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March 30 – April 5, 2025 (Western): Lent: Sunday of the Paralyzed Man

Reading Time: 13 minutes

Crucifixion Week 6

The Fasts in The Divine Calendar

The Great Lent is the main of the four fasts in the Divine Calendar, and each serves the purpose of receiving the grace associated with the feasting period. Without the preparation of a fast, the grace of the feast lands in our soul, but “the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). In addition, each fast has a specific purpose related to the act of salvation that Christ fulfilled.

First fast: The Incarnation Fast / The Nativity Fast (November–December).

General preparation: for the Incarnation Feasts.Specific preparation: to empty a space in the land of our soul for the grace of Incarnation, currently occupied by the fallen human nature, the old man. This reminds us of Jesus’ own self-emptying when He entered our world as a Man. “Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6–7).

Second fast: The Great Lent (or simply Lent) (February–April).

General preparation: for the Feast of Feasts, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Pascha), and the following fifty joyous days of the Season of Resurrection and Season of Ascension.Specific preparation: An encounter with the fasting Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, that we may follow Him in His passion all the way to the cross during Holy Week. The grace of Jesus’ fast and His crucifixion finally puts to death the fallen human nature surrounding the grace of Incarnation. “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10–11).

Third fast: The Fast of the Holy Spirit / The Apostles Fast (May–July)

General preparation: for the grace/Gift of Pentecost (the new infilling of the Holy Spirit) to settle in our inner man.Specific preparation: To deepen our fellowship with the Holy Spirit. “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:24–25). To allow the Holy Spirit to put a seal of completion/protection of His work of redemption until this point. “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13–14). To defeat the enemy’s attempts at reclaiming the area of our soul he just lost. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).

Fourth fast: The Dormition Fast (July–August)

General preparation: consecration for the Second Coming of Jesus through the Season of Heavenly Participation and the Season of the Second Coming.Specific preparation: To deepen our consecration by living as a pilgrim and a stranger in the world. “Listen, O daughter, Consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people also, and your father’s house; So the King will greatly desire your beauty” (Ps. 45:10–11a). To prepare our bridal garments as a Bride of Christ at Jesus’ Second Coming, and prepare the world for His Kingdom. “But we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2b–3).

Great Lent is all about seeking an encounter with the fasting Jesus in the wilderness and remain in deep fellowship with him. Through the mystery of Incarnation, every single act Jesus did in the flesh was on our behalf. Christ’s acts are eternal and we can receive grace from them today.

In the wilderness, Jesus conquered every temptation of the devil that wants to capture humanity in sin. Jesus overcame the fallen human nature in the wilderness, and His victories were won for our sake—Christ did not fast because He needed this victory for Himself.

 

The Context of Great Lent

Let us make a quick review of our journey through the Divine Calendar up to this point. In the first Season of the Kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit highlighted a specific area in our soul that He wanted to restore. This darkened area is a part of the fallen human nature and relates to the next step of the formation of Christ in our inner man.

“Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19).

As our inner man grows, so does our external sphere of influence, reflecting how God releases us more into the work of His Kingdom. In the first Season of Salvation, the Holy Spirit highlighted an area in our soul that lacked the presence of the King Himself.

In the second season, the Season of Incarnation, the Holy Spirit first prepared the specific fallen area of our soul (during the Nativity Fast) for the cure: the divine nature of Jesus Christ. “By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Pet. 1:4).

During the Incarnation Feasts, we received the rich grace of Incarnation. The person of Christ came to our inner man in the potential of a little divine seed. This seed caused a small inner earthquake. Even though just a seed, the grace changed us during those weeks of feasting.

During the third Season of Salvation, the Season of Crucifixion, the Holy Spirit seeks to put to death the fallen nature encircling this divine seed in the land of our soul. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live (Rom. 8:13). This will enable the seed of Incarnation to open up, grow, and receive a seal (an anointing) of completion through the upcoming seasons of Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost.

To give another picture of what is happening, we can say that the grace of Incarnation brought to the surface a hidden part of our inner man. However, the fallen human nature has intermingled with this part of our soul. Therefore, we suddenly battle old patterns of sin and temptations we thought were long gone.

This is the Season that deals with our fallen human nature through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Originally, Great Lent started directly after the Feast of Theophany / Epiphany, because the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness directly after John the Baptist had baptized Him. “Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness” (Mark 1:12).

But as the years went by, the Fathers of the Church saw the need for preparation before the grand feast of the resurrection of Jesus during the Easter week / the Holy Week. Therefore, they moved Lent to the weeks before Easter/Pascha.

Let us look at this week’s Sunday Gospel.

Sunday Gospel: John 5:1–18 (NKJV)

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. 5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

And that day was the Sabbath. 10 The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.” 11 He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’ ”

12 Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” 15 The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

16 For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” 18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

 

Sunday of the Paralyzed Man

In the Sunday of Treasures four weeks ago, we discovered how the wilderness of Lent teaches us about ourselves. In the Sunday of Temptation, we learned more about the ways of the enemy. And in the previous two Sundays, the Sunday of the Prodigal Son and the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, we learned more about God, His mercy, and His ways of reaching fallen mankind.

For the remaining two Sundays before Palm Sunday (April 13), the Sunday Gospels focus on revealing more about the specific fallen part of our soul that God wants to bring to death, then resurrect into its redeemed image of Jesus.

The prodigal son wasted his inheritance in search for freedom and satisfaction. Clearly, the food of swine didn’t satisfy. He tried to fill his craving with pleasures that did not fulfill. The Samaritan woman, seeking security and understanding, married herself to the world. She sought the soulish and emotional pleasures that always failed her. These are parallel images that can fit us as well. On the Sunday of the Paralyzed Man, we see what happens if we remain in the state of the prodigal son or Samaritan woman for a long, long time. We become paralyzed.

We read in verses 5–6: “Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’”

The paralyzed man had been stranded by the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years together with “a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had” (verses 3–4).

The message for us this Sunday is that if we find ourselves completely helpless—paralyzed—in our fallen condition, the grace of Jesus’ fast can heal us. If we find ourselves unable to move, and we might even have lost faith that God can change us, Jesus can still transform us. If we believe Jesus defeated every weakness of the human nature during His fast, which He did (see the two paragraphs below), then that includes our own chronic sins as well. This Sunday, the Divine Calendar gives us hope to pray for redemption, even if we have lost hope that God can change us.

 

The Totality of Temptations

After Jesus defeated the three temptations, Luke writes: “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). The enemy had completed throwing “every temptation” at Jesus. And as we talked about on the Sunday of Temptation, Jesus defeated the three major temptations directed at the body, the soul, and the relationship with God.

After these three major temptations of body, soul, and spirit, the devil “had ended every temptation.” Jesus faced the totality of human weakness, yet never sinned once in deed, word, or thought. His victory is now ours—including the victory over those sins that paralyzed us and drained all hope for change.

 

The Impact of the Healing

In verse 6–7, we read: “When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered Him, ‘Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.’”

