Sunday before the Exaltation of the Cross. Octoechos Tone 5. Post-feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God; Our Venerable Mother Theodora of Alexandria (474-91)
Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17
Read Galatians 6:11-18
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Personal boundaries are the limits we hold to within relationships. They are based on our autonomy and integrity as persons—I am not you; you are not me. Healthy boundaries mean that one knows where one stops and the other person begins. A person with healthy boundaries does not compromise themselves for others and does not violate another person.
God has the healthiest boundaries of all persons in existence. He will never compromise who He is and will never violate who we are.
In today’s reading the Apostle Paul warns the Galatian church that some people, wanting to conform to social and religious pressure, will want them to attempt to change the basis upon which they relate to God. Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross—the basis of our relationship with God—considers God’s holiness and love, our lack of both, and our need for bridging that gap for our relationship with Him to move from the temporal to the eternal. God isn’t going to violate His nature, so something must be done about ours.
But old social pressures die hard, especially if they are not initially wrong. Identifying as being in covenant with God through the religious rite of circumcision was given by God. There are other actions within the created order that people understand as pointing toward God. But any otherwise true thing, used to address the problems in our relationship with God that can only be addressed by the cross of Christ, becomes an untrue thing. The apostle says that ultimately nothing else counts, only being created anew. God will never change His nature, but He will change ours: “The Son of God became man that we might become god … becoming by grace what God is by nature” (Athanasius of Alexandria).