Embracing Faith and Service: A Call to Action

In this compelling sermon, Fr. Geoff explores the profound truths of scripture, the significance of Christ's sacrifice, and the inspiring story of Mary. He challenges the congregation to embrace their faith and mobilize in service to God and society. Fr. Geoff passionately addresses contemporary issues, urging believers to stand firm in their faith amidst societal changes. This sermon is a heartfelt call to action, encouraging Christians to be the light and salt of the earth.

Transcript

Today I've got four points, but one of them is very short: moved, meditations, Mary, mobilization. Here we go.

One of the privileges of preaching is not so much getting up here at the front and speaking—that's actually very scary. You may have wondered why most of us who preach actually wear long dresses; it's to hide our knocking knees. I think that the privilege is being motivated, highly motivated, to dig deep into the scriptures, looking for the truth and finding it. I haven't found anything particularly new this week in my preparation, but nevertheless, I was deeply moved by what I was reminded of. My challenge today is to communicate the truths of the scriptures and of the saints in a way that moves you all as well, taking it from the heart of God through my heart to your hearts. May God help me to do this today.

So, in today's gospel, Jesus predicts Christ's passion. He predicts his own passion, and he does it very clearly in each of the synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke. He does it three times very clearly in each of the gospels, and then in John's gospel, he does it more subtly. His purpose was to encourage and strengthen the disciples for the terrifying events that were coming towards them. His predictions also confirm that Christ knew that he was going to his death, and he went, therefore, of his own free will and choosing. It was a voluntary death.

In the Hebrews passage we had today, it stated that Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, entering once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

When we think of the cross, if you're a Protestant, if you've come from the Protestant churches, when you think of the cross, you think of the theory of satisfaction—that Christ died on the cross for our sins and he satisfied the anger and wrath of God. And that's not the way the Orthodox think about God or think about the cross. So, what do we think about the cross? It's here in this passage in Hebrews today. The passage continues, and he explains that the blood of Christ, who offered himself unblemished to God through the eternal spirit, cleanses our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we might serve the living God.

In the Old Testament—this is why it's important to read the Old Testament too—if you're on the same cycle as me, reading through the Orthodox Study Bible, you've already gone through the book of Leviticus, where you've been reading about all the blood and guts being offered on the temple altars and so on, and you're thinking, "What on earth's this all about? Why do we have to read this?" Well, today you're going to find out what it's all about because it was a symbol or a picture of what was to come when God became incarnate in this world for our sake. The blood of Christ has greater effects, cleansing our consciences from the actions that lead to spiritual and physical deaths. The Holy Spirit reveals even more that the Old Testament sacrifices only freed the outward man from ceremonial uncleanness and made him eligible for outward privileges in this life, but Christ's sacrifice provides for eternal restoration. It's amazing.

What I did was I went through the whole of Hebrews chapter 9, and I put two columns comparing the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, with the New Covenant. I'll just go through them quickly and try and highlight the main points. Firstly, the tabernacle was an earthly sanctuary made with hands, and Hebrews tells us that Jesus ministers in a superior sanctuary, the very throne room of God, not made with hands. The Old Testament shows us that the high priest entered the most holy place once a year with the blood of goats and calves. The priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services such as tending the lampstand and replacing the showbread. But in the second part, the holy of holies, only the high priest went in alone once a year on the day of atonement, never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance.

That's interesting—the sins committed in ignorance. Why does he say that? Well, the sins of ignorance were a specific aim of the day of atonement. It was assumed that the known sins would be taken care of through the regular sin offerings and the daily sacrifices in the temple. In this respect, Jesus's sacrifice, Jesus's work, is far greater than the work done on the day of atonement. Jesus's blood is sufficient to atone for both the sins we do in ignorance and the sins we do that we know about. If you come up for confession, you'll see that's in the prayer of confession—the sins that I have confessed today and the sins that I have forgotten.

So, we can see from the Old Testament that access into the holiest of all places was severely restricted. Even when someone could enter, it wasn't for fellowship with God. The high priest didn't go in there for a retreat; he didn't go in there for a quiet time. He only went in once a year in fear and trembling, with blood as an atonement for the sins of the people, for the ignorant, the sins they committed in ignorance. The ancient Jewish rabbis wrote of how the high priest did not prolong his prayer in the Holy of Holies on the day of atonement because it might make the people think that he'd been killed, that he died in there because God had been angry with him. He actually went in with a rope tied around his ankle so that if he did die, they could pull him out; nobody had to go in there. He also had bells on his vestments so they could hear him moving around, and if the bell stopped, they'd start pulling the rope because they were so afraid that God would judge him and he would die in that space. When the bishop comes, notice his vestments; they have bells on them. You have to realize that the Orthodox worship is based on worship in the second temple, so there's a lot of parallels in our worship.

