Friday, April 1, 2005 Lenten Fast
The Venerable Mary of Egypt
6th Hour: Isaiah 13:2-13 1st Vespers: Genesis 8:4-22 2nd Vespers: Proverbs 10:31-11:12
Genesis 8:4-22 (LXX), especially vs. 22: "All the days of the earth,
seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and spring, shall not cease by day or night." Those who emerge from the waters
of the Baptismal Mystery, like those who came out of the ark after the Great Flood of waters, enter upon a new life, a life
sheltered under God's promises. Feet and hooves, claws and wings emerged to a cleansed earth assured that life would
"not cease by day or night." Similarly, God promises those who come up from the waters of Baptism "a life of
regeneration," a life illumined by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).
How do we realize and obtain the blessings of this reborn life? The experience of the righteous Noah provides the
example: with the eye of a servant, he watched to discern God's will. He waited upon God's direction to come out of the
ark. When he emerged, his first action was to worship. Similarly the new life in Christ is lived by watching, waiting, and
worshiping.
As the last of the furious rains ended and the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat, Noah watched that he might
continue to move in the will of God. He observed the order of things and their natural interaction that he might see God's
hand at work. He opened a window in the ark to the new life beyond and observed. Just as then, the way we watch makes a
difference.
St. Nikiphoros the Hesychast tells of St. Antony seated at prayer on a desert mountain. Suddenly and urgently, St. Antony
sent two monks with water "along the road leading to Egypt," to find two men there, one who had died and another about
to die because of thirst. When St. Nikiphoros was asked why St. Antony did not dispatch relief sooner, he answered that
the decision about death rested with God, not Antony. That the miracle happened was because the Saint "kept his heart
watchful, and so the Lord showed him what was happening a long way off."
Great shifts and changes happen around us continually in all aspects of life: physical, social, and spiritual. Most of these,
being beyond our control, begin and end with God. The first work of a servant of Christ for realizing the fullness of
regeneration is to "look unto the hands of our Master" (Ps. 122:2 LXX), to discern what God is doing, how He is calling us
to act. Such watchfulness must be continuous; otherwise, the heart may be wounded and our birth into the new life in
Christ will be disrupted, injured, and possibly still-born.
As Noah watched, he tested the conditions. He sent out a raven and then a dove. Each of these brought him signs that "the
water had ceased from off the earth" (Gen. 8:8). Still Noah waited (vss. 10,12), and as he waited, in the words of the
Baptismal Liturgy, God "didst send unto them that were in the ark of Noah [His] dove, bearing in its beak a twig of olive,
the token of reconciliation and of salvation from the flood, the foreshadowing of the mystery of grace."
Observe: Noah waited for God, and only when the Lord spoke did the Patriarch leave the ark. The combination of waiting,
watching, and testing is essential to discern God's will fully, for the enemy constantly sows both good and evil thoughts to
distract us from God's highest and best. Let us wait for God, for He alone leads us in truth and teaches us (Ps. 24:5 LXX).
And when God directed Noah to leave the ark, the first thing the Patriarch did was to make a "holocaust offering" to the
Lord, a sacrifice in which the entire animal was consumed by fire, to signify the total surrender of self to God.
Regeneration in Christ requires total worship and full surrender of the self. The heart must say: "Thine own of Thine own
we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all and for all," by which we give self totally to the will of God in all our ways.
We have put Thee on, O Christ our God. Teach us to watch and wait for Thee alone, O merciful One, that we may be
victors even unto the end, through Thy crown incorruptible.