The paralyzed man had been living by the pool for thirty-eight years, seeing his hope of healing by the stirring of the water crushed again, and again, and yet again—every time someone entered the pool before him. Just imagine the people walking by:

“Oh, you’re still here, son? Had completely forgotten about you. You know, I was healed eighteen years ago.”

“Yikes!” The stranger slapped his forehead. “I promised to help you into the pool. But, can you release me from my promise? That was ten years ago. Need to catch up with my wife before she gets anxious. Best of luck.”

“Oh, can’t believe you’re still here. That’s impressive. Would have lost hope long ago. Keep on believing, man. One day…”

The paralyzed man’s bed had become his bed of shame and offence. The endless disappointments shattered his dignity. Imagine the shock when Jesus Christ—the Man the paralyzed had heard so much about—suddenly crouched beside him, smiling. “Do you want to be made well?”

Verse 8–9 reads: “Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk.’ And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.”

We can’t possibly imagine the transformation this man experienced. His dignity as a human being returned and the burden of his sickness and shame finally broke. No wonder why Jesus found the paralyzed man in the temple later on. This man, after spending most of his life seeing his hope of restoration shattered again and again, could finally move around like everybody else. He went directly to the temple, praising God. “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you’” (verse 14).

When such radical healing takes place in our lives, either visible or invisible, it also stirs up the powers of darkness. The evil powers around us had claimed an area, and they thought they had destroyed this part of us and that it belonged to them. But through the victories of the fasting Jesus, these evil powers let go of their spot.

“And that day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, ‘It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.’ He answered them, ‘He who made me well said to me, “Take up your bed and walk”’” (verses 9b–11). “For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.’ Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God” (verses 16–18).

Two chapters later, we notice the Pharisees are still furious that this man’s healing led to the breaking of the Sabbath commandment. “The people answered and said, ‘You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘I did one work, and you all marvel […] If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath’”? (John 7:20–21, 23)

This warfare from the fallen human nature, represented in the Pharisees in this story, leads us into the last Sunday of Lent before Palm Sunday. “For You will light my lamp; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness” (Ps. 18:28).

Let us pray for the grace this week to discover any suppressed inner paralysis. There’s grace to receive faith and hope that Jesus can heal us. “God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope [Abraham] believed” (Rom. 4:17b–18a).

Thank you for taking the time to read. It’s my joy and honor to travel together through Great Lent.

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

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March 25 / April 7, 2025 (Western / Eastern): Feast of the Annunciation

Reading Time: 12 minutes

Crucifixion Week 5 / 7

Gospel of the Feast: Luke 1:24–38 (NKJV)

Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived; and she hid herself five months, saying, 25 “Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

29 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. 30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

34 Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. 37 For with God nothing will be impossible.”

38 Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

 

The Search for The Virgin

Today is exactly nine months until Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ and the church celebrates the annunciation of Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary about the birth of the Son of God. (This feast is not well known among Evangelical churches.) This feast marks the beginning of God’s plan of salvation in the New Testament era.

God’s heart is full of compassion and mercy toward mankind. He protects the dignity of man, meaning the image of God in us, and He guards our free will. In the beginning, when man chose to listen to the serpent instead of trusting and obeying God, He still protected mankind. God left man in the fallen world, but He did not forsake us because He worked according to His plan—He was watching and searching.

“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him” (2 Chron. 16:9a). God was searching among His own people. Who would surrender his or her heart to Him, so He could help this person and use him or her? God did this with Noah, Abraham, and David…. He was searching for those channels through whom He could reveal His Kingdom and Himself as a King, step by step.

Abraham listened to God and walked with Him, and Abraham passed his experience with God to his descendants. After several generations, God chose Moses and made him enter God’s plan for mankind.

God chose David to conquer the promised land and establish Jerusalem as the City of God, the headquarter for the Kingdom of God on Earth. Then Daniel, another chosen one, saw far into our future and the end of the world. The mysteries of God opened up, and mankind got to know more about God, themselves, and the redemption of all creation.

But after Daniel, God was still searching, waiting, watching…. Who would entrust her heart to Him and give herself completely to Him as a living sacrifice of praise? Who could accept to be used in a way that God had never used a human being before? He needed this special person.

God needed someone to be prepared in a certain way. He needed a woman because the salvation of the world had to come from a woman, as He promised Eve. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15).

The Lord needed an especially prepared person so He could unite with the human nature at the specific time He had decided. God wanted to reveal Himself in the flesh to mankind. He needed to take on human nature through someone. She had to be a woman able to bear God’s divinity, the all-consuming fire, without being consumed. He would help her, but who could be ready for this?

God needed someone not only humble, dedicated, and consecrated, but someone who knew His heart and drew near to Him in the way He appreciated, totally giving herself to worship day and night. Many people had worshiped God and became links in the chain of His salvation plan, but the time had come to fully entrust all of Himself to someone. Not only His heart of compassion and tender mercies, but all of His nature, His divinity. God wanted to give all of Himself so He could be fully Man and fully God among His creation.

At last, He found whom He was searching for. Church tradition and Jewish history tell about a couple who were barren for many years, Joachim and Anna. They had decided that if they ever gave birth to a child, they would consecrate the child to the Lord. Miraculously, they gave birth to their daughter, Mary, and since they wanted to follow the example of Prophet Samuel, they gave her to the Lord in the temple in Jerusalem when she was only three years old.

The Annunciation to the Virgin Mary

Mary lived in the temple for nearly ten years, reading and meditating on Scripture, praying, singing, and serving the holy place until she was too old to live in the temple. As a teenager, she was betrothed to Joseph, a godly man, and she moved from Jerusalem to Nazareth.

In verses 26–28, we read: “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, ‘Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!’”

The day of Archangel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin is today.

Verses 35, 37–38 reads: “And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. … For with God nothing will be impossible.’ Then Mary said, ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”

Because God honored the free will of man, He had waited not only for this deeply consecrated person, but for the person’s free response to His call.

When the Virgin Mary replied, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (verse 38), “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Her yes was when divinity united with humanity. Her yes is the beginning of our salvation. Her yes is the reason for our feast day today.

Blessed feast of the Annunciation.

 

What does this Feast Mean to Us?

As we have seen, God loves to involve mankind in His work. He needed Abraham to bring forth descendants through whom the Messiah could be born. “Then He brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’” (Gen. 15:5).

God spoke to His men and women and revealed His plan to them. These men and women of God got insight into God’s plan and what He was about to do.

“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4–5). At the fullness of the time, God had found her through whom He could take on flesh.

Today, God is still waiting for people to prepare their hearts. He wants to reveal His plans. God wants to make known what He is about to do to complete His plan of salvation of the entire creation. “Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).

When He gives His plan to a person, he or she might not understand everything—at least not in the beginning. God speaks to the heart. There’s a conversation and revelation happening in the person’s heart. But God will unveil and help the person understand the mission once they finish the preparations. Angels might even support this person to complete the mission in its ordained time.

To whom can God give a divine annunciation of what He wants to do in our generation?

That is what this feast means for us. Let us pray for the grace to complete our preparation, and that God may find us worthy to receive a part of His plan in this hour before the Second Coming of Jesus.

