18 Ἰανουαρίου 1985
Εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος.
Ἐν ὀνόματι τῆς σύναξης μας, ἐπιθυμῶ νὰ χαιρετήσω τὰ μέλη τοῦ Χριστιανικοῦ Συμβουλίου τοῦ Κέσινγκτον καὶ τοῦ Γουέστμινστερ. Xρόνο μὲ τὸν χρόνο στὰ πλαίσια μιᾶς ἀδελφικῆς ἀγάπης, σὲ ἀναζήτηση μιᾶς βαθύτερης ἑνότητας συναντιόμαστε ἐδῶ. Καὶ συναντιόμαστε ἐδῶ μέσα στὸ φῶς τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ σωτηρίας μας. Ἡ σωτηρία τῆς ἀνθρωπότητας, ἡ σωτηρία τοῦ κόσμου ποὺ δημιουργήθηκε ἀπὸ τὸν Θεὸ Λόγο δὲν εἶναι μιὰ μονόπλευρη πράξη τοῦ Θεοῦ. Ἡ Ἐνσάρκωση δὲν θὰ ἦταν δυνατὴ χωρὶς τὴν ταπεινὴ συγκατάθεση τῆς Παρθένου Μαρίας, καὶ χωρὶς τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Πατρὸς. Ἀλλὰ μὲ τὴν Θεία Ἐνσάρκωση ἔγινε μόνο ἡ ἀρχὴ γιὰ τὴν σωτηρία μας. Ὁ Ἅγιος Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος, σὲ μία ἀπὸ τὶς Ὁμιλίες του λέει ὅτι τὰ Χριστοὺγεννα μοιάζουν μὲ τὴν χαραυγὴ, ἀλλὰ τὰ Θεοφάνεια, ποὺ σημαίνουν γιὰ ἐμᾶς τὴν βάπτιση τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἶναι ὅμοια μὲ τὸ φῶς τῆς ἡμέρας. Γιατί; Ἐπειδὴ στὴν Ἐνσάρκωση, στὴν γέννηση τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ Υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ γίνεται στὴν Βηθλεέμ Υἱὸς τοῦ Ἀνθρώπου.
Ο Θεὸς ἀγκαλιάζει τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα ποὺ Τοῦ προσφέρεται μὲ τὴν πίστη τῆς Παρθένου Μαρίας, ποὺ ἀποτελεῖ τὸ κορυφαῖο σημεῖο τῆς πίστης ἐκείνων ποὺ λαχταροῦσαν τὸν ἐρχομὸ τοῦ Σωτήρα τους καὶ πίστεψαν σ’ αὐτόν, ἐκείνων ποὺ τὰ ὀνόματα τους εἶναι γραμμένα στὴν γενεαλογία τοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ πολλοί, ἑκατομμύρια τῶν ὁποίων τὰ ὀνόματα μᾶς εἶναι ἄγνωστα, ἀλλὰ ποὺ εἶναι γνωστὰ στὸν Κύριό τους καὶ Θεό τους.
Ἀλλὰ στὴν Ἐνσάρκωση, στὴ Γέννηση τοῦ Χριστοῦ στὴν Βηθλεέμ, ὁ Θεὸς ἀναλαμβάνει τὴν εὐθύνη τῆς ἀδυναμίας ἑνὸς παιδιοῦ, καὶ μᾶς Τὸν προσφέρει ἁπλὰ ὅπως λέγεται μιὰ παραβολή. Ἡ ἀγάπη πάντα προσφέρεται˙ εἶναι πάντα ἀνυπεράσπιστη, ἡ ἀγάπη εἶναι πάντα στὸ τέλος εὐάλωτη, καὶ ὅσο πιὸ τέλεια εἶναι, τόσο εἶναι ὁλοκληρωμένη, ἀνυπεράσπιστη καὶ τρωτή. Ἡ Θεϊκὴ Ἀγάπη παίρνει σάρκα στὴν Βηθλεέμ καὶ ἐκεῖ ἡ ἀνθρώπινη φύση τοῦ Χριστοῦ λαμβάνει παθητικὰ τὴ δωρεὰ αὐτῆς τῆς ἕνωσης μὲ τὸν Θεὸ ὡς ἀποτέλεσμα τέλειας πίστης τῆς Μητέρας, τῆς Παρθένου Μητέρας ποὺ πρόσφερε τὸν ἑαυτό Της καὶ τὸν Υἱό Της νὰ γίνει Υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ.
