Saturday, July 18, 2009

Sacraments


I wanted to take a minute to talk briefly about sacraments. Here is a brief description of sacraments from the Orthodox perspective:

There are special experiences in our corporate life as Orthodox Christians when the perception of God's presence and actions is heightened and celebrated. We call these events of the Church Sacraments. Traditionally, the Sacraments have been known as Mysteries in the Orthodox Church. This description emphasizes that in these special events of the Church, God discloses Himself through the prayers and actions of His people. (www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7105)

One thing that I've learned to appreciate so much more since I became Orthodox is the celebration of matter. This may seem silly, but it is wonderful to realize how sacred our own flesh, bone, marrow and everything that makes up the world is! The quintessential example of this is the Ascension of our Lord. There is now flesh and bone in the Godhead forever. As He is now, we have the hope of one day becoming. Not in essence, but rather in our glorified state (...I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come).

I also wanted to take this time to relay a wonderful analogy of why sacraments exist:

Let's imagine you come across an alien life-form. For all intents and purposes, we will call him Zarlac. Now, you have come to truly love Zarlac and wish to let him know. There is only one problem, Zarlac has 13 senses and none of them are any the 5 that we possess. Now, you could try to say to Zarlac, "I love you." However, he does not possess the sense of hearing. You could try to show him through physical touch, but he doesn't possess that sense either. The senses that he does have are the senses of zop, blonch, ujjios, etc. So, as of right now, Zarlac is alienated from you completely even though you are so near to him (remember he does not possess sight either). The only way you will ever get Zarlac to know of your love for him is if you communicate to him through one of his senses.
Now, I am sure this analogy is full of holes, but I bet you are starting to follow my train of thought. For God to commune with man, he must engage us through our senses. If not, we cannot be aware of Him. Since we cannot share in His essence, He finds ways to send His love, grace and presence to us in a way that we can experience it. Not just know, but experience.

This idea of the ordinary becoming holy and sacred is essential to our understanding of the sacraments. One of the best examples I can think of comes from the Old Testament : God uses a burning bush to communicate to Moses and the ground became Holy. Another great scripture is found in Matthew 7:6: "Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces." According to the Fathers, dogs are those who habitually live immoral and impure lives. The pearls are the inner mysteries of the Christian faith, including Christ's teachings (13:46) and the great sacraments. These holy things are restricted from the immoral and unrepentant, not to protect the holy things themselves, for Christ needs no protection. Rather, we protect the faithless people from the condemnation that would result from holding God's mysteries in contempt. (Orthodox study Bible)

So, no matter if it is participating in the Eucharist or basking in the joyful laughter of a child, all are sent from God for our communion with Him.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.

3 comments:

  1. Great post, as always.

    The truth you describe shows the futility of "compartmentalizing" one's "spiritual" and "regular" lives--something that really hits home to me. For years, I more or less had "Christianity in the head," but didn't really allow my faith to permeate ALL aspects of my life...sort of like when my dad visits my house and I keep the doors to the messier rooms shut...

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  2. Spot on! I love the part about the messier room!

    Here is a great quote from Schmemann:

    In our perspective, however, the "original" sin is not primarily that man has "disobeyed" God; the sin is that he ceased to be hungry for Him and for Him alone, ceased to see his whole life depending on the whole world as a sacrament of communion with Gos. The sin was not that man neglected his religious duties. The sin was that he thought of God in terms of religion. i.e., opposing Him to life. The only real fall of man is his noneucharistic life in a noneucharistic world. The fall is not that he preferred world to God, distorted the balance between the spiritual and material, but that he made the world material, whereas he was to have transformed it into "life in God," filled with meaning and spirit.
    (From, FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD)

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