St. Aidan's Anglican Church, Kansas City - weekly talks

In John 20, Jesus appears to the fearful disciples, behind locked doors in an upper room. He gives his peace and blows into them the breath of life to share the Good News of true life offered to all, including the forgiveness of sins. Too often Christians are experienced as exclusive and judgmental rather than full of risen life and forgiving love. This message explores the chasm between what we believe and what we live and communicate. Text: John 20:19-31; I Peter 1:3-9

In John 20, Jesus appears to the fearful disciples, behind locked doors in an upper room. He gives his peace and blows into them the breath of life to share the Good News of true life offered to all, including the forgiveness of sins. Too often Christians are experienced as exclusive and judgmental rather than full of risen life and forgiving love. This message explores the chasm between what we believe and what we live and communicate. Text: John 20:19-31; I Peter 1:3-9

In the Genesis account of creation, on the first day, deep darkness hovered over the deep. On this first day of new creation, darkness opens our narrative, John 20:1-18. Broken hearts and scattered disciples populate this account. The risen Lord appears alone, to Mary Magdalene. Left abandoned by Peter and John, she alone is left to grieve the loss of her beloved.

Suddenly, the risen Lord appears, taken as a Gardener, and brings comfort and a commission. Go tell the ones who abandoned you in your grief that Christ is risen. Mary accepts the challenge. We are all like Mary left with the challenge to recognize the voice of the risen Lord and relate to him in new ways. We are called to share the Gospel of Jesus, crucified and risen, to those who have let us down, and to the whole world. Christ is risen and we have hope!

In the Genesis account of creation, on the first day, deep darkness hovered over the deep. On this first day of new creation, darkness opens our narrative, John 20:1-18. Broken hearts and scattered disciples populate this account. The risen Lord appears alone, to Mary Magdalene. Left abandoned by Peter and John, she alone is left to grieve the loss of her beloved.

Suddenly, the risen Lord appears, taken as a Gardener, and brings comfort and a commission. Go tell the ones who abandoned you in your grief that Christ is risen. Mary accepts the challenge. We are all like Mary left with the challenge to recognize the voice of the risen Lord and relate to him in new ways. We are called to share the Gospel of Jesus, crucified and risen, to those who have let us down, and to the whole world. Christ is risen and we have hope!

In the Genesis account of creation, on the first day, deep darkness hovered over the deep. On this first day of new creation, darkness opens our narrative, John 20:1-18. Broken hearts and scattered disciples populate this account. The risen Lord appears alone, to Mary Magdalene. Left abandoned by Peter and John, she alone is left to grieve the loss of her beloved.

Suddenly, the risen Lord appears, taken as a Gardener, and brings comfort and a commission. Go tell the ones who abandoned you in your grief that Christ is risen. Mary accepts the challenge. We are all like Mary left with the challenge to recognize the voice of the risen Lord and relate to him in new ways. We are called to share the Gospel of Jesus, crucified and risen, to those who have let us down, and to the whole world. Christ is risen and we have hope!

The Precious and Life-giving Cross of Christ - Theodore of Studium (759-826)

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree.

What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! The supreme wisdom that flowered on the cross has shown the folly of worldly wisdom’s pride. The knowledge of all good, which is the fruit of the cross, has cut away the shoots of wickedness.

The wonders accomplished through this tree were foreshadowed clearly even by the mere types and figures that existed in the past. Meditate on these, if you are eager to learn. Was it not the wood of a tree that enabled Noah, at God’s command, to escape the destruction of the flood together with his sons, his wife, his sons’ wives and every kind of animal? And surely the rod of Moses prefigured the cross when it changed water into blood, swallowed up the false serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians, divided the sea at one stroke and then restored the waters to their normal course, drowning the enemy and saving God’s own people? Aaron’s rod, which blossomed in one day in proof of his true priesthood, was another figure of the cross, and did not Abraham foreshadow the cross when he bound his son Isaac and placed him on the pile of wood?

By the cross death was slain and Adam was restored to life. The cross is the glory of all the apostles, the crown of the martyrs, the sanctification of the saints. By the cross we put on Christ and cast aside our former self. By the cross we, the sheep of Christ, have been gathered into one flock, destined for the sheepfolds of heaven.

Theodore the Studite (also known as Theodorus Studita, St. Theodore of Stoudios, and St. Theodore of Studium; 759–826) was a Byzantine Greek monk and abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople, founded in 462 or 463 by the consul Studios (Studius), a Roman who had settled in Constantinople, and was dedicated to St. John the Baptist.