Thank you for taking the time to read. May this feast day be a blessing for you.

 

Other Recommended Scriptures For Meditation

Alongside to the designated Gospel passage, these Scriptures are great to read, meditate on, and pray with in order to receive the grace of the Feast:

 

Isaiah 4:2–6 (NKJV): In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious; and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped. 3 And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. 4 When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, 5 then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a covering. 6 And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.

 

Genesis 3:21–4:7 (NKJV): Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” 2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

 

Proverbs 8:22–30 (NKJV): The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. 23 I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth; 26 While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primal dust of the world. 27 When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28 when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, 29 when He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him.

 

Hebrews 2:11–18 (NKJV): For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12 saying: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.” 13 And again: “I will put My trust in Him.” And again: “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”

14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 16 For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. 17 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.

 

Luke 1:39–49, 56 (NKJV): Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, 40 and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. 45 Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.”

46 And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. 48 For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; for behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. 49 For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.

56 And Mary remained with her about three months, and returned to her house.

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March 23–29, 2025 (Eastern): Third Sunday of Lent: Adoration of the Precious Cross

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Crucifixion Week 5

Sunday Gospel: Mark 8:34–9:1 (NKJV)

When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

9:1 And He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”

 

Sunday of the Adoration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross

We are in the middle of Lent and this Sunday focuses on the cross, called the Sunday of the Adoration/Veneration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross.

The cross is the center of our salvation. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18). “For as by one man’s disobedience [Adam’s] many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience [Christ’s] many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).

In the two weeks prior to this Sunday and the two following, the Divine Calendar gives us a Sunday Gospel passage and an example from church history. But in this week in the middle, we focus on the cross. We are halfway through Lent, and we need to renew our strength.

We pause here to gaze upon the cross of Christ. The cross is the source of our life and strength, and we need the grace of the cross to complete the journey of Lent.

The tree of life is a symbol of the cross of Christ.

In the beginning: “The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden…” (Gen. 2:9b)In the Old Testament: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live’” (Num. 21:8).During the crucifixion: “Then he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise’” (Luke 23:42–43).In the coming age: “In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2).

We also get our strength from the cross.

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). 

How We Got Here

The first Sunday Gospel of Lent (John 1:43–51), the Sunday of Orthodoxy, tells us about the open heavens above Jesus as He draws His first disciples’ attention to Jacob’s ladder. Jesus called His disciples to follow Him by drawing their attention to the open heavens.

The example on the Sunday of Orthodoxy is the icons of all the faithful followers of Christ. The icons show us that the heavens are open and that we are one Body, on Earth and in Heaven. Therefore, we are called to live under the open heavens and extend its reach.

Christ entered the wilderness with something specific set before His eyes. His main purpose during His fast was to find Adam—meaning mankind—somewhere lost in the wilderness.

The Garden of Eden is the place of the presence of God. But when Adam fell, the wilderness awaited outside the Garden. Adam met thorns, thistles, and beasts—the opposite to the life in the Garden. Jesus entered the wilderness to restore Adam (each one of us) to the state of Paradise. This is our story after the first week of Lent. Christ has opened heaven over us and come to bring us back to Paradise.

On the second Sunday, the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, we looked at our inner state. The Sunday Gospel is the healing of the paralytic, and St Gregory of Palamas is our example. How can we fix our messy inner state? It is as if Christ looks at Adam, asking if he knows why he lies paralyzed. The reasons are internal, such as pride, fallen passions, and the noise and spirit of the world. We can all identify with this paralysis.

Now, we have arrived the third Sunday of Lent, and the cross is before us as we enter the fourth week of fasting. The solution to heal these inner ailments is the cross. This is our journey of salvation, as we work out our “own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12b–13). We work out our salvation by following the commandments of Jesus.

Lent is not an isolated, outer spiritual discipline, but an internal transformation from stage to stage. God cannot transform us without our willingness to discover what’s deep within. Then we must seek to encounter Christ and follow Him to the cross.

The Great Lent: A Season of Spiritual Education and Training

The Great Lent is a season of spiritual education and training, but about what? This season is the school of battling with the devil.

Jesus fought with the enemy from the first day of His fast to the last. “… being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry” (Luke 4:2). “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13).

Every minute in the wilderness, Jesus faced the devil’s constant temptations. Then, after forty days of eating nothing, Jesus gained victory over every temptation that the devil threw at the humanity He assumed. Finally, Jesus was hungry, and the enemy brought the three last temptations as Matt. 4:3–11 and Luke 4:3–13 record them. Jesus, being fully Man and fully God, felt utterly exhausted in His humanity.

The enemy approached Jesus with the first temptation. “Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Luke 4:3).

That has happened once before. In the beginning, God gave Adam the authority over creation to steward it according the God’s plan to extend His Kingdom from Eden to the entire world. “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). But the snake deceived Adam and Eve, and the devil looted their God-given authority over the world.

After forty days of fasting, Jesus regained this authority from the enemy to His human nature. Now, the devil comes to the second Adam—Jesus—to cast doubt over God’s command. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God’” (Luke 4:4).

In the Garden, the snake tempted Eve with, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1c) In the wilderness, the devil tempted Jesus with “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Luke 4:3b). Therefore, Jesus fasted. He corrected Adam and Eve’s violation of the single command, which said “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen. 2:17). Jesus’ fasting regained the authority Adam and Eve lost when they broke their abstinence from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But Christ didn’t repeat the fall of man. Instead, He confirmed God as the Source of His life, not the food the enemy suggested Him to create from a stone. “But Jesus answered him, saying, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”’” (Luke 4:4).

You can read more about the three temptations in this post from the Western calendar.

 

A Season of Spiritual Education and Training: Based upon Christ’s Victory and Love

How do we battle with the devil and receive the victory in Christ?

Lent is the season of spiritual learning through the experience of its battles. It becomes a season of spiritual education, if we remember the two first points we previously said about the Lent. It’s a season of victory and a season of love.

We learn from love—the love of God teaches us. “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4)

We learn in love—we are with Jesus and abide in Him in the wilderness. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

The wilderness puts us in situations where we learn to sacrifice ourselves courageously and act with brave faith to oppose the ways of the devil—but with wisdom. During the days of Lent, we try to stay close to what the Bible says about the spiritual warfare Jesus faced during His forty-day fast.

The devil tempted Jesus forty days while He ate nothing to show us the way of victory. He was not mighty in human strength in the wilderness, but vulnerable, trusting fully upon the words of His Father. Jesus had no shelter and endured the heat of day and the cold of night—this is our life. We fluctuate between two extremes—from burning to freezing—and move from one ditch to the other, but Jesus did not waver and held a steady course.

The grace to fast in this season comes from the One who lived this way in the wilderness, weak and vulnerable, fully trusting God’s Word. When the wilderness exposed Jesus to temptations, He used prayer and the ascetic life as His weapons.

We know Jesus prayed day and night, and He got up early to pray. “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Lent’s grace of victory over temptations enables us to accept this kind of spiritual battle—the weapon of praying the Word of God and exercising self-control (asceticism) according to each one’s measure of grace and calling.

