Wednesday, April 13, 2005 Lenten Fast
Martin the Confessor, Pope of Rome
6th Hour: Isaiah 41:4-14 1st Vespers: Genesis 17:1-9 2nd Vespers: Proverbs 15:20-16:9
Genesis 17:1-9 LXX, especially vs. 5: "And thy name shall no more be called
Abram, but thy name shall be Abraam [Abraham]." Orthodox Christianity knows and teaches "theosis," sometimes called
"deification," that supernatural process of change by which one is transformed into the likeness of God, until one is a
partaker "of the divine nature" (2 Pet.1:4). Faith in God is the starting point toward theosis and leads one to ceaseless
prayer for the grace to work with God until He fully restores His image and likeness within and without, until one becomes
completed in Christ. Today's reading reveals that God gives faith, a particular kind of faith, one that inevitably effects
change of heart, action, behavior, and even one's basic identity as a person - in the movement toward complete theosis.
First, faith changes the heart. When God appeared to Abram, the Patriarch "fell upon his face" (Gen. 17:3). Up to this
point Abram listened to God, obeyed God, worshiped God by building altars to God. However, faith grew within his heart,
so that Abram was moved to prostrate himself before God. Some wondrous change transpired within the man. He was
moved to reverence before God as Moses who hid his face before the burning bush (Ex. 3:5), as Joshua before the
Commander of the army of the Lord (Jos. 5:14) and as Isaiah in the Temple (Is. 6:5). Abram responded to the glory of God
from a changed heart. When this same Divine glory pierced the Apostle Peter's heart, he cried out, "Depart from me, Lord,
for I am a sinful man" (Lk. 5:8). Let us also say, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner."
Second, faith reconfigures one's behavior. God held up before Abram expectations for the change or enlargement of his
actions in life: the Patriarch was to "be well-pleasing" and "blameless" before Him; but, in addition, God directed that he
should "fully keep My covenant, thou and thy seed after thee for their generations" (vs. 9).
As we participate in the Holy Gifts and submit ourselves to the gracious work of the Holy Spirit within our hearts, God
reshapes our life and actions, so that we plead with Christ that "Every evil deed and every passion may flee as from fire."
The prayer does not anticipate results by magic, but by the grace of God working within us. God's grace helps us to change
our actions so that we may behave and live as children of the light.
Third, faith in the living God changes one's personal identity. God ratified the change that was effected in the Patriarch by
giving him a new name, "Abraham" (Phonetically in the LXX, Abraam). The name, "father," in Hebrew, "ab," appears in
both his names. In the original name, Ab-ram, the second of the two Hebrew words, means "exalted." This initial identity
of the Patriarch meant "Exalted Father." In giving the Patriarch a new name, God changed the second portion of his name
to "raham," to "many," thus identifying the Patriarch as the "father of a multitude," signaling the change God was
accomplishing in Ab-raham's personal identity. Changing one's name is common in Orthodoxy. Persons who receive the
basic Mystery of Christ often take an additional name by which thereafter they are remembered in the Church's prayers.
Similarly, in being tonsured or ordained, many even change their names to mark their complete submission to God. A
pagan soldier once demanded the name of a maiden, Anysia. She made the sign of the Cross and said, "I am Christ's
handmaid," declaring her truest identity - as Christ's own. Finding her physically beautiful, the soldier assailed her
lustfully. When she resisted, he killed her with his sword. The deepest name each one of us bears is "Christian!"
Make me a reason-endowed sheep in the holy flock of Thy Christ, O God, an honorable member of Thy Church, a child of
the light and an heir of Thy Kingdom.