So, that was the high priest. When he came out, he actually threw a party for all his friends because he'd emerged safely from the presence of God. That's how it was in the Old Testament. But Jesus, we're told in today's epistle, entered the most holy place not made with hands, into the eternal fellowship of the Holy Trinity, and he only entered once and for all with his own blood, obtaining an eternal sacrifice. The high priest went in, closed the curtain behind him, and when he came out, he closed the curtain behind him. When Jesus went in, he tore the curtain from top to bottom and he opened it up for us all. Amazing.

The Holy Spirit gives us this understanding that animal sacrifices were made for a temporary covering of sin. Jesus's sacrifice was perfect, voluntary, and motivated by love, providing eternal salvation. The blood of goats and bulls sanctified for the purifying of the flesh. The blood of Christ cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. The high priest's entrance into the holy place was not for fellowship but for atonement. Jesus's sacrifice tore the veil, allowing continuous access to the most holy place and fellowship with God. Wow.

Christianity is about access to God, not barriers. Wow. The old covenant sacrifices were symbolic and could not make the priests perfect in regard, or any of us perfect in regard, to our consciences. Jesus's sacrifice is sufficient to restore our damaged conscience and make us perfect in regard to the conscience. The old covenant was dedicated with the blood of calves and goats. The new covenant is dedicated with the blood of Christ, which heals our corrupt humanity and restores us to our proper relationship with God. Wow.

So, this is what moved me this week as I was thinking about all this—how privileged we are to have been drawn into the faith of Christ, to be followers of Christ, to understand what he's done for us. It is amazing.

So now we go. So, we've had moved meditations from the gospel and the epistle, and now we have Mary. Wow, what a story to have today. I'm not going to go into the story. If you've been at Matins, you've already heard it. I think it's in the Synaxarion today, God willing, because I'm going to leave you to listen to that. But basically, she lived—she was out of control sexually for 17 years of her life, in the early part of her life, totally out of control. When I was thinking about this, I was thinking that was the fifth century, but this is also the 21st century for many people. This is deliberate. This has been brought about deliberately by evil forces in our society, undermining Christianity and encouraging this kind of behavior, and has brought untold suffering into this world and to our young people. But Mary gives us hope because she wanted to go into the holy of—well, not into the holy of holies; she just wanted to go into the temple. But there was an icon of Mary at the door, and she could not get past it. She could not get past it, but she pleaded with Mary, the mother of God, to let her in. If you haven't read her prayer, you should read her prayer. I put it in this week's email for people to read. It's a very moving prayer that she prayed at the door there, and the mother of God allowed her in. She promised that she would repent if she allowed her in, and she kept her promise. She went into the wilderness. It took her 17 years to get over these years of passion. So, as long as she'd been in it, it took her that long to get out of it. So, you need to realize this too. Some of the young ones, they come and they expect—they've been baptized, they're following Christ now, everything's going to be all right. No, it's going to take time. Don't be discouraged if you keep falling for a while. You just got to keep getting up and keep coming for confession, keep coming for repentance and forgiveness, and follow the example of Mary. The church has this wonderful symbolism. Last night, Mary—well, sorry, Mary's here. This is the place where the Theotokos usually is, but her repentance was so thorough that she was able to go into this place. She levitated, she did all sorts of things, she was a holy person, and the church honors her by putting her in that very special place on this last Sunday of Lent. She expresses the last and most urgent call that the church addresses to us before the sacred days of the passion and resurrection. It's not a message that says, "You miserable, sniveling sinners, repent or else." It's not saying that. The message is, if you turn away from your sins and turn to me, you will be saved. That's a great message, don't you think? I think so.

And then my last point today: mobilization. Two things have happened this week which lead me to make this call to mobilization. One is that the Victorian parliament passed a bill called the anti-vilification law, which in the past, the church, the authorities have been firing across the bows of the church, but now they're going to fire into the church. This anti-vilification law now brings sermons and things like that under their—what's the word I'm looking for—inspection, if you like. I won't go into the details; it's a bit complicated. It got through at 3:30 this week, I think it was Thursday morning. It passed through the parliament after accepting a Greens amendment, which was basically a Marxist, a neo-Marxist addition to the bill. So, we are now in this country facing a Marxist government. If you think about what the Marxists have done in the past, think of Russia and so on and so on, then you probably all need to wear dresses because your knees should be knocking. All right, this is not a happy future we're facing. The other thing that came—the bill doesn't come in until next year. That was because of an amendment passed by the Cannabis Party. They brought the bill forward to next year, a year before the elections, to try and stop people talking about gender stuff before the elections, because you can be imprisoned for that sort of thing. So, here we go, guys, here we go. This is why we need mobilization, right?