Τὴν ἡμέρα τῆς Βάπτισης ὁ Χριστὸς εἶχε φθάσει στὴν πληρότητα τῆς ἀνθρώπινης ὡριμότητάς Του, καὶ εἶναι ἡ ὥρα ποὺ ἡ ἀνθρώπινη φύση τοῦ Σαρκωμένου Λόγου ἀναλαμβάνει, μέσα ἀπὸ μιὰ πράξη τέλειας ἐλευθερίας, ἀδιαίρετης πίστης, ἀνεπιφύλακτης ὑπακοῆς, ἡρωϊκῆς παραίτησης, τὸ ἔργο ποὺ ἡ Θεϊκὴ Ἀγάπη Τοῦ ἀνάθεσε. Ἔρχεται στὸν Ἰορδάνη ἐλεύθερος ἀπὸ ἁμαρτίες, καὶ βαπτίζεται. Γιατί; Ἕνας Γάλλος Πρεσβυτεριανὸς λειτουργὸς μοῦ εἶπε κάποτε πῶς βλέπει αὐτὸ τὸ γεγονὸς: οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἔρχονταν στὸν Ἰωάννη τὸν Βαπτιστὴ βρώμικοι, μολυσμένοι ἀπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτία καὶ ὡς πράξη μετανοίας, πίστης καὶ ἐπιστροφῆς στὸν Θεό ξέπλεναν τὶς ἁμαρτίες τους στὰ νερὰ τοῦ Ἰορδάνη· καὶ τὰ νερὰ ἐκεῖνα βάραιναν ἀπὸ τὸ βάρος τῆς ἀνθρώπινης ἁμαρτίας, ἔγιναν αὐτὸ ποὺ ὁ θρύλος σὲ πολλὲς χῶρες ὀνομάζει, τὰ νεκρά, δηλητηριώδη νερὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας. Καὶ ἔρχεται ὁ Ἰησοῦς, καὶ ὄντας ἀναμάρτητος, καταδύεται σ’ αὐτὰ τὰ νερὰ τοῦ θανάτου, ὅπως βουτάει κάποιος τὸ λευκὸ μαλλὶ στὴ βαφή˙ καὶ ἀναδύεται φορτωμένος μὲ ὅλη τὴν ἁμαρτία ποὺ εἶχε ξεπλυθεῖ σ’ ἐκεῖνα τὰ νερά.
Ἡ ἀρχαία φωτισμένη σκέψη εἶχε συλλάβει πρώτη κάτι ἀπὸ αὐτὸ τὸ μυστήριο στὴν ἱστορία τοῦ Ἡρακλῆ, ὅπως ἀναφέρεται ἀπὸ παλιά. Ὁ Ἡρακλῆς ἀντιπροσωπεύει τὸν ἥρωα· σκοτώνει μ’ ἕνα βέλος τὸν Κένταυρο, τὸ μυθικὸ πλάσμα ποὺ εἶναι μισὸ τέρας καὶ μισὸ ἄνθρωπος, μιὰ εἰκόνα γιὰ τὸ κακὸ ποὺ μᾶς κάνει ἡ ἁμαρτία: ἀνθρώπους καὶ μαζὶ ζῶα, ἐπειδὴ ἡ εἰκόνα τοῦ Θεοῦ δὲν μπορεῖ νὰ ἐξαφανισθεῖ, ἀλλὰ μπορεῖ νὰ βεβηλωθεῖ, δὲν μπορεῖ νὰ καταστραφεῖ ἀλλὰ μπορεῖ νὰ γίνει τερατώδης, ὅπως στὸν μύθο τοῦ Κενταύρου. Καὶ τὴ στιγμὴ ποὺ πεθαίνει, στέλνει στὸν Ἡρακλη τὸν χιτώνα του ζητώντας νὰ τὸν φοράει σὲ ἀνάμνηση τῆς νίκης του. Kαὶ ὅταν τὸν φοράει, κολλάει στὸ σῶμα του καὶ τὸν καίει σὰν φωτιά. Καὶ τὸν σκίζει καὶ μαζὶ μὲ τὴ σάρκα του χάνει καὶ τὴ ζωή του.
