Our Holy Father Porphyrius, Bishop of Gaza (420)
Great Fast Day 12
Sixth Hour – Isaiah 7:1-14; Presanctified – Genesis 5:32-6:8; Proverbs 6:20-7:1
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
Read Isaiah 7:1-14
M. Night Shyamalan’s movies are famous for a plot twist in the end. Take for example his movie: The Sixth Sense—spoiler alert. Bruce Willis plays a child psychologist who works with a child who can see the dead. You find out at the end of the movie that Bruce Willis’ character was dead the whole time. Once you know this fact, you can’t rewind and “unsee” this new reality. The scenes made sense before, but now they have a deeper meaning. You are able to get to the heart of the matter and see the truth that lies just below the surface.
The Old Testament for Christians work in much the same way. With the novelty of the Christ event, early Christian readers cannot “unsee” Christ hidden everywhere in the Scriptures. He sheds light on these biblical scenes and shows us what is really going on beneath the surface. Today’s prophecy of Isaiah is a classic example. We hear: “Therefore: the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.” Christians cannot help but see this as a prophecy of the virgin birth. Obviously, we have the Gospel of Matthew who cites this specifically. Nevertheless, we are confronted with all sorts of revisionist philology that attempts to “de-prophesy” this document. Christians in love with Christ, cannot “unsee their beloved.” They behold him everywhere, like the treasure buried in the field of the scriptures.
Here is Gregory the Theologian commenting on his Theological Oration on the Son: “Humanity was blended with God, and he was one. The more powerful predominated in order that I might become god just as he became human. Although he was already begotten, he was born of a woman, who was a virgin. Because his birth was from a woman, it was human. Because she was a virgin, it was divine. He had neither a human father nor a divine mother.”