Saturday, July 31, 2004
The Righteous Joseph of Arimathea
Kellia: 1 Maccabees 4:1-25 Epistle: Romans 14:6-9 Gospel: St. Matthew 15:32-39
1 Maccabees 4:1-25, especially vs. 10, 11: "And now let us cry to Heaven, to
see whether He will favor us and remember His covenant with our fathers and crush this army before us today. Then all
the Gentiles will know that there is One Who redeems and saves Israel." The reader of the New Testament will find a
number of references to soldiers and an acceptance of the military occupation. Soldiers who came to the Forerunner were
told not to "intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and to be content with your wages" (Lk. 3:14). A centurion asked the Lord
Jesus to heal his servant "who was dear to him" (Lk. 7:2); and not only did the Lord heal the servant, but also He praised
the great faith of the officer (Lk. 7:9-10). Still, the Lord's non-resistance when arrested, and His counsel to "love your
enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and
persecute you" (Mt. 5:44) encourages us to avoid conflict and fighting.
However, in reading the Scriptural account of the Maccabean uprising, we face an issue of conflict in which the adversaries
of the Faithful were bent on the complete destruction of both the Faith and of God's People. Mattathias moved away from
Jerusalem to Modein to avoid any participation in the desecrating of God's Temple (1 Mac. 2:1). When "the king's officers
who were enforcing the abandonment of Judaism, they came to Modein to force the Jews to offer sacrifice" (1 Mac. 2:15).
Mattathias was non-violent in opposing the order to "do what the king commands" (1 Mac. 2:18). "Far be it from us to
desert the Law...we will not obey the king's words" (1 Mac. 2:21,22). However, when a fellow Jew offered pagan
sacrifice, Mattathias knew he faced a sinful policy (1 Mac. 1:54-57). Then, he struck out (1 Mac. 2:24,25).
Events led the Jewish minority inexorably into warfare with the Seleucids (1 Mac. 2, 3). Successive battles grew in size
and determination on both sides. Lysias' army sent against the Maccabeans, which today's reading describes, invaded with
a murderous mandate, and their size, training, and equipment were immense. There was no room for negotiation.
Surrender or extermination were the alternatives. Thus, like their forebears who faced Pharaoh and his chariots at the Red
Sea, Judas Maccabeus and his men were wholly dependent on God's deliverance for the dwindling minority of Israel (1
Mac. 4:9-11). As St. Nikolai of Zica says: "...preparation is like a proposal to God; but it is God, not the proposer who
decides."
In the battle for Constantinople in 1453 AD, the beleaguered defenders of the City, after six weeks of resistance, could not
hold out against the superior forces of the Ottoman Turks. Fortunately, as Bishop Kallistos Ware notes, life under the new
infidel rulers was not utterly impossible for "the Turks themselves...treated their Christian subjects with remarkable
generosity." In retrospect, we see that the defeat of the White Russians by the Reds, though it led to a unimaginably brutal
repression of the Church, did not exterminate Orthodoxy in Russia.
As much as we admire the peacemakers among the Faithful, let us also be humble before those who have put their lives in
the mortal danger on the battlefield and with the sword to save the Holy Faith. The martyr Tsar Lazar of the Serbs said
before his defeat at Kosovo by superior Islamic forces: "It is better for us to experience death, than to live in shame and
slavery." God saved the Maccabeans, for He "is good [and] His mercy endures for ever. Thus Israel had a great
deliverance that day" (vss. 24,25). God is Savior, sometimes in miraculous ways in the conflicts of this life, but above all,
He always saves the Faithful in the struggle for eternity.
O our God, Who loveth mankind, Who art ever gracious and conciliatory, keep Thy holy Church and all men from wrath,
fire, the sword, foreign invasion, civil war and sudden death.