Δὲν εἶναι αὐτὴ ἡ εἰκόνα ἀρκετή, μιὰ φωτισμένη σύλληψη γι’ αὐτὸ ποὺ συνέβη στὸν Χριστό; Ναὶ, καταδύεται στὰ νερὰ τοῦ θανάτου· ἀναδύεται ἀπὸ τὸ νερὸ ἐνδεδυμένος τὶς συνέπειες τῆς ἀνθρώπινης ἁμαρτίας, ὅπως ὁ Ἡρακλῆς φόρεσε τὸν χιτώνα ποὺ ἦταν ποτισμένος μὲ τὸ αἷμα τοῦ ἀνθρωπόμορφου τέρατος. Καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς θὰ πεθάνει ἐξαιτίας της ἁμαρτίας, ἐπειδὴ εἶναι ὁ μόνος δρόμος ποὺ μπορεῖ νὰ ἐλευθερώσει τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα ἀπὸ τὰ δεσμά της. Εἴμαστε ὁ δικός Του λαός· ἡ κλίση μας στὴ γῆ εἶναι νὰ γίνουμε στὴν ἀνθρώπινη ἱστορία, κατὰ τὴν σύντομη πορεία τῆς ζωῆς μας, ὅ,τι ὑπῆρξε ὁ Χριστὸς: ἡ σαρκωμένη θεϊκὴ παρουσία, εὐάλωτη στὸ μαρτύριο καὶ στὸν θάνατο· ἀδύναμη, ἐπειδὴ προσφέρεται ἐλεύθερα καὶ ὁλοκληρωτικά. Καὶ τὸ κάλεσμά μας ἀπὸ τὸν Θεὸ εἶναι ν’ ἀγωνιστοῦμε κόντρα σὲ κάθε ἁμαρτία, σὲ κάθε κακό, νὰ ἐλευθερωθοῦμε μέσω τῆς πίστης καὶ τῆς ὑπακοῆς, τῆς ἀγάπης καὶ τοῦ ἀσκητικοῦ κόπου ἀπὸ τὸ κάθε τι ποὺ δὲν εἶναι ἄξιο τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Θεοῦ, ποὺ δὲν μπορεῖ νὰ ἑνωθεῖ μαζί Του.
Καὶ τότε, νὰ προσφέρουμε τὸν ἑαυτό μας στὴ ζωή καὶ στὸν θάνατο γιὰ τὴν σωτηρία κάθε προσώπου, κάθε ἔθνους καὶ τοῦ κόσμου.
Αὐτὸ ἔχει νὰ μᾶς πεῖ ἡ γιορτὴ τῶν Θεοφανείων. Ἄς ἀκολουθήσουμε τὰ βήματα τοῦ Διδασκάλου μας, ἀπὸ κένταυροι ἄς γίνουμε ἀληθινοὶ ἄνθρωποι, νὰ ἑνωθοῦμε μὲ τὸν Θεὸ διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ μὲ τὴν δύναμη τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος, ἄς παραδώσουμε τὴ ζωή μας, καὶ ἄς προσφέρουμε ἄν χρειάζεται τὸν θάνατο μας γιὰ τὴ σωτηρία ὅλων ὅσοι τὴ χρειάζονται. Ἀμήν.
