The Holy Prophet Joel; The Holy Martyr Varus; 🕃 Our Venerable Father John of Rila.
Saint with Six Stichera.
Colossians 2:13-20; Luke 9:18-22.
Read Colossians 2:13-20
St. Paul tells the Colossians what God has done for those who were dead in sin: “And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:13–14).
The word translated “bond” is cheirographon (χειρόγραφον), literally something written by hand. In Paul’s world it named a certificate of debt signed by the debtor himself. The record against us is in our own handwriting. We wrote it with our sins.
Paul says two things were done to it. God “canceled” it, a verb that means to wipe a written surface clean, and he “set it aside, nailing it to the cross.” St. John Chrysostom dwells on that second phrase: “What bond? He means either that which they said to Moses, namely, “All that God has said will we do, and be obedient,” or, if not that, this, that we owe to God obedience; or if not this, he means that the devil held possession of it, the bond which God made for Adam, saying, “In the day you eat of the tree, you shall die.” This bond then the devil held in his possession. And Christ did not give it to us, but himself tore it in two, the action of one who joyfully remits what we owe”
The Church prays this verse every day. At the Sixth Hour, the hour of the crucifixion, we sing: “Thou who on the sixth day and hour didst nail to the Cross the sin which Adam presumptuously committed in Paradise, tear asunder also the handwriting of our transgressions, O Christ God, and save us.”
The troparion asks for what Paul says has already been done. This is how the Church teaches us to repent. We ask, every day, to receive a forgiveness that was accomplished once, on the cross.
It also tells us how to carry our sins after confession. A bond that has been nailed up and torn can’t be presented again. When we keep bringing the old debt before God as though it still stood, we doubt what he has done.
So when we pray the Hours, and when we come to the mystery of repentance, we can pray with confidence. The handwriting has been torn asunder, and we have been “made alive together with Him”