Sunday, September 19, 2004 (Tone 7)
The Sunday after the Elevation of the Holy Cross
Kellia: Jeremiah 9:17-24 Epistle: Galatians 2:16-20 Gospel: St. Mark 8:34-9:1
Jeremiah 9:17-24, especially vss. 19, 24:
"For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion: 'How we are ruined!'.....let him who glories glory in
this, that he understands and knows Me." Today's reading includes two portions of the Temple
message: 1) a call for lamentation complimenting the repeated prophecies of invasion and
destruction found throughout the Book of Jeremiah (vss. 17-22), and 2) an appeal from the Lord
to trust in Him, the One, lasting, true and certain Good in this world (vss. 23-24). Although God
addresses two different topics in this passage, He has a single message for His audience, the
ancient citizens of Judah. Hence, the two portions form a single message: ruin is coming which
makes lamentation entirely appropriate, yet there remains hope for those who will shift the focus
of their lives away from the wisdom, power, and riches of this world to knowing God truly.
Such a message is timeless for all men, for death is coming in the windows of every one's life
and entering his palaces (vs. 21), but for those who have committed themselves to understand and
know God the Lord, He Who practices "steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth"
(vs. 24), there is unimaginable glory. As the Psalmist teaches: "For better is one day in Thy
courts than thousands elsewhere....for God will give grace and glory" (Ps. 83:10,12 LXX).
Yes, the lamentation to which God calls us in the first part of the reading is right and good; for, as
Archimandrite Sophrony would have us know, "seeing ourselves unable to overcome this death
by our own efforts, we despair of our salvation. Strange as it may seem, it is essential that we
experience this painful state - experience it hundreds of times that it may be engraved on our
consciousness. This first hand knowledge of hell is profitable for us." The grappling with the
reality of death that permeates our existence, that exposes the ruin of all that this world holds
dear, invites the soul to long and faint "for the courts of the Lord" (Ps. 83:1 LXX), where, as
Archimandrite Sophrony says, "even a whisper of the Divine Spirit is glory beyond compare to
all the content of life lived apart from God."
Let us receive into our souls the image which the Lord is placing before us in the first portion of
His prophecy. Facing death, which "has come up into our windows" (Jer. 9:21), we may indeed
look at it squarely and perceive that "all mortal things are vanity and exist not after death. Riches
endure not, neither doth glory accompany on the way: for when death cometh, all these things
vanish utterly." It is fitting to "call for the mourning women to come" (vs. 17).
In many of the cultures of Middle East, professional mourners assist the bereaved, often too
numb from the shock of loss to embrace grief-work, that "our eyes may run down with tears, and
our eyelids gush with water" (vs.18). In the Temple message, the Lord calls the mourners to
come now and help in the grief-work because death, which His People are pushing away from
their consciousness, is about to become ubiquitous and literal, with "the dead bodies of men...like
dung upon the open field, like sheaves after the reaper, and none shall gather them" (vs. 22).
Unimaginable ruin was about to descend on God's ancient People.
Beloved, let us heed the Lord from the depths of our souls: if we are wise, let us not glory in our
wisdom; if we are mighty, let us not glory in our might; and if we are rich in the things of this
world, let us not glory in our riches (vs. 23); for all these things will soon enough be in ruin.
Rather, let us understand and know the Lord, for, as Archimandrite Sophrony says, the moment
the Spirit "touches the heart...there is naught on earth to compare with it." He is glory. Yea, O
Lord, by Thy Holy Spirit, grant me to know Thy truth before I go down into the grave that I may
prepare my soul to come before Thee.