Theodore's letter, containing suggested monastery reform rules, is the first recorded stand against slavery. He played a major role in the revivals both of Byzantine monasticism and of classical literary genres in Byzantium.

He is known as a zealous opponent of iconoclasm, one of several conflicts that set him at odds with both emperor and patriarch. After his death the Studios monastery continued to be a vital center for Byzantine hymnography and hagiography, as well as for the copying of manuscripts.

The Precious and Life-giving Cross of Christ - Theodore of Studium (759-826)

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree.

What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! The supreme wisdom that flowered on the cross has shown the folly of worldly wisdom’s pride. The knowledge of all good, which is the fruit of the cross, has cut away the shoots of wickedness.

The wonders accomplished through this tree were foreshadowed clearly even by the mere types and figures that existed in the past. Meditate on these, if you are eager to learn. Was it not the wood of a tree that enabled Noah, at God’s command, to escape the destruction of the flood together with his sons, his wife, his sons’ wives and every kind of animal? And surely the rod of Moses prefigured the cross when it changed water into blood, swallowed up the false serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians, divided the sea at one stroke and then restored the waters to their normal course, drowning the enemy and saving God’s own people? Aaron’s rod, which blossomed in one day in proof of his true priesthood, was another figure of the cross, and did not Abraham foreshadow the cross when he bound his son Isaac and placed him on the pile of wood?

By the cross death was slain and Adam was restored to life. The cross is the glory of all the apostles, the crown of the martyrs, the sanctification of the saints. By the cross we put on Christ and cast aside our former self. By the cross we, the sheep of Christ, have been gathered into one flock, destined for the sheepfolds of heaven.

Theodore the Studite (also known as Theodorus Studita, St. Theodore of Stoudios, and St. Theodore of Studium; 759–826) was a Byzantine Greek monk and abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople, founded in 462 or 463 by the consul Studios (Studius), a Roman who had settled in Constantinople, and was dedicated to St. John the Baptist.

Theodore's letter, containing suggested monastery reform rules, is the first recorded stand against slavery. He played a major role in the revivals both of Byzantine monasticism and of classical literary genres in Byzantium.

He is known as a zealous opponent of iconoclasm, one of several conflicts that set him at odds with both emperor and patriarch. After his death the Studios monastery continued to be a vital center for Byzantine hymnography and hagiography, as well as for the copying of manuscripts.

The Precious and Life-giving Cross of Christ - Theodore of Studium (759-826)

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree.

What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! The supreme wisdom that flowered on the cross has shown the folly of worldly wisdom’s pride. The knowledge of all good, which is the fruit of the cross, has cut away the shoots of wickedness.

The wonders accomplished through this tree were foreshadowed clearly even by the mere types and figures that existed in the past. Meditate on these, if you are eager to learn. Was it not the wood of a tree that enabled Noah, at God’s command, to escape the destruction of the flood together with his sons, his wife, his sons’ wives and every kind of animal? And surely the rod of Moses prefigured the cross when it changed water into blood, swallowed up the false serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians, divided the sea at one stroke and then restored the waters to their normal course, drowning the enemy and saving God’s own people? Aaron’s rod, which blossomed in one day in proof of his true priesthood, was another figure of the cross, and did not Abraham foreshadow the cross when he bound his son Isaac and placed him on the pile of wood?

By the cross death was slain and Adam was restored to life. The cross is the glory of all the apostles, the crown of the martyrs, the sanctification of the saints. By the cross we put on Christ and cast aside our former self. By the cross we, the sheep of Christ, have been gathered into one flock, destined for the sheepfolds of heaven.

Theodore the Studite (also known as Theodorus Studita, St. Theodore of Stoudios, and St. Theodore of Studium; 759–826) was a Byzantine Greek monk and abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople, founded in 462 or 463 by the consul Studios (Studius), a Roman who had settled in Constantinople, and was dedicated to St. John the Baptist.

Theodore's letter, containing suggested monastery reform rules, is the first recorded stand against slavery. He played a major role in the revivals both of Byzantine monasticism and of classical literary genres in Byzantium.

He is known as a zealous opponent of iconoclasm, one of several conflicts that set him at odds with both emperor and patriarch. After his death the Studios monastery continued to be a vital center for Byzantine hymnography and hagiography, as well as for the copying of manuscripts.

Holy Week, 2014, Maundy Thursday Homily: John 13.

Holy Week, 2014, Maundy Thursday Homily: John 13.