Eternal Life

On the incorruption

Thoughts in the middle of our corruption

1. Interpretation of incorruption in our time. Incorruption reminds a lot of people of preservatives. Our time’s new preservative is: disposal. Our objects are incorruptible – because we throw them away before they go wrong. „Repair” as a category has slowly disappeared from our lives because there is nothing to be repaired any more. The world has become perfect… The avalanche of artificial incorruption has reached the people, too. Today an aged man cannot be old: he must stay artificially young. Grey hair has become extinct. A wife may not appear without a make-up – even before her own husband. Time does not touch us: we are incorruptible. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

2. The vanity of our fight for reaching incorruption. We preserve our food and we preserve ourselves, too. We want to stop time. At the same time we do not recognize the moment. We rush: and when life forces us to stop (like now, at the time of corona virus…), we do not know how to deal with it. Why our fight for reaching incorruption is in vain? Quoting the thought of the Hungarian Lutheran pastor, Szabolcs Füke it is because "we do not want to conserve what is uncorrupted but what is corruptible". We do not realize that most of those things we would hang on to eternity are only the surface, the transience. We can see only the means not the objectives: we try to preserve the garnish and we do not notice the Meal besides it. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

3. The real interpretation of incorruption. We try to accomplish incorruption in our lives. This is a hopeless pursuit. We are unable to reach incorruption by ourselves just like Baron Münchausen was also unable to pull himself out from the pothole. What is corruptible in us will be taken away from us. And it is very good that our corruptibility is taken away from us: because it is the only way how the uncorrupted part of us can be preserved. God does not use preservatives to conserve the essence of us but He originally created it with this intention. God separates the uncorrupted part in us and preserves it. Our intimate relationship with God and Jesus what is uncorrupted in us. All that is linked to God in us is given a chance to be uncorrupted, which preserves the inner essence of our lives linked to God in Eternal Life. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

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How should we keep holy the name of the Lord and the Lord's day?

Thoughts about the second and the third commandments

 

1. Wrong approaches of honoring God. A lot of people think that it is quite easy to obey the second and the third commandments. "We do not take the name of the Lord in vain, and we go to the church on every Sunday. Okay, on church holidays, too. All right, even on those infrequently visited church holidays, (like Epiphany, Ascension of Jesus, etc.), too, which fall on week days." I must disagree with my brothers and sisters thinking these. Honoring God is not a compliance with rules or a type of behavior. People with divided hearts do not have strength. It is because they do not keep and save Jesus in themselves. They cannot keep Jesus in themselves because it is impossible to accept a half-Jesus. (For further details, please read my essay here.)

 

2. How should we keep holy the Lord's name? God is not the God of denial but the God of affirmation. God does not take anything away but He gives something. That is we always have to find the affirmative content behind the prohibitive words of the commandments because these carry the real message (Hebrews 10:1). The essence of the second commandment is that I bless the name of the Lord. The presence of God is the presence of the most precious gift in our lives. But if we do not listen to what the gift is that God is willing to give us, we will never receive it. (For further details, please read my essay here.)

 

3. How should we keep holy the Lord's day? Holidays are signs. They are such signs that have been given to us, people, by the Holy Trinity as a memory of Its love and indelible union. God’s signs though can be interpreted and can become complete only together with the Word of God. If a Christian is only looking for the signs of God he will become a 'raver-Christian'. For a man living in Jesus, every moment of each day becomes a sign. If we consider every moment a sign, the sign of God will be carved on us. The love of Jesus will shine out of us. (For further details, please read my essay here.)

 

 

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Cross and glory

Good Friday/Easter thoughts about the totality of salvation

 

1. Good Friday: The Path of the Cross – understandings and misunderstandings. Christ’s Cross stands in the center of Christian faith, in the middle of our hearts. Still: we are unable to understand the scandal of the Cross. Human thought is very much limited and simplifying. We think: If something is that majestic like Jesus, it cannot be humiliated. When we feel that "something is wrong" with the serial scandals of Jesus we actually feel that there is something wrong with ourselves because we are still not able to stand in front of Jesus and look at the beautiful Totality of His Face, Cross and judgment. With everything. With anything. With Him. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my Good Friday essay published here.)

 

2. Holy Saturday: The beauty of the Silence of mourning. It is silence on Holy Saturday. Is this silence frightful? Is it the silence of the absence of Jesus? No, it is not! It is the silence of hope, expectation and our internal communion with Jesus. The Silence of the Holy Saturday is the Silence of God’s Totality and Purity reflected in Jesus. Good Friday is the occasion to face ourselves, while Holy Saturday is the time for immerse in ourselves. Let’s feel as we approach the core of our existence: the power of the resurrection’s Gospel that rewrites everything. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my Good Friday essay published here.)

 

3. Easter: The Glory of resurrection. According to the Greek Orthodox thinking Christ suffers for us on the Cross in every moment. Let us experience this as the inconceivable pain of the Father above the Cross, the suffering of Christ on the Cross and the heartbreaking pain of Holy Mary under the Cross are becoming unified. Let us experience the dignity of that the Father does not stamp the Creation but opens the direct Path to Himself as the tapestry of the Sanctuary of the Jerusalem Church is ripped apart (Matthew 27:51a). The covenant is made once and for all: the Father has become the Father of us all to whom we all can turn to – by Jesus and for Jesus – in a first name basis. Let us experience the beauty of resurrection! Let our hearts also resurrect from their dead and let them revive, live a new life that is Eternal! Let us ask for it together with the psalmist: "One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit his temple." (Psalms 26:4). Our prayer in the Psalms has been fulfilled: the fact of resurrection is unchangeable, irrevocable and eternal. Hallelujah! Amen. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my Good Friday essay published here.)

 

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