Our Venerable Father Alexius, Man of God
Great Fast Day 31
Sixth Hour – Isaiah 41:4-14; Presanctified – Genesis 17:1-9; Proverbs 15:20-16:9
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
Read Isaiah 41:4-14
The previous chapter in Isaiah was focused on Israel, but this one is oriented towards all the nations of the world. The Lord inspired Isaiah to teach the nations that only the God of Israel is all powerful and is beyond all creation. The nations come up empty with their claims when they compare to the true God. The powerful forces of nature fear and tremble at the sight of the One and True God the One who is ‘first and with the last…”
St. Gregory of Nazianzus says, “When you accept this, that nothing is before Him and that He has not an older Cause, you have implicitly given Him the titles Unbegotten and Unoriginate. And to say that He has no end of Being is to call Him immortal and indestructible.” (The Fifth Theological Oration: On the Holy Spirit, XXIII, NPNF SS Vol, p.325.)
This God has made a covenant with Abraham: “All the nations of the earth shall be blessed in your seed.” (Gen 26:4). This is the same God who established the Old and New Covenants. This is the God who desires to be ‘your Redeemer’. This term ‘Redeemer’ is a term taken from the realm of family and tribal law. The go’el is the next of kin who has the duty of redeeming or buying back (Ex. 6:6). Through the advent in the flesh of our Lord , and God, and Saviour Jesus Christ this has become a reality. The God who all of nature fears, the first and last, the immortal and indestructible One has become your go’el—your next of kin—in order to redeem you.