing the commentary on this Epistle by the Venerable S. Bede, the great English Church Father.

This final Session looks at James 4:7-end. Those verses are below.

7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

11 Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” 16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

CHAPTER 5

1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. 4 Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 5 You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.

7 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. 8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

9 Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door! 10 My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. 11 Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.

12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

19 Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

In our Epistle, Saint Paul speaks of our freedom. He says, “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our Mother.” And he says at the end of the epistle, “Freedom in Christ as set us free.” In speaking of freedom, Paul means freedom from sin. He means freedom from sinful ways, sinful habits which are called passions. Paul means freedom from being a slave to sin, or a slave to the world. In the holy doctrine of Paul, when we are in Christ we are a new creation. In Christ the eyes of our heart see above the firmament into the heavenly places.

In Christ the dry land of our sinful existence, the dry land of spiritual darkness becomes earth, becomes capable of growth, becomes capable of redemption, of being made right, because of the Holy Cross. Dry land cannot grow grass which bears seed; dry land cannot grow fruit trees bearing seeds in the fruit. When we are slaves to sin, we are in darkness, the darkness of the abyss. Christ brings us out of the darkness, because Christ is our light. And God parts the sea, He gathers together the waters so that dry land appears. And He calls us the dry land earth; He calls us “earth” and desires that we are good soil: this is the freedom we have in Christ, that being free, we can spiritually grow, that on the earth, which is to say in our heart, we can bear fruit and have seeds within ourselves, indeed that our heart can contain the seeds of all good works and virtues, that we can perform works of love and works of mercy, which are brought forth from the good treasure of our heart.

Our Collect invites us to be comforted by the grace of Christ, that in our suffering we may be relieved by the mercy of Christ. And what can comfort us more than Christ Himself? Who can provide grace to us but Christ Himself? Who may bestow mercy upon us to relieve us from our suffering, our wounds, our hurts but He Whose very nature is mercy, Jesus Christ Himself? Our Lord Jesus gives us the peace which passes all understanding, and He does so by His presence. He does so personally for each one of His children. He does so personally for each of his parish churches as a Body, because we are His Body. We are in Him, and He is in us.

And to His Body the Church He gives His Body and Blood in the Blessed Sacrament, in the most holy Sacrament of the Altar, the Eucharist. Saint John teaches us that Jesus Christ distributes Himself to those who were seated. The image of being seated most powerfully is given us in the image of Saint Mary Magdalene, seated at the feet of Jesus. In being seated at the feet of Jesus, she offers herself as a living sacrifice to God. In being seated at the feet of Jesus, she adores Christ, listens to Christ, and puts all of her focus on Christ. In being seated at the feet of Jesus, her heart is centered on Christ and His Sacred Humanity. In being seated, she is fed by Christ, as He fed the five thousand who were seated.

In feeding us within Himself, Christ transforms us. We are transformed because the Sacrament of Christ’s Love, which is the Eucharist, fulfills its purpose in us. Receiving into our bodies Christ’s Body and Blood, we are drawn to become that which we receive: and we receive He Who is Love, so that we are drawn out of darkness, out of being merely dry land, to become fertile earth upon which the seeds of the Gospel grow into large trees bearing fruit. Christ’s Gospel seeds grow in our heart and transform our heart. Christ’s love envelops us and covers us and protects us. Christ’s love heals us, cleans us, and feeds us. Freedom in Christ means the ability to grow up to the fullness of the stature of Christ. Christ’s love perfects us; makes us more and more perfected; makes us more and more like Him.

Because Jesus Christ is the source and summit of our life, so the Eucharist, the blessed Sacrament of the Altar, is the source and summit of our life. The Eucharist is Christ, and Christ is Himself the Eucharist. Thus the Eucharist is itself the surest tradition, the one tradition on which we always can safely rely. Thus we adore the Blessed Sacrament. Thus we always allow the Blessed Sacrament to shower upon us heavenly benediction. No matter what our feelings may be on a given Sunday, the very nature of the Eucharist is that it is Christ’s most precious Body and Blood, which we receive irrespective of how we are feeling. The Eucharist heals us because Christ heals us, and He is the Eucharist. The Eucharist strengthens us because Christ strengthens us, and the Eucharist is Christ. The Eucharist showers us with heavenly love because Christ is Love incarnate, Who became man in holy sacrifice for us, and Who always lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Every Lent, my parish—Saint Paul’s, New Smyrna Beach—offers what we call “Lent Friday Worship.” The weekly festivity begins with Plainsong Evensong, and then is followed by Stations of the Cross, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, then to the parish hall for a community meal, and Rector Forum given by yours truly.

This year I am focusing on the Epistle of Saint James. The aim is, by the end of Lent, to go through all of it, line by line, offering my reflective commentary along the way. And to aid the commentary I offer, I will also be consulting and sharing the commentary on this Epistle by the Venerable S. Bede, the great English Church Father.

