The Transfer of the Precious Relics of the Venerable Theodosius, Hegumen of the Monastery of the Caves at Kyiv; Fore-feast of the Holy Dormition of the Mother of God; Holy Prophet Micah.
Dormition Fast. Abstention from meat and foods that contain these ingredients.
Hebrews 13:7-16; Matthew 11:27-29.
Read Hebrews 13:7-16
Imagine that you are today a non-Christian living in a remote village in the abandoned hills of Myanmar. Imagine, too, that the pinnacle of your knowledge of world religions is your ability to name the five largest religions, their founders, and their sacred scriptures. Of the 4,000 people in your village, you are considered among the most knowledgeable in these matters.
Now imagine that one day a girl of twelve saunters up to you to inquire about the founder of Christianity: specific things He taught, the meaning of His actions, and His actual words. You grow frustrated because your naked ignorance is exposed by this girl’s innocent curiosity. Annoyed, you search to find out more about this “Jesus,” but there is no material readily available. Access is culturally and politically restricted.
Eventually, your desire to learn leads you to escape to a free land, where you indulge your thirst for religious knowledge, finally discovering for the first time the actual story of salvation history. Upon absorbing its richness, you would likely see that there are two things which man has no arithmetic to reckon and no line to measure. One of these things is the extent of that man’s loss who loses his own soul. The other is the extent of God’s gift when He gave Christ to sinners.
Ignorance of Christ and His Gospel is shockingly widespread on our planet today, where billions do not know who Jesus Christ is. Yet when they receive His Word, they are overwhelmed by these two extremes.
Few verses in all the Bible elucidate the pain and promise of our Father’s love more powerfully than the verse we just read: “…so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.”
God gave no created thing for our redemption, though the angels were ready to do His will. Rather, He gave us One who was nothing less than His only-begotten Son! He who thinks lightly of man’s need and man’s sin would do well to consider the price God was willing to pay to make His people holy again.