Our natural human minds might protest—it makes little sense or feel unrealistic—but without the weapons of prayer and fasting, we will miss the experience of being spiritually educated in the battle against the enemy.

Jesus faced the battles in the wilderness under the same conditions as a human being like us. His humanity was one hundred percent authentic, yet He never sinned. So Jesus invites us to be with Him and face the temptations that come our way while remaining in the cold and heat of the desert.

But even if Jesus was among the wild beasts, He had also angelic support. “And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him” (Mark 1:13).

This might sound overwhelming—facing temptations, being among wild beasts, fasting, and moving from scorching heat to shivering cold—but this is part of our inheritance in Christ, and it gives us genuine experience in how to battle in the Spirit. The victory over the enemy and our fallen human nature is part of our faith as we seek to grow toward maturity in the spiritual life. “Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).

When we understand the season of the wilderness, we can understand big parts of our own journeys through life, because our lives contain several wildernesses. When we take advantage of the wilderness and treasure the lessons we learn, we have a clear vision of its purpose in our life.

Jesus secured the victory over the enemy in His humanity for our sake. With the correct perspective, we can face the temptations, let them complete the purpose of unveiling and pinpointing the weaknesses of our souls, and be victorious in Christ. This will complete our wilderness season.

Great Lent is forty days, but that doesn’t limit the length of our personal experience of the wilderness. The wilderness will always be our classroom for spiritual education and training in how to be victorious over the enemy and our own fallen human nature.

Thank you for taking this time to read and go deeper into the mysteries of Lent. It’s my continuous pleasure to journey together with you through the Seasons of Salvation.

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

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March 23–29, 2025 (Western): Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

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Crucifixion Week 5

Moses in the Wilderness

The longest wilderness experience in the Bible we find in the life of Prophet Moses. Not only would he experience forty years in the wilderness by himself, but he would lead Israel in the wilderness for another forty years. But the wilderness became the sacred place Moses encountered the Lord.

When Moses was forty years old (Acts 7:23, 29), he fled into the wilderness. “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.’ So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground’” (Ex. 3:1–5).

The wilderness became holy ground because Moses met the Lord there, each encounter changing him and his understanding about God, himself, and the enemy. But why did Moses flee into the wilderness? What was God’s intention?

Before living in the wilderness, Moses was a well-educated man, skilled in language and wisdom. He was a man of great power and influence. “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds” (Acts 7:22).

Moses recognized he had the resources, power, and social status to save his people from the slavery in Egypt. He knew he had the call and an anointing for such a massive task.

“Now it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Ex. 2:11–12).

“By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward” (Heb. 11:24–26).

But his education, charisma, and ambition did not qualify Moses for what God called him to. God had to strip Moses of his understanding of how He would accomplish the Exodus. “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God” (Ex. 3:1). Instead, he became a shepherd in the wilderness. But this humble position was on holy ground. The path of humility led Moses forward in his life, even though it looked like a massive setback.

God had to encounter Moses personally—and for forty years. Of course, forty years in the wilderness made Moses into a completely different man. “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex. 33:11). The rest of Moses’ extraordinary life testifies to the kind of man the wilderness transformed him into.

 

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

The Sunday Gospels of this week and the previous week show Jesus encountering fallen humanity. No matter how far people may be from Jesus, no one is beyond redemption. Last week, on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, we saw the fallen man spiral into sin, his moment of repentance, and his redemption. We saw how males typically long for freedom in their ambition for fulfillment.

This Sunday, we get the female part of this two-week story. Through these two weeks, the Holy Spirit desires to lead us forward in the wilderness to encounter the fasting Jesus. His fasting liberates us from the fallen human nature that seeks to quench the grace of Incarnation we received in the previous Season of Salvation.

 

Sunday Gospel: John 4:1–42 (NKJV)

Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 But He needed to go through Samaria.

5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” 15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” 19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

27 And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”

28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 29 “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 Then they went out of the city and came to Him.

31 In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”

34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! 36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”

39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of His own word. 42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

A Long Life In Sin

Verse 6 tells us “it was about the sixth hour,” which is noon and frying hot in the Middle East. Few walked to draw water in the middle of the day—unless the woman of this Sunday wanted to avoid the eyes of most people because everybody knew a lot of rumors…

We read in verses 16–18: “Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered and said, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You have well said, “I have no husband,” for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.’”

We will later see Jesus’ gentle dealings with the Samaritan woman, but this conversation reveals at least six relationships—possibly other non-husbands as well. Like the Prodigal had to live a long time in the faraway country to spend all his inheritance, so this woman led an immoral life for many years to pass through five marriages.

 

Her Suffering

Verse 15: “The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.’” This woman searched for fulfillment, but relationship after relationship disappointed her. She couldn’t find what she was looking for. Not only did she face disappointment after disappointment, but her soul was torn in each divorce, scarring her more and more and intensifying her search for wholeness.

Similar to the Prodigal’s search for freedom by having a lot of money and running away from the commitments of being a son, so the Samaritan women searched for security. She just wanted to be safe by finding someone who understood her and showed genuine affection. Yet her search for safety continued from marriage to marriage. Where was the man who understood her?

 

Hope of Deep Transformation

In verses 28–29, we read: “The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ‘Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’”

The Samaritan Woman came to draw water in the suffocating heat, yet after her conversation with Jesus, she “left her waterpot” and went “into the city.” She completely forgot why she came to the well. Her most basic need—water—disappeared from her mind after Jesus’ words.

After five marriages, her soul sought something beyond this world that could understand her and provide security. Leaving the waterpot shows she is full of hope in finding the water that will become “a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” Her thirst for “living water” was much stronger than her physical thirst.

As the Prodigal Son found hope, thinking about the love in his father’s house, so the Samaritan Woman found hope that Jesus could quench her deepest thirst.

 

Her Original Design

We read in verse 10: “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give Me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’”

In the Garden of Eden, God breathed into man “the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). God’s Spirit not only filled the inside of man but gushed like a fountain from man’s spirit. This overflow formed a protective sphere around man and enclosed him in God’s presence, fulfilling all his emotions, engaging all his mind, and sustaining all his needs. “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

When the Pharisees asked Jesus about when the Kingdom of God would come, he replied: “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20b–21). The Greek word entos translated “within” means both inside and outwardly among us.

After the fall, the Spirit of God lifted from man. The surrounding sphere turned into a vacuum, leaving him vulnerable. This external emptiness (lack of security) and emotional emptiness (need for affection and to be understood) drove the Samaritan into her way of life.

Jesus told the Samaritan Woman that “the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (verse 14). This fountain slowly fills the human being, both within and around.

 

Fulfillment

Verse 13–17: “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered and said, ‘I have no husband.’”

After Jesus revealed He would grant her living water (the sustenance of the living Spirit of God), the woman said to Jesus: “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” Did Jesus grant her request with His answer? “Go, call your husband, and come here.” He did. His answer—gently compelling her to reveal her shameful secret without bringing dishonor on her—was His yes.

