The Holy Prophet Amos (8th c. BC); Venerable Jerome, Presbyter of Stridonium (420)
Apostles’ Fast.
Romans 8:22-27; Matthew 10:23-31.
Read Matthew 10:23-31
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
There is a constant refrain echoing throughout today’s Gospel reading – Do not fear! Three times today Jesus tells us not to fear. We are not to fear persecution (verse 26), bodily death (verse 28), or the lack of God’s providential care in our lives (verse 31).
Ever since the Fall, fear has characterized our relationship with God, “…they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God” (Gen. 3:8). This fear extends also to our relationships with others and even with ourselves. Indeed, we could say that our primary experience of sin is one of fear. After all, sin, at its root, is a division – a cutting off from the very source of life, the result of which is death, sickness, and the fear that this state of division will be permanent.
If we think about our own experience – isn’t sin often the result of an experience of fear? We fear offending others and damaging the relationship, so we lie; we fear pain and hardship that it takes to pursue good things so we pursue fleeting pleasures instead, we fear the loss of our pleasures so we get angry. Death through fear holds us in a very real bondage. But as St. Paul says, Jesus has come to free us from this slavery to fear (cf. Hebrews 2:15). Trampling down death by his death and resurrection, Christ has rooted out for this primal fear and enables us to live his victory. This is the reality that we have been baptized into and that we are called to live – death no longer holds dominion over us!
This is the good news! It is an existential reality for us Christians, not a merely legal one. St. Anthanasius the Great describes this reality to us, “ Every one is by nature afraid of death and of bodily dissolution; the marvel of marvels is that he who is enfolded in the faith of the cross despises this natural fear and for the sake of the cross is no longer cowardly in face of it…Death used to be strong and terrible, but now, since the sojourn of the Savior and the death and resurrection of His body, it is despised. He Himself Who brought death to nought and daily raises monuments to His victory in His own disciples. How can you think otherwise, when you see men naturally weak hastening to death, unafraid at the prospect of corruption, fearless of the descent into Hades, even indeed with eager soul provoking it, not shrinking from tortures, but preferring thus to rush on death for Christ’s sake, rather than to remain in this present life? If you see with your own eyes men and women and children, even, thus welcoming death for the sake of Christ’s religion, how can you be so utterly silly and incredulous and maimed in your mind as not to realize that Christ, to Whom these all bear witness, Himself gives the victory to each, making death completely powerless for those who hold His faith and bear the sign of the cross? (On The Incarnation, 5)