This Session 3 looks at James 2:14 through 4:6. Those verses are below.

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

CHAPTER 3

1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. 2 For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. 3 Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. 4 Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.

See how great a forest a little fire kindles! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. 18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

CHAPTER 4

1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

“God resists the proud,

But gives grace to the humble.”

Our patron, Saint Paul, has a word today about holiness. He teaches that God called us not to a life of impurity, but to a lift of holiness. That holiness is characteristic of our prayer life, indeed how we walk, so as to please God. Indeed, as David says in our Psalm: that we lift up our eyes to God, in Whom we put our trust: we are to lift up our eyes and gaze upon God that dwells in the heavens. Our lives ought be different than regular lives of non-Christians. So we will get into that more.

We are to say unto the Lord: Lord, Thou art my hope, and my stronghold. And how do we say this but in prayer? Prayer is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God, taught S. John of Damascus, 8th century Church Father. Lent is a holy season: because it demands prayer that is more intense; prayer that is more robust; prayer that is more regular, which is to say, more often and daily.

Holiness makes up the Christian experience, and it must do so. Because as Saint Paul teaches in his epistle to the Hebrews, “Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

This is one of the lessons our Lord seeks to teach us through the Gospel account from Saint Matthew. The thing to immediately notice in passage is the tension evident between the disciples and Our Lord Jesus. “Send her away, for she is crying after us,” they implore Jesus. But Jesus does not send her away, but rather listens to her, talks with her, and eventually praises her great faith, so much so that we are left with the impression that it was her great faith that healed her daughter from the demon, indeed exorcised her of the demon.

The next thing to notice is the dialogue between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. After the disciples attempted unsuccessfully to command Jesus to send her away, He says “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before Him – she knelt, that is, she worshiped – and she said, “Lord, help me. And He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus answers, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” It sounds on a plain reading that Jesus is being unloving at first and is trying to exclude the woman. But if that were the case, it would violate basic doctrine about Jesus, that His very nature is love and that His Mission from the beginning is always for the salvation of all peoples. So what is actually going on here?

It is not Our Lord who is being taught about compassion and love, but rather the disciples and their hardened hearts, and by extension, us and our hardened hearts. Both of the seemingly inflammatory statements by Jesus—the first, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and the second, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs”—reflect the exclusionary attitude of the Jewish religion of Jesus’s day, as well as the centuries prior. The Jews had been looking for a political messiah to restore political power to them and allow them to complete the rebuilding of the Temple and thereby overthrow their occupiers, the Romans. The last thing they wanted was a Messiah for all peoples Whose very showing of divine power was to die on the tree of the Cross—and be a voluntary failure according not to the illumined eyes of the heart, but rather according to the closed and blind eyes of the world. But it was always the plan of Jesus to show the world what it means to be God by the way He died as a human being. It was always the plan of Jesus to show His disciples that His strength is made perfect in His weakness; that His strength is shown to be divine amidst what seems by worldly standards to be weak. Jesus shows His disciples what it means to be God by the way He died as a human being.

In other words, Jesus used this moment with the Canaanite woman to teach not her but the disciples words He had taught to Isaiah centuries before: “Foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him, to love the Name of the Lord, and to be His servants, every one who keeps the Sabbath, and does not profane it, and hold fast My covenant—these I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer.” (Isaiah 56.6-8)

And this is what holiness means: God is at work in all people, with no exceptions. He was at work in the prostitute Rahab in our first reading, so much so that through her faith, Joshua led the sons of Israel through the Jordan into the promised land. God was at work in the Canaanite woman, so much so that through her faith not only was her daughter healed, but all Christians are taught about real holiness and real faith. Recognizing that God is at work in all people means our heart and mind are holy, that they are partaking of the living water springing up into life eternal, indeed participating in the celestial water which is above the heavens. Such a heart and mind have been applied to lofty and exalted things, and able, as Saint Paul teaches, to regard no one from a human point of view, even to put on the mind of Christ, which we all are called to do – to love as Christ loves. All by the grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Every Lent, my parish—Saint Paul’s, New Smyrna Beach—offers what we call “Lent Friday Worship.” The weekly festivity begins with Plainsong Evensong, and then is followed by Stations of the Cross, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, then to the parish hall for a community meal, and Rector Forum given by yours truly.

This year I am focusing on the Epistle of Saint James. The aim is, by the end of Lent, to go through all of it, line by line, offering my reflective commentary along the way. And to aid the commentary I offer, I will also be consulting and sharing the commentary on this Epistle by the Venerable S. Bede, the great English Church Father.

This Session 2 covers the Epistle of James, chapter 1 verse 11 through chapter 2 verse 13. Those verses are below.

11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. 18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

19 So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; 20 for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

CHAPTER 2

1 My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. 2 For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, 3 and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” 4 have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

5 Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? 7 Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?