Radical repentance followed His answer as the Samaritan Woman told the villagers openly: “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (verse 29) This was the Samaritan Woman’s when-she-came-to-herself moment, just like the Prodigal Son.

Jesus knew that before this woman could receive the living water around the Day of Pentecost, she needed to turn from her old way of life. She needed repentance. Because repentance leads to a new infilling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ answer about bringing her husband was all about stirring repentance, making her ready to receive the water of life. “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).

Also, this encounter with the Messiah, listening to His words of life, allowed her to drink this living water. Her forgetting the waterpot showed how deeply she experienced this living water. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

In church tradition, the Samaritan Woman goes by the name Photini, meaning “the luminous one,” referring to how she was given spiritual light by her encounter with Jesus. Photini’s witness about Jesus brought many to Christ. Eventually, the Roman Emperor Nero called her before him to answer for her faith. She was tortured, but refused to deny her faith. In the end, they threw her into a dry well and she died the martyr’s death.

We see the beginning of her future evangelistic efforts when the villagers told the Samaritan Woman in verse 42: “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

 

The Path of Humility

The Prodigal Son found his path of repentance when he humbled himself in his heart, accepting that he had sinned against Heaven and wasn’t worthy of being called a son. When he returned to the father’s house, he encountered the father’s mercy before he could express the confession prepared in his heart. We see the Samaritan Woman found the same path.

Verses 28–30 reads: “The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ‘Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’ Then they went out of the city and came to Him.”

She declared to everyone that she had met Someone who revealed the depths of her heart, including the rumors most people knew about her many husbands. But she showed no sign of reservation. She had forgotten her waterpot, overflowing with the love of God, so she confessed the life she had led. Her confession, her path of humility, not only allowed her to taste the living water, but it had a tremendous effect on her surroundings:

“And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word” (verses 39–41).

 

The Completed Picture

We have seen how both the Prodigal Son and the Samaritan Woman shared these six points:

They both had lived a sinful life for a long time.They suffered intensely internally and externally because of their way of life.But in their deep pain and desperation, God birthed hope of deep transformation.This transformation led them back to how God originally had created them.They finally found what they had been searching for all along, their true fulfillment.The path they traveled to reach their fulfillment was a path of humility.

May the Holy Spirit speak to us in these two weeks—through the story of a man and a woman—and lead us unto our own path of humility. Let us pray for grace to humble ourselves, that we may deeply repent in this period of fasting, as our fallen human nature makes itself known to us. May our love for the fasting Jesus, the Bridegroom in the wilderness, humble our hearts as we see Him defeating our weaknesses.

Thank you for taking this time to read and for remaining with Jesus in the wilderness during His fast. It’s a joy to travel together with you.

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

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March 16–22, 2025 (Eastern): Second Sunday of Lent: St. Gregory of Palamas

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Crucifixion Week 4

Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas

The second Sunday of Lent commemorates Saint Gregory Palamas (1296–1359). But this Sunday is also about exercising our faith in Christ’s work of redemption that made us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).

If there was any Scripture verse St. Gregory embodied, it was the one above from Second Peter. Even though St. Gregory’s feast day (the day of his repose) is November 14 (new calendar) / 27 (old calendar), we still commemorate him on this Sunday of Great Lent. This Sunday is the reminder of how the Church confirmed St. Gregory’s teaching on deification in the 14th century and how the Church condemned those who fought against the bright shining example of this teaching—the Saint himself.

But let us first read the Sunday Gospel.

 

Sunday Gospel: Mark 2:1–12 (NKJV)

And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. 2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. 3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. 4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” 6 And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

8 But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, 11 “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” 12 Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

 

Deification

Saint Gregory fought for the Biblical truth that man, in our current pre-resurrected body, can unite with God and experience deification. This is what the mystery of the Incarnation is all about. God entered our world by uniting with us in human form. Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God, without confusing the two natures or reducing them, but perfectly united as one. It goes far beyond the capacity of our minds, but God made us in His own image because He, one day, would take upon Himself our nature and fully unite us to Himself.

“For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:19–20).

The Incarnation in Scripture: “Then Mary said, ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word’” (Luke 1:38). “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

St. Gregory fought this battle: “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:8–10).

This truth that St. Gregory fought is a battle today as well, because Scripture warns us that in the end-times, the spirit of the Antichrist attacks the mystery of the Incarnation because it’s the basis of our salvation. If God didn’t bind and unite Himself to mankind in Jesus Christ, how can His death and resurrection cleanse us and lift us to the Father? Without a union between man and God, there’s no Gospel message.

“By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world” (1 John 4:2–3).

But St. Gregory had another huge advantage that brings us into the purpose of the Lent: Throughout his life, both before and after he became a monk, he faithfully practiced the spiritual disciplines of ceaseless prayer, repentance, fasting, and vigils to make the image of God (the theme of the previous Sunday) shine through him. What St. Gregory had experienced of deification, he taught.

During Jesus’ transfiguration, He allowed His disciples to see through His flesh for a moment. The light that radiated from Jesus was the energies of the divine nature, yet Jesus was still in His pre-resurrected body. The transfiguration illustrates deification. “Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light” (Matt. 17:1–2).

The distinction St. Gregory made was between the energies and essence of God. Man can never unite, comprehend, or enter the essence of God. It is the part of God no created thing can reach. God’s essence makes Him eternally What He is: God, with a capital G. “I am the Lord, and there is no other; There is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things” (Isa. 45:5–7).

But we can unite with the energies (graces and works) of God. The energies of God are such as the light of the transfiguration, the fellowship and gifts of the Holy Spirit, the continual skinning of the fallen human nature in our soul, unveiling the new; all these are the energies of God that restore His image in us and conform us “to the image of [Jesus], that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29b).

We can reach a level of sanctification on this side of the general resurrection (1 Cor. 15:51–52), if we follow the examples of the great men of God, such as St. Gregory of Palamas, and experience a portion of the divine-human life Jesus Christ lived. This is the mindboggling rich grace of our redemption. Most of us barely enter the riches of the redemption that Jesus suffered to give us. Being a Christian begins with justification by grace, but our Christian life continues toward deification.

Our journey through the Seasons of Salvation helps, since we interact with the different graces coming from Christ’s acts of salvation: Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and the pouring of the Holy Spirit. But praying with a specific focus during the fast and feasts of the Divine Calendar is not enough to reach deification. We need a deep love for God, and longing for Jesus, as a divine charge, to lead us forward in our unique journeys of being conformed into the image of Christ.

Let us pray for the grace to love Jesus like St. Gregory of Palamas, and that our fallen image gets a bit more crucified during this Season of Crucifixion. Then the image of God may shine with the glory of God a bit more, and we’re slightly more deified.

“Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, ‘You are gods’”? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’”? (John 10:34–36)

“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Pet. 1:2–4).

