resurrection

On the incorruption

Thoughts in the middle of our corruption

Submitted by Csermely Péter on

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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About the benefits of suffering

Good Friday thoughts about the unavoidable antecedents of a new life

Submitted by Csermely Péter on

 

1. Corona virus: a chance to change. Our welfare society lives in an irreconcilable conflict with suffering. In our time there is no room for suffering. Some years ago the "snowflake behavior" appeared that implies increased vulnerability and a lack of tolerating opposing opinions. As I wrote in my previous essay, we would like to get everything at once: we are unable to bear the ‘suffering’ of even waiting. All these have been "directly hit" by the corona virus epidemic and (I hope with all my heart that) have been sunk by it. It would be very unfortunate to return to where we were after such a global learning process. We could become more trained to tolerate changes than we have been earlier. We may become more cohesive than we have been. We may become more understanding than earlier. Are we doing so? That is The question of this year. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

2. About the benefits of suffering. Reading this title the Reader may think that I have gone crazy. Isn’t there enough suffering here? Yes, there is. Even so. It is important to see suffering from another point of view than before. Suffering is not a leftover of ancient history surviving today that modern man can exterminate completely. The proper answer is not shaping our environment to meet our demands. The proper answer is reforming ourselves. The corona virus epidemic forces us to recognize this. Change always causes suffering. Suffering is such a state of being, in which complex systems are not in a resource-rich but in a resource-poor status. Resource-poorness educates to select. It teaches to distinguish between valuable and valueless. Only suffering educates to appreciate the good. We become defenseless without suffering. We have to practice how to stay alive – if we want to survive in the future... That is exactly what we are doing now. We are conducting global survival exercises right now. Suffering is a prayer. A prayer that manifests Jesus Christ’s redeeming mercy in the world and with this it contributes to the world’s purification. A suffering man awakens this mercy in the souls around him which are open to good. This is how a sufferer helps these souls get closer to Jesus with his silent service. All of us, let’s feel this call. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

   

3. The necessity of resurrection. When I was kneeling at the Golgotha in November, 2019, and after that when I was embracing the resurrected Jesus’ tomb, I clearly understood that there is no resurrection without crucifixion. Jesus’ resurrection’s world explosion that took place in a split of a second was the consequence of the slow crucifixion full of suffering. It is necessary to get through the narrow gate to see the entire Universe opening up. Our birth, life and death are all these very same analogies. We cannot omit suffering from our lives if we want to receive peace. Our Lord asks us to take up His cross every day (Lucas 9:22-25). So we should not protest – if it is here now. And let’s wait for the Easter Dawn, first with increasing hope, then with certainty emerging from this. Because the dawn of resurrection WILL COME after suffering. Because it has been consummated. Amen. (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

Submitted by Csermely Péter on

 

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

Submitted by Csermely Péter on

 

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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The difference between hope and expectations

Lenten thoughts about the power of faith

Submitted by Csermely Péter on

 

 

1. A life of expectations is a trap. A lot of people adjust their lives to the expectations of their environment. In most of the cases the expected benefit of fulfilling the expectations is gaining acceptance, sympathy and love. In our human world love quite often becomes the means of emotional blackmailing. The most dangerous expectations are those, which we have of ourselves. The distance between our expectations and reality is not anything else but the pain in ourselves. We should not consider our life goals as expectations but as desires. A man free of expectations remains self-identical. However, it is much more valuable even than this, if we do not link our desires to specific things but we let them out and long for the good in general. Longing for the good in general is hope.  (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)

 

 

2. The power of hope. Nowadays it is not trendy to hope. Despite of this: hope is much more than desire. Hope doesn’t wish to reach a certain goal but to increase good. Hope creates the possibility of good’s infinity in our lives. Hope delivers us from the slavery of specific goals because it breaks the wall of our egos with what is stronger than anything else in this world: the love of God. (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)

 

3. Why is faith much more than hope? Faith is the total and unequivocal certainty in the Gospel of redemption and resurrection. That’s why faith becomes a huge power. Because faith breaks down the walls between us and God. If we live in faith, God bathes us in Himself with showering joy and shows us new and new colors of His Totality and love each day. As our faith develops, it slowly shapes the Face and Figure of God’s only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ in us. This is how hope becomes reality. (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)

 

 

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