Our Holy Fathers and Archbishops of Alexandria Athanasius (373) and Cyril (444)
Hebrews 12:25-26; 13:22-25; Mark 10:2-12
Read Mark 10:2-12
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Christ does not permit divorce, but He says that Moses had allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce his wife only because of their “hardness of heart” (Mk. 10:4-5).
The Letter to the Hebrews, quoting from Psalm 95:8, exhorts us: “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion” (Heb. 3:8; Heb. 3:15). Although there are multiple accounts of “rebellions” and murmuring among the Israelites journeying with Moses to the Promised Land, the rebellion that this psalm and the Letter to the Hebrews refer to is the event described in Numbers 20 in which the Israelites complained there was no water and that they were better off in slavery in Egypt. God instructed Moses to bring forth water from a rock to give drink to the people and their animals. However, because Moses and Aaron did not believe God “to hallow [Him] in the eyes of the children of Israel,” God decided that Moses and Aaron would not bring the people into the Promised Land (Num. 20:12). Although God was saving the people and readily providing for all their needs, they still complained and murmured and rebelled against God and His saving plan for them.
God is grieved when people “go astray in their hearts” and do not know His ways (Heb. 3:10; Ps. 95:10). God wants us to know His ways because living by them will lead to our true flourishing. Our hearts can be hardened “through the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13). When we do not exercise control over our thoughts, we can unknowingly convince ourselves to believe lies about God, lies about ourselves, and lies about other people we encounter in the world. When Christ gave us the two greatest commandments, He first said: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and then: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt. 22:37, 39). When we believe the lies which come about from our incorrect thinking, we face obstacles which prevent us from truly and fully loving God, ourselves, and others. The sins we commit are often symptoms of our incorrect thinking. It is no coincidence that the Greek word for repentance and conversion is “metanoia,” which literally means “to change one’s mind.”
Although Moses gave permission for divorce because of their hardness of heart, Jesus does not. Jesus, Who is our Almighty God, can soften our hearts and create new, clean hearts within us. As we pray in Psalm 50 (51): “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me” (verses 10-11). We should regularly perform examinations of conscience and seek to find when the ideas we hold do not reflect God’s love and His truth. We should make sure that our ideas are in agreement with the teachings of Christ as handed down to us by His Church so that we can avoid the deceit of wrongful thinking that will lead us to sin and separation from God.