Great Lent: A Season of Love

We highlighted long ago that in the Song of Songs, the Bride ran through the streets, seeking her Beloved. “I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am lovesick!” (Song of Solomon 5:8) At last, outside the city wall, in the secluded gardens, she found Him. There she remained with her Bridegroom. Until finally, one day, a relative in the city asked: “Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (Song of Solomon 8:5)

The spiritual journey, from painfully calling after the Bridegroom to returning from the wilderness, leaning upon Him as a transformed soul, poetically and prophetically describes the purpose of the Season of Crucifixion. It shows deification. Great Lent is a season of love.

During our normal days, so many things demand our attention and distract us from being heavenly minded. The necessities of life easily capture too much of our attention, and slowly we forget what God had taught us, spoken, and made us determined to follow.

A major method to turn the Key of the wilderness and enter the Season of Crucifixion is silence. Not just audible silence—which usually feels deafening to begin with—but silence from impressions from our daily work, the media, and our own plans. If we enter more silence during these weeks of Lent, many beautiful things will spring up.

The Holy Spirit loves silence, and Jesus fills our silence with Himself. In silence, we become stripped of everything that hinders our love for God and our neighbor. It’s extremely difficult to begin with—even scary—but if we hunger after meeting God in the quiet, let us find some time to close the door of our room, mute all devices, and sit with an open Bible, meditating, or nothing at all, and just be with God.

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge” (Ps. 46:10–11). “The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). “But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him” (Heb. 2:20).

These weeks, we are leaving the world behind with all its destructive distractions, and we carry deep in our spirits the graces from the previous seasons—especially the grace of Incarnation. This grace is the intimate relationship between God and humanity—the human and divine nature perfectly united. “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Cor. 6:17).

As we showed above, God united Himself to us when He entered creation as one of us. Immanuel—God with us. God is together with us in all His love and grace. This grace of God’s deep love for man is what we carry with us when we leave behind the world and its noise to be with Jesus in the wilderness. We set ourselves apart these forty days to delight ourselves with the grace of Incarnation that we received in the previous Season of Salvation. Let us leave everything else behind.

When we have found our way into the wilderness, we increasingly forget ourselves, our normal cares, and even what type of food we prefer. Our hearts and minds seek only Jesus—we need Him only—and we say, “All the other things are not important, and I can certainly manage without them for a few weeks. He’s so worthy. How did I end up in this blessed place?”

The wilderness deepens the grace of Incarnation in our inner man and we receive additional grace from encountering the fasting Jesus. “How can I delight in the Bridegroom’s love?” This desire leads us further and further into the wilderness.

The Holy Spirit pours this special love into those who want to leave everything behind and follow Jesus. It’s a unique experience hard to reach outside this Season because of the grace of the wilderness. Let us let go of all worldly cares and go with Him deeper into the secluded desert. Jesus wants to reveal the deep mysteries of this Season. Lent is a Season of bridal love.

May God bless you as we enter a new week of this fast. Thank you for taking the time to read. It’s my honor to travel together with you.

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

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The post March 16–22, 2025 (Eastern): Second Sunday of Lent: St. Gregory of Palamas first appeared on Father Elisha: Let me take you on an intriguing journey..

March 16–22, 2025 (Western): Sunday of the Prodigal Son

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Crucifixion Week 4

The Wilderness Stories

As we journey through the wilderness of Lent, we can learn from the wilderness stories in the Bible, and we will soon look at the Prodigal Son. Last week we looked at the Israelites prolonged seclusion in the desert, so that we “shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not” (Deut. 8:2). “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). The Apostle Paul also writes about the Israelites’ wilderness experience: “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor. 10:11).

Let us turn to another wilderness story—one that we might not think of as a wilderness journey. The Book of Jonah is a short and fascinating story with many lessons and interpretations. But let us look at the big theme of the Book: Mercy. We might not think of Jonah as a doomsday prophet, but as we shall see, the great lesson God wanted to teach Jonah was mercy. God used two wilderness experiences to teach the prophet this lesson.

 

The Ship of Tarshish

God told His prophet Jonah: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me” (Jonah 1:2). Instead, Jonah went in the opposite direction and boarded a ship headed toward Tarshish in ancient Spain. It’s interesting how Jonah confessed to the mariners: “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9).

Jonah is a devout prophet who fears the Lord, yet he runs away from God. There is something sweet in his relationship with the Lord, at least very honest, as he runs away from God, knowing full well that his attempt will fail. So what does he run away from? He knows he cannot run away from God, but there’s something inside him that he simply cannot face—which God now wants to redeem through the assignment to Nineveh.

What is Jonah so afraid of? He reveals his inner struggle to God in Jonah 4:2–3: “So he prayed to the Lord, and said, ‘Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!’”

When God originally called Jonah to Nineveh, He gave the prophet a message of looming judgment, which he eventually proclaimed: “And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’” (Jonah 3:4) The people believed Jonah’s words (through the mystery of resurrection, which I hope we can come back to in the next Season of Salvation), responded with fasting and repentance, and said: “Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?” (Jonah 3:9)

And God saw their repentance, “and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it” (Jonah 3:10). How would this make Jonah look? He would preach judgment in front of one hundred twenty thousand people (Jonah 4:11). That would provide a convincing one hundred twenty thousand witnesses that Jonah was a false prophet—God didn’t do what Jonah said He would.

Yet, in this rather damaging event for Jonah’s prophet career, God revealed Himself as “a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm” (Jonah 4:2). God’s goal was to reveal Himself to the city of Nineveh as a God of Mercy. The Lord wanted the Ninevites to worship Him. “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Ps. 136:1). But Jonah understood this perfectly well and wasn’t at first willing to ruin his personal image so God could show His character. Instead, he ran onboard a ship heading toward Tarshish.

 

Jonah’s First Wilderness: To Experience Mercy

On the ship, God whipped up a storm to prevent Jonah from fleeing. It’s remarkable that Jonah suggested the mariners to throw him overboard. “And he said to them, ‘Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me’” (Jonah 1:12). He would rather die than face the humiliation after the Nineveh-prophecy didn’t come true.

Next to fearing for his credentials as a prophet, Jonah’s deeper battle is accepting the mercies of God. He simply cannot accept how God can show such infinite depths of mercy toward man, and He certainly wasn’t willing to be the tool for that revelation to Nineveh. So God, in his foresight, had prepared a wilderness for Jonah to reveal His mercy toward the prophet.

A large fish swallowed Jonah, and some interpreters say that Jonah actually died, and that he prayed “out of the belly of Sheol” (Jonah 2:2b). Whether he died or God supernaturally kept him alive, this was Jonah’s three-day wilderness. “I went down to the moorings of the mountains; the earth with its bars closed behind me forever” (Jonah 2:6). In Jonah’s desperate state, he cried to God and exclaimed the very characteristic of God that he had previously been unable to reconcile with. “Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own Mercy. But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:8–9).

The Lord made the fish vomit Jonah onto the land and spoke “to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you” (Jonah 3:1–2). This time, after experiencing the mercy of God, he entered Nineveh. He knew God would not fulfill his prophecy, but had no choice. The city of Nineveh would experience the mercy of God that Jonah had just experienced himself.