8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well; 9 but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

O Lord, Who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey Thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to Thy honour and glory, Who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The conclusion of my sermon for last Sunday had these words: In hearing and reflecting upon the profound account given us about love in the example of Jesus Christ, we may well feel overwhelmed at our great lack of it, as we come to fathom what true love is, and measure ourselves by Our Lord’s perfect pattern. Our great relief now, in Lent, and all our days is to understand that we live in Him: so we with confidence and humility look to Christ in prayer; in prayer with regard to every particular of our daily short-comings; and what we derive from examining our vices and sins, and thus our falling short of Christ’s expectation of us. In Christ we have the assurance that if we are faithful in Him and genuine in our desire to follow Him, to put off our old man and put on the new garments of Christ, if we are like the blind man who simply cried out to Jesus and said, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” He will hear us.

This is why Jesus entered into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. He did this not for Himself, for He is the Sinless One. He did this for us, that we would always know that He hears us in prayer, and understands what we are going through in our lives. After all, Jesus is the Son of God; Jesus and the Father are One. And in being the Son of God, the Eternal Word of the Father, He made a clear-cut decision to go into the wilderness for a very definite purpose. Jesus took on the Devil in the wilderness because He sought the Devil out. There was no question as to who would win this battle.

Christ had already won the war, because He is God and the Devil is not. The Devil had lost long ago, had lost to Archangel Michael and his holy Angels fighting under their general, Jesus Christ. The Devil and his angels were thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. This is what Moses described in Genesis chapter 1, verse 4: “God separated the light from the darkness,” the darkness that was over the face of the deep abyss of hell. The word “darkness” in Genesis 1 refers to the unholy angels of the Devil, and the Devil himself. They were separated from God’s grace by their own demonic pride, and now cover the face of the deep abyss of hell. Hence the Devil appears already in Genesis 2 to Eve and Adam, already the face of darkness, of temptation. Christ had already won the battle against the Devil, and so His entering into the wilderness was to show His disciples, to show us, that Jesus Christ conquers. And so do we, if we imitate the Archangel Michael and fight the devil under the banner of Jesus Christ.

We do this in our prayer. The battle is unseen warfare in our heart. Our weapons are the weapons of righteousness as Saint Paul teaches in the Epistle: purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God. We must have these weapons of Christ. Without them, we stand no chance against the temptations of the Devil. These weapons of righteousness are weapons of Christ Himself. With these weapons, the darkness of the unseen warfare is brought into the light of Christ. From these weapons of righteousness flow grace, by which we are able to triumph over every evil. We are able to wield these weapons if we no longer live to ourselves, but unto Him Who died for us and rose again. Without Christ, the weapons are too heavy for our frail bodies of little strength. With Christ, He lifts them, He wields them, because Christ is our strength and our shield.

We possess these weapons as the fruit of faith in Christ. He will use them through us because Christ always hears us if we call to Him in faith, in love, in zeal, out of our yearning for Him: His presence, His peace, His power. We know He hears us because in keeping His words and keeping His commandments, Christ dwells in us – for He taught this very thing, and taught it many times. And because He dwells in us, we dwell in His defense, under the defense of the Most High, under the shadow of the Almighty.

Let us say unto the Lord: Lord, Thou art my hope, and my stronghold. And how do we say this but in prayer? Prayer is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God, taught S. John of Damascus, 8th century Church Father. Let us truly pray, by lifting our heart and mind to God this whole season of Lent. This is what makes Lent a holy season: that our prayer is more intense, that our prayer is more robust, that our prayer is regular, which is to say, daily. Let us this Lent read and meditate upon God’s holy Word more than we usually do. Let us this Lent worship in the Liturgy more often than we usually do. By increasing the intensity of our prayer and the frequency of our prayer, by increasing our attendance and participation in Liturgy, we allow Jesus Christ to join us in our hearts, and transform us so as to win the battle against the Devil and his dragon-like angels: because our God is an awesome God, He is Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Every Lent, my parish—Saint Paul’s, New Smyrna Beach—offers what we call “Lent Friday Worship.” The weekly festivity begins with Plainsong Evensong, and then is followed by Stations of the Cross, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, then to the parish hall for a community meal, and Rector Forum given by yours truly.

This year I am focusing on the Epistle of Saint James. The aim is, by the end of Lent, to go through all of it, line by line, offering my reflective commentary along the way. And to aid the commentary I offer, I will also be consulting and sharing the commentary on this Epistle by the Venerable S. Bede, the great English Church Father.

This Session 1 covers the background of James and the Epistle, and then looks at the first eleven verses of chapter 11. Those verses are below.

CHAPTER 1

1 James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad:

Greetings.

2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, 10 but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. 11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

Almighty and everlasting God, Who hatest nothing that Thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.