The Holy and Glorious Martyr Irene (321-23); Our Venerable Father Nicephoras, Hegumen of the Monastery at Medicius
Read
Acts 15:35-41; John 10:27-38
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
If someone you know told you that he or she was a god, you’d be wise to be cautious around that person; in fact, you’d probably avoid them, since people who have such delusions of grandeur often end up hurting the people around them. Throughout history, we’ve seen the sad consequences of claims by people who say they are ‘divine’ often enough that we’re no longer fooled. So it’s not surprising that the Jews in today’s gospel reacted strongly to Jesus’ claim that he and the Father are one. They recognized the danger, both spiritually and practically, of a man who makes himself God; anyone who claims to be able to fulfill human hopes so profoundly is better off dead.
But this angry crowd has gotten one key part of the story wrong – Jesus isn’t a man who claims to be God; he’s God who has become man. That’s the good news of the incarnation in a nutshell: God, rather than staying at arms length from human sin and suffering, instead gives life to fallen humanity by entering into human sin and suffering in the most intimate way possible, by becoming human. When Christ does something, he does it in perfect union with his Father, and so makes communion with God the Father possible for us too. For the first time (and for the only time) in human history, we can place full hope in someone who claims to be God, because for the first (and only) time, that claim is true.