 

Jonah’s Second Wilderness: The Knowledge of Mercy

Yet, after forty days, Jonah becomes angry when it becomes clear that God did not send the judgment because of the people’s repentance. Why? Shouldn’t the prophet be at peace after he experienced God’s mercy during his three-day wilderness in the fish’s belly? “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” (Jonah 4:3)

It is time for Jonah’s second wilderness. In the first, he experienced the mercy of God as He saved him. In this second wilderness, God wants Jonah to know He is merciful. What is the difference? One thing is to experience the merciful acts of God, it’s another to know God is merciful. First, we experience something of God, later the experience sinks deeper into us and changes the way we view God—in the wilderness, we discover God anew.

God called a plant to grow and provide shade for Jonah, helping him to be delivered from his misery. God shows His mercy yet again to Jonah by His tender care of providing shade during Jonah’s inner battle. In his second wilderness, God ministers His mercy even deeper into Jonah’s heart to transform is understanding of who He is.

God strikes the plant with a worm and it withers. We see Jonah in his anger again: “Then he wished death for himself, and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live’” (Jonah 4:8). Then God gives the prophet the lesson of this second wilderness: “But the Lord said, ‘You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?” (Jonah 4:10–11)

God said to Jonah: “If you feel pity in your heart toward the plant you loved, how much more pity do I have in my heart toward Nineveh that I love?” God wanted to reveal to Jonah, through his own experience of feeling pity for a plant, that He is all the more merciful.

In Jonah’s first wilderness, he experienced the mercy of God. We also probably have some experience with this. In Jonah’s second wilderness, God wants the prophet to receive a new knowledge of God’s merciful character. We might not think there’s much difference, but in the wilderness, we will see the difference. There are many things we know and believe about God through our experiences with Him. But during the wilderness of the Lent, God wants to convert our experiences to an actual knowledge of Him. When our view of God changes, everything in our lives changes.

Last week, we saw how the wilderness of Lent teaches us about ourselves and our enemy. Now we see how the wilderness teaches us new things about God. The mercy of God needs to sink deep into us. Yes, we believe God is merciful, but to know God is merciful is something different. It’s a deep assurance what washes away any doubt from our minds. Let us pray for new knowledge—meaning close and personal understanding—about the God of Mercy, and that His mercy sinks deep into our hearts.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7).

Sunday Gospel: Luke 15:11–32 (NKJV)

Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. 15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.

17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” ’

20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.

25 “Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.’

28 “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’

31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. 32 It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’”

 

Sunday of the Prodigal Son

In the Preparatory Week of Lent, we talked about practicing our fasting, prayers, and almsgiving in secret, and our Heavenly Father would reward us openly. Then followed the Sunday of Treasures, revealing the journey of our hearts from Earth to Heaven by replacing earthly treasures with the heavenly. Last week, on the Sunday of Temptation, we saw how the enemy tempts us to replace God’s sustenance of our physical life, offers shortcuts as comfortable quick-fixes to our souls, and distorts our spiritual relationship with God.

In this coming week and the following, the Divine Calendar takes into the story of the Prodigal Son and the Samaritan Woman—a male and female—to display the profound transformation through repentance from a life deep in sin to a life with deep fulfillment. Therefore, this week and the next paint a complete picture of humanity’s miserable condition, the blissful joy of redemption, and the journey from darkness to light.

 

A Long Life In Sin

In verses 11–13, we read: “Then He said: ‘A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.” So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.’”

The prodigal thought the way to happiness was to follow his heart’s desires. Little did he know he couldn’t trust his heart. “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man…” (Matt. 15:19–20) The only thing that could guide his heart was the Word of Truth: “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word” (Ps. 119:9).

After receiving the inheritance his father had written in his testament—meaning, to the son, the father was dead—he journeyed to a far country and squandered all his possessions in a sinful life. To spend all that money would take quite some time. This young man, hungering for fulfillment, searched in all the wrong places—and for a long time. Verse 14 begins with: “But when he had spent all…” But even a long life of sin is not beyond Jesus’ reach.

 

His Suffering

We read in verses 14–16: “But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.”

Sin is its own punishment. After wasting all his money, he really needed the money he had spent. A severe famine hit the land, and he couldn’t buy anything—especially with sky-rocketing prices. A swine breeder had a job for him, and the prodigal began feeding swine. But because of the famine, all his meals were at his own expense, so the swine’s food threatened more and more as an option.

Not only had the sinful life in luxury robbed the prodigal’s soul of happiness, but now he faced the additional suffering of his material poverty. His entire being suffered the treacherous consequences of sin.

Men (males) usually seek to be free. Living with no restrictions under any other persons—or Persons—is often what men pursue. We see this in the prodigal son. Yet, this freedom can end in bondages and poverty (as we see with the prodigal son) when we forget the words of Jesus: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31b–32).

 

Hope of Deep Transformation

Verses 17–18a reads: “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father…’”

The young man “came to himself.” All the suffering awakened him to think about his home. The reality of his mistake crashed on top of him. The life he had thought would bring happiness was destroying him. But he remembered how his father had loved him his entire life. He never went to bed hungry. A new hope lit up his darkness. Life back home would be nothing less than a transformation of his existence. This assurance cultivated enough strength for the prodigal to arise and leave this life of famine.

In verses 18–19, we read: “I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.’”

 

His Original Design

Verses 20–22: “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.’”

Once the prodigal experienced the mercy of his father’s embrace, as if the son had never left in the first place, the prodigal encountered his true inheritance. The wealth he inherited was not his true inheritance—because all that was long gone—his true inheritance was sonship.

The mercy of his father proved he could never squander his true inheritance. In the core of his being, the prodigal got to know his father’s mercy. He would always be a son, worthy of the father’s love.

 

Fulfillment

We read in verses 23–24: “‘And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.”

Finally, reconciled with his father, the young man found the fulfillment he had been searching for. The prodigal had discovered a truth his older brother had not: sonship, not his craving for freedom or the pleasures of life, made him whole (ref. verses 25–32). Here, he found true freedom.

 

The Path of Humility

During the prodigal’s lowest moments, what enabled him to leave his life in the darkness and move toward the light? “I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants’” (Verses 18–19). The choice to humble himself became his greatest moment. He decided in his heart, even before he had met his father, that he had sinned and was not even worthy of being called a son.

“And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (verse 20). The young man met the mercy of the father even before he had the chance to say what he had decided in his heart (verse 21). Here we see how quickly God responds to our repentance.

Let us pray this week for the grace to continue humbling our hearts, as the Holy Spirit guides us deeper into the wilderness.

Thank you again for taking the time to read. It’s my great privilege to travel through this unique Season of Crucifixion together with you.

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

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March 9–15, 2025 (Eastern): Sunday of Orthodoxy

Reading Time: 14 minutes

Crucifixion Week 3

Sunday of Orthodoxy

We have entered the wilderness of Lent, seeking to be with the fasting Jesus, and the Second Sunday is called the Sunday of Orthodoxy. It’s the Sunday that commemorates the restoration of the icons in the church in A.D. 843, and the believers typically bring the icon of their patron Saint to church for a procession this Sunday. But what is the link between icons and Great Lent?

