From Monachos.net

Monachos Lenten Message for 2008

“God made man lord of the earth … but he was small, being only a child. Man had to grow, to reach full maturity. … And so God prepared a place for him, better than this world … a paradise of such beauty and goodness that the Word of God constantly visited it, and walked and talked with man, prefiguring that future time when He would live with man and talk with him, associating with men and teaching them righteousness. But man was yet a child, and his mind was not yet fully mature; and thus he was easily led astray by the deceiver.” (St Irenaeus of Lyons, A Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 12)

“Sin itself drives us towards God, once we repent and have become aware of its burden, stink and lunacy. But if we refuse to repent, sin does not drive us towards God. In itself it holds us fast with bonds that we cannot break, making the desires which drive us to our own destruction all the more vehement and fierce.” (St John of Karpathos, Texts for the Monks of India, 57)

There is a mystery present in human existence. At once it is created for perfection, to be drawn wholly and fully up into the life of God; yet at the same time it is stunted in that growth, bound by the weight of its sin. The human person is, in St Irenaeus’ words, a child growing into an adult: an infant for whom the world was fashioned, to become in Christ the perfect image of the eternal Son, joined to the life of God. Yet as children easily go astray, as primal man ‘was easily led astray by the deceiver’, so that growth has been stunted by rebellion. The child is crippled. Its sure growth is become a path of error and trial, and its sin an ever-present burden.

True knowledge of the human condition begins with this perception of humanity living a stunted life. It is witnessed first and foremost in the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, who reveals the full image of that life un-hindered, and in that very revelation manifests, too, the true condition of all others. In Christ is encountered the fulfilment of Adam. In Christ is the evidence of man’s perfection. Yet as the human person meets this perfect Christ, His perfection reveals the true reality and extent of the person’s sin. In the encounter with purity, one comes to realise one’s own desperate state.

In the writings of St Irenaeus, the condition of the crippled creature, man, is conditioned tragically by its sin. Sin is something that ‘spreads out’ and covers the whole earth, and all human history, like a great and inescapable cloud. All are touched by it. There is a hopelessness met in this image: the whole earth is covered, all humankind effected. The potential strength of the child, growing into adulthood, is thwarted, and man becomes a weakling, unable to grow.

And yet, the hopelessness of the image is swayed by the fact that one only sees it from the vantage point of Christian encounter. It is the true human adult, the perfect human creation, Christ who is at once eternal and uncreated Son, who reveals the depth of human sin in precisely the same moment of encounter that He reveals the true potential for human redemption and perfection. It is in meeting the incarnate Christ, the living Image of perfected humanity, that one sees the great tragedy of sin; and so its ‘hopelessness’ can never be seen apart from the unquenchable hope that is Christ Himself. Sin is known truly, only in the true knowledge of redemption—the life of the Father’s Son, borne into the human heart by the Spirit.

This grounding of authentic awareness in the experience of Christ, is central to the Lenten endeavour. Except that it comes from the real encounter with the incarnate Son, the ascetical aims of the Great Fast are essentially meaningless -- and they are meaningless because they are essentially false, born of ignorance. One cannot know sin rightly, cannot recognise one’s true condition properly, except in the Light of the Son. It is Christ who reveals the human condition; all other attempts to explore it fail to see humanity as this Son’s creation, bearing this Son’s image, perfected in this Son’s offering.

As the encounter with Jesus Christ at once reveals both human perfection and human sin, so this Christ reveals that the very things that hinder humanity in its growth, can be overcome. While sin may be, to use St Irenaeus’ image, like a ‘great cloud’ that covers the whole earth, it is a cloud only. It is external. It can be transformed. That which hinders, can be transfigured in Christ to that which enables renewed growth. This is the witness of St John of Karpathos in his instruction to the monks of India: ‘Sin itself may drive us towards God, once we repent and have become aware of its burden, stink and lunacy.’ Even the very thing that stunts our growth, the sin of our own devising, can be transformed by Christ to that which propels us toward the Father. In the death and resurrection of Christ, not only death is destroyed, but every power that leads to death—and at its very heart, sin. In the encounter with Christ, burdens can become light and life-bearing.

