Thursday, January 29, 2004
Translation of the Relics of Ignatios the God-bearer
Kellia: Sirach 51:1-12 Epistle: 1 Peter 4:12-5:5 Gospel: St. Mark 12:38-44
Sirach 51:1-12, especially vss. 11, 12, "I will praise Thy Name continually,
and I will sing praise with thanksgiving. My prayer was heard, for Thou didst rescue me from an
evil plight." While to some readers this passage may seem a strange prayer to place upon the lips
of one of God's holy martyrs, more than likely it would have seemed quite right and natural to
the God-bearer and Hieromartyr, Ignatios of Antioch. When Ignatios knew he was being led to
certain death in the arena at Rome, he solemnly begged the churches all along his route, from
Asia through Thrace and Epiros to Rome and to his final martyrdom, "not to be an 'inopportune
favor' to me. Let me be food for the wild beasts, through which I can attain to God.... Then I
shall be truly a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world will not see my body at all."
Do you see the connection? For a true disciple of Christ, like St. Ignatios, "...near the sword is
near God, with the beasts is with God," for there is a certain kind of death which is far worse than
the biological end of the body. Fr. Alexander Schmemann explains this Christian vision of
death: "death is above all a 'spiritual reality,' of which one can partake while being alive, from
which one can be free while lying in the grave. Death here is man's 'separation from Life,' that
is, from God Who is the only Giver of life, Who Himself is Life."
Even a cursory examination today's reading, shows one immediately that this passage is a prayer
of thanksgiving to God for deliverance. The author of the prayer, Jesus ben Sirach, was a well-schooled, professional teacher of the Old Testament law. He penned this prayer, sometime
before 132 BC. The prayer reflects his gratitude for some unnamed physical salvation. Listen to
his words: God "delivered my body from destruction" (vs. 2).
Nevertheless, the prayer itself, when read from the Christian viewpoint, provides an instructive
model for equipping the Faithful to witness fearlessly in the face of all sort of afflictions -
including physical death. Consider: when the Faithful are caught in circumstances which
demand that they renounce their deepest convictions or the life in Christ, they are faced with real
spiritual death, for they are confronting the possibility of separation from "Christ Who is our life"
(Col. 3:4). If at such a time they send up supplication from the earth, and pray for deliverance
(Sir. 51:9), God does not forsake them in that day of affliction (vs. 10). Rather, they are
delivered "in the greatness of [God's] mercy and of [His] Name" (vs. 3).
Notice that the prayer shows us in detail how God acts to save us from all sorts of spiritual death.
Sirach speaks of "the snare of a slanderous tongue" (vs.2). Those who would draw us from the
truth of Christ often slander God, thinking of Him as a figment of the imagination or a
psychological device to help one under stress. The prayer mentions "the gnashings of teeth" (vs.
3), that is, confrontation with anger. There is the temptation is to return hate for hate, anger for
anger, bitterness for bitterness - but such is death, Beloved in Christ.
To what, then, does the prayer direct us? It directs us to our true strength under duress: "Then I
remembered Thy mercy, O Lord" (vs. 8). "And I sent up my supplication for deliverance, and
prayed for deliverance from death" (vs. 9). Our way is to cry out to Life Himself: "Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner!" He both turns us from those invitations of
the world to die to the truth in us, and, at the same time, He fills us with life: "for Thou didst save
me from destruction and rescue me from an evil plight. Therefore I will give thanks to Thee and
praise Thee, and I will bless the Name of the Lord" (vs. 12).
O Lord save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance, granting to Thy People victory over all
their enemies, and by the power of Thy Cross, preserving Thy Kingdom.