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Πρωτότυπο Κείμενο
EVE OF EPIPHANY
18 January 1985
In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
In the name of our congregation here I wish to greet the members of the Christian Council of Kensington and of Westminster. Year after year, in brotherly love, in a search of a oneness deeper than all visible unity we meet here. And we meet here in the light of our salvation in Christ. The salvation of mankind, the salvation of the world created by the Word is not a one-sided act of God. The Incarnation would have been as impossible without the humble assent of the Virgin Mother as it would have been without the positive will of the Father. But also, in the Incarnation only a beginning is made to our salvation. Saint John Chrysostom in one of his Homilies says that Christmas is like a dawn, but Epiphany which for us means the baptism of Christ is like a full light of day. Why? Because in the Incarnation, in the birth of Christ, the Son of God become the Son of Man in Bethlehem. God seizes upon the humanity which is offered Him by the faith of the Virgin Mother, which is the culminating point of all the
faith of those who ever longed for the coming of their Saviour and believed in it, those whose names are written in Christ\’s genealogy, and the many, many, the millions whose names are unknown to us, but who are all known to their Lord and their God.
But in the Incarnation, in the Nativity of Christ in Bethlehem, God takes hold of a frailty of a child, and, as a parable, gives Him to us. Love is always given; love is always defenseless, love is always ultimately vulnerable, and the more perfect the love, the more fulfilled, the more defenseless, the more given and vulnerable it is. Divine Love is incarnate in Bethlehem; and the humanity of Christ there receives passively the gift of this union with God as the result of the perfect faith of the Mother, the Virgin Mother Who has offered Herself and Her Son to be God\’s own Son.
On the day of the Baptism Christ has reached the fullness of His human maturity, and now, it is the humanity of the Word Incarnate that takes upon itself, in an act of perfect freedom, of entire faith, of unreserved obedience, of heroic surrender the task which Love Divine has laid upon Him. He comes to Jordan free of sin, and He is baptized. Why? A Western Presbyterian minister of France told me once that he sees it in the following way: the people came to John the Baptist soiled, polluted by sin in an act of repentance and of faith, of a return to God, washed their sins in the waters of Jordan; and these waters became heavy with human sin, became what the legend of so many nations call, the dead, the killing waters of sin. And Christ comes; and He, pure of stain, immerses Himself in these waters of death as one would immerse white wool into a dye, and comes out; comes out of these waters carrying upon Himself all the sin that has been washed in these waters.
Ancient thought, ancient intuition had already perceived something of this mystery in the story of Hercules which is mentioned by one or another of the spiritual writers of old. Hercules stands for the hero who saves; he kills with an arrow the Centaur, the creature which is both beast and man — an image of what sin makes of us: beasts and men at the same time, because the image of God cannot be washed but it can be profaned; it cannot be destroyed but it can become monstrous as in the legend of Centaur. And on his dying moment the Centaur sends to Hercules his tunic asking him to wear it in memory of his victory, traitorously. And when Hercules puts it on it clings to his body and burns him like fire. And he tears it away together with his flesh and his life.
Isn\’t this an adequate image, an intuition of genius of what happened in Christ? Yes, He merges Himself, He immerses Himself in these waters of death; He comes out of them wearing on His body, in His humanity all the consequences of human sin, as Hercules put on the tunic soaked with the blood of the beast-man. And Christ will die of it because it is the only way He could free, not Himself but mankind of its sin. We are Christ\’s own people; our vocation on earth is to be in history, in the course of our short-lived existence, what Christ has been: love divine incarnate; vulnerable unto death and unto torment; helpless because it is totally and freely given. And our vocation is to struggle within us against everything which is sin, everything which is evil, to free ourselves by faith and obedience, by love and ascetical endeavor of everything which is not worthy of God, of everything to which God cannot unite Himself. And then, give ourselves unto life and unto death for the salvation of every person, of
every nation and of the world.
This is what this feast of Epiphany tells us. Let us follow into footsteps of our Master, from centaurs become truly human beings, and human, unite ourselves with God in Christ by the power of the Spirit, and lay down our lives, and offer if necessary our death for the salvation of all who need it. Amen.