But the transformation of sin into renewed life in Christ requires one needful thing: repentance. Without this, the offering of Christ’s incarnate life is ultimately rejected, and its transfiguring power dismissed. In the words of St John, ‘But if we refuse to repent, sin does not drive us towards God. In itself it holds us fast with bonds that we cannot break.’ That which Christ might transform, in our repentance, to a new tool for life, is, without that repentance, a tool of death. And so the human person must make a choice: life, or death? Freedom, or slavery? An ascetical transformation that leads to transformation, or chains that bind to corruption?

The Lenten focus on repentance is not bound up chiefly in an emotional play of sorrow—though sorrow, and true compunction, are essential to a real awareness of sin in repentance. The aim is a new engagement with Christ, in the Spirit, that allows every facet of life to become the ascetical forum of growth, transformation, transfiguration. Only in a real repentance are we united to the Son; and in that union, in that encounter, the world which without it is a place of slavery, is transformed into an arena of virtue. The whole of creation becomes the forum of ascesis, of growth and purification that draws one into communion with God.

This is brought out in the liturgical language of the Church as she enters into Great Lent. From the Sunday of the Last Judgement, she sings of the new light this repentant encounter with Christ sheds on the whole world, turning it into an arena for spiritual victory and growth:

“Let us cleanse ourselves, brethren, with the Queen of the virtues: for behold, she is come, bringing us a wealth of blessings. She quells the uprising of the passions, and reconciles sinners to the Master. Therefore let us welcome her with gladness, and cry aloud to Christ our God: O risen from the dead, who alone art free from sin, guard us uncondemned as we give Thee glory.” (Sticheron at the Matins praises, Sunday of the Last Judgement)

The Fast is a time of reconciliation with God, and with Him, all creation. This reconciliation is made possible only in the resurrected glory of the Son, which the hymn takes as the heart of the whole Lenten life. It is the only-sinless one, revealed in His resurrected life, that guards the human person in this ascetical work, bringing a ‘wealth of blessings’ through the quelling of the passions.

The encounter with the risen Christ is not reserved until the end of Lent. The Fast begins with the glory of the Resurrection -- it is not hid away until Pascha, but proclaimed from the first moments of the season. It is Christ, ‘risen from the dead’, that the hymn takes as the grounding of Lenten ascesis. It is solely in this resurrectional life that the struggles of the Fast find their meaning and their strength. As is sung at the matins of the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise:

“The time is now at hand for us to start upon the spiritual contests and to gain the victory over the demonic powers. Let us put on the armour of abstinence and clothe ourselves in the glory of the angels. With boldness Moses spoke to the Creator, and he heard the voice of the invisible God. In Thy love for man, O Lord, grant us with the same boldness to venerate Thy Passion and Thy holy Resurrection.” (Sticheron at the Matins praises, Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise)

It is the Resurrection that sees in the strength of the Fast. It is at matins, the preamble to the Divine Liturgy, that the Church notes ‘the time is now at hand’ to begin Great Lent -- and the Liturgy is that moment in which the resurrected Christ is fully encountered in the chalice. In this encounter with the resurrection Son, the Christian puts on ‘the armour of abstinence’ and sets out on the ‘spiritual combat’ that marks out Great Lent. The resurrected Christ draws man towards the Resurrection, to Pascha.

Because it is the resurrected Christ that is the foundation of Great Lent, the Fast itself is seen as a thing of great joy. The little child that is the human person, in St Irenaeus’ imagery, walks through the Lenten journey with the true ‘strong man’, Jesus Christ who has defeated death. So Lent is a fulfilment of the promise of Eden, where the Son walked with Adam, ‘prefiguring that future time when He would live with man and talk with him, associating with men and teaching them righteousness.’ So has the Son done in the incarnation, and so the struggles of the Fast are struggles rooted in joy: the joy of the encountered Saviour, risen from the dead, who will transform the repentant heart to new life and growth. So the hymn at vespers on the eve of Great Lent Proper:

“Let us set out with joy upon the season of the Fast, and prepare ourselves for spiritual combat. Let us purify our soul and cleanse our flesh; and as we fast from food, let us abstain also from every passion. Rejoicing in the virtues of the Spirit, may we persevere with love, and so be counted worthy to see the solemn Passion of Christ our God, and with great spiritual gladness to behold his holy Passover.” (Sticheron at Vespers, on the Sunday preceding the first day of Great Lent)

Text by M.C. Steenberg, Sunday of Forgiveness, 2008