The second thing that happened this week was that Father Jamie Franklin, who is an Anglo-Catholic priest in England—England's in a worse mess than we are; they're further down the track than we are, no question. I keep an interest in it because I am English by birth, and so I've got relatives over there, so I take an interest. He's written a book. He's called it "The Decline in Secular Western Morality Can Only Be Halted and"—oh, sorry, it's called "The Great Return," that's what it's called. It's "The Decline in Secular Western Morality Can Only Be Halted and Reversed by a Full Return to Christianity." He's written that book, and I want to get it for my birthday, except it's been published in England, but it's not here yet, so I can't get it. But he argues that every area of our society—scientific, ethical, political, everything—has been undermined because we've turned away from Christianity in our societies. So, we need to come back. We need to mobilize. We need to return to the church. Christianity is facing a great challenge as it is threatened to be overwhelmed by the rising tide of secular nihilism that is trying to engulf the western world at the moment. So, we have to mobilize. The epistle says that our consciences are cleaned so that we can serve the living God. That's why God has done what he's done, so we can serve him, so that we can be mobilized, okay? Also, in John's gospel, he ends up by saying, "The Son of God, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve." So, the thing that's common between the two readings today is service. Christ died on the cross, he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit so that we can serve—not so that we can party and, you know, have fun and whatever else we want to do—to serve, to serve the world, to serve him and to serve the world. So, we need people to step up and be available to serve. We can't do it without people being available to serve. I remember a story from years ago—I can't remember it totally, but I'll do my best. It's an army story. The British army decided they would ask the Gurkhas—if you know who the Gurkhas are, they're Nepalese soldiers. They're the best soldiers in the British Army, the most brave and fearless young fighters that the British army had for many, many centuries, actually. They thought, we'll try them in the parachute regiment. So, they parade the Gurkha regiment, and they said, "We want you to volunteer to jump out of aircraft onto enemy positions." He said, "It's a very difficult task, but we think that you can do it." They said, "We want all those who are willing to do this to take one pace forward." The whole battalion took one pace forward, except for one person. They thought, hello, hello, what's wrong with this young man? So, they took him aside, and he said he just thought it was too—he was so terribly sorry, "I'm terribly sorry," he said, "I just don't think I've got the strength to jump out of an airplane and land on my feet and keep fighting." They discovered in their interrogation of that he didn't realize—they hadn't told them that they actually had parachutes. So, they went back to the whole battalion and said, "Do you realize that we have parachutes to jump out of the aircraft?" They said, "Oh no, you didn't tell us about that." But they volunteered anyway. That's the kind of way you win wars, with people like that who are willing to step up to the plate even though it's going to be challenging. Now, many people are afraid to step forward when it comes to serving the church and serving God. It's because nobody's told them about God. God is our parachute. You know, when I stepped forward to serve in the church—actually, the first time I did, I waited 10 years. I kind of stepped back, thought, "Oh, I don't think I can do this." One of the reasons was I didn't think I could preach. I thought I had one sermon, and that was it. Listen to me now. Sorry.

Oh gosh. So, if you are willing to take that one pace forward and say, "Here I am, sir. Here I am, God." He will help you. He will enable you to serve, and we need all hands on deck. The statistics in the church are that 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. Since COVID, that's too much for us. It's too much for the 10%. We need 100%, but it'll be different things, and everybody doing different things will be able to turn this around. We need to turn our culture around. We do. It's the only way. The prime minister of Sweden—not the current one, I think it might have been two ago now—he said, "The Orthodox Church is the last obstacle to us achieving our liberal goals in the West." The Orthodox Church is the last obstacle to us achieving our liberal goals in the West. He sees us as the paratroopers. The paratroopers are the best fighting force you've got. That's what he sees. He knows. They know. Why do you think they're fighting Russia? Russia doesn't want to fight them. Russia doesn't want to fight the West. Why are they fighting them? I'll leave that with you.

So, there we are. I've said enough. I think you got the message. Christ has warned—he's getting us ready now for Pascha. He was getting the disciples ready for the real thing all those centuries ago. On that cross, he has done so much for us, and he's done it so that we might serve him, so that we might stop the society from rotting. We are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world. It's up to us. If we don't do it, it won't happen. May God help us to take that one step forward and serve him all the days of our lives. Now to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit be ascribed almighty majesty, dominion, and praise, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

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