 

Sunday Gospel: John 1:43–51 (NKJV)

The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

50 Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And He said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

A Carpenter From Nowhere

In verse 45–46, we read: “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ And Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’”

It surprised Nathaniel that the Messiah lived in Nazareth. Archeological work demonstrate that no more than 150 residents lived in Nazareth at the time of Jesus. The village was an insignificant and overlooked community, and Nazareth is not directly referred to in the Old Testament. The Jewish historian Josephus doesn’t mention Nazareth in his writings, nor is the town found in the Apocrypha (deuterocanonical books) or the Jewish Talmud. Nazareth was a “nowhere” where “nobodies” lived.

Being such a plain and insignificant place, Nathaniel responds to Philip about finding the Messiah: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” “Come and see,” Philip answered. Here we see the obvious realization (at least for us after the Incarnation happened) that the Messiah was a normal human being. On the outside, Jesus was a simple carpenter from nowhere. Two eyes and ears, a nose, and a smile that reached deep into our hearts.

The obvious fact (for us today) that Jesus was a normal human being has been a subject of controversy in church history and still is when talking with non-Christians. Often, people either think Jesus was just a man, or divine and not a normal human being. But the Incarnation of Jesus being fully man and fully God perfectly united without mingling or confusion is absolutely critical. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The Sunday Gospel first establishes that Jesus was a simple man from an insignificant place.

 

Jacob’s Ladder

Verse 49–51 reads: “Nathanael answered and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Because I said to you, “I saw you under the fig tree,” do you believe? You will see greater things than these.’ And He said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’”

Soon after Nathaniel’s encounter with the carpenter from Nazareth, he knew deep in his heart that God had become man in Jesus Christ. Jesus was indeed more than just a normal man. Jesus refers to Jacob’s ladder in His reply to Nathaniel about him believing simply because Jesus revealed something only God could know.

“So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. […] “Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ And he was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!’” (Gen. 28:11–12, 16–17)

In Jesus’ reply, He says He is the ladder. Jesus indeed made “a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh” (Heb. 10:20). Jesus said later that He is “the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). And the Apostle Paul wrote “that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Eph. 1:10). At the beginning, the fall of man separated Heaven and Earth, but Jesus unites them.

Jacob exclaimed: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” This is a very accurate description of the Church. If the Head of the Church, Jesus, united Heaven and Earth, His Body should live in this union and indeed be a “gate of heaven.”

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant…” (Heb. 12:22–24a)

 

The Icons

Our Sunday Gospel established that Jesus was a one hundred percent normal (but sinless) human being and one hundred percent God. When we enter an Orthodox Church, iconography covers the walls. It reminds us we have come to the “gate of heaven,” “an innumerable company of angels,” “to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven,” “to the spirits of just men made perfect,” “to God the Judge of all,” and to His Son, Jesus.

The icons are windows into Heaven and the photo album of our heavenly family, the heavenly church. Everyone who falls asleep in the Lord is alive with Jesus right now. So how does this relate to Lent?

Jesus, as a normal Man, is the very image of God. Jesus “is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15a) and “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person” (Heb. 1:3). God, in human form, looks just like Jesus. The icon depicts a picture of Jesus. When we approach an icon of Jesus, we approach the image of God.

But Jesus was not the only man who was supposed to carry the image of God. “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). We also are to shine the glory of God like Jesus did.

That brings us to the Season of Crucifixion and Lent. Our fallen human nature has spattered all kinds of discolors on the image of God within you and me. But in this season, we can look at the icon of Jesus, or the icon of one of his “many brethren”—the Saints—and pray: “Lord, do in me what you did in Saint John the Baptist. Make me shine a bit more with Your glory through the grace of this fast. Clear Your image in me from more of my fallenness, that I may be more like You. Let the image of God shine through me. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen”

 

Before, During, and After the Wilderness

Even though the Season of Crucifixion is such a vast season with a long Overlapping and pre-Lenten period, not much is written in the Gospels about this period in Jesus’s life. The primary accounts of Jesus fasting in the wilderness are Matt. 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13.

The Gospel of Mark only tells us briefly: “Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him” (Mark 1:12–13).

Lent is the season that all the different families of the universal church follow, yet the Bible says little about Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness. But what happened with Jesus before, during, and after His fasting?

Before: “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness…” (Luke 4:1) Before the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, he was filled with the Holy Spirit.During: “…being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing…” (Luke 4:2a) The devil tempted Jesus for forty days and the Son of God ate nothing.After: “…and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him…” (Luke 4:2b–3a) When Jesus had fasted forty days, he was hungry and the devil tempted Him with the three major temptations recorded in Matthew 4 and Luke 4.

After the devil had tempted Jesus with every weakness of the fallen human nature, he left until an opportune time. “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). The devil approached Jesus again in some few instances, such as in the storm on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:39), before the last confrontations in the Garden of Gethsemane and the day of His crucifixion.

“But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men’” (Matt. 16:23).

“Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. Then He said to them, ‘Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation’” (Luke 22:43–46).

When Jesus returned from the wilderness, He came in the power of the Spirit, and He started His public ministry. The rumor about him spread quickly. “Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all” (Luke 4:14–15).

This gives us the biblical foundation for a major overview of how God prepares us for our personal calling. This takes place over several years, even decades, and comes in phases and even repeats itself, depending on how we’re able to pass through these periods. Jesus laid out a pattern for us to follow in a life of sanctification and ministry in the Kingdom of God:

We’re initially filled with the Holy Spirit. This typically happens through baptism or a conversion experience, and it lasts for a period so our new identity in Christ is strong enough before the next step. Then the Holy Spirit that filled us leads us into a season of wilderness.In the wilderness, we face new temptations and battles we must overcome because the victory over Satan in these areas is tailored to what we’ll face when fully released into our calling.After we complete these battles of sanctification, the anointing of God rests on us, and we return in the power of the Spirit to start our public ministry.

Do we really need to go through all these steps? Can’t we just enter our call right away? If we know what God has put on our heart to do in His Kingdom, but we run ahead of His plan for us, we usually see limited fruit from our ministry. Fruit doesn’t have to do with measurable results or numbers, but our influence on other people. When we’re fully prepared for our call, we experience the power of God working through us as wide, clean, and effective channels.

But it’s important to know that the wilderness period doesn’t happen in a vacuum. God leads us slowly into our call, step by step, while being in the wilderness. But there will be a time, and we’ll know when it comes, that we leave the wilderness, and we notice that the hand of God works with us, because God released us.

“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16:10). “His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord’” (Matt. 25:21).

Understanding this pattern in Christ’s life of before, during, and after the wilderness, avoids confusion or even being offended by God when things don’t go exactly as we expected them to go. Notice that after Jesus received His calling as the Messiah in His baptism, He didn’t go directly into His public ministry, but the Spirit led Him into a season of fasting and testing to receive the power of the Spirit for His calling. Have we ever run directly into ministry when we receive a new vision for our calling without the needed season of fasting and testing?

“Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).

Many faithful and seasoned Christians can testify to this: “I would never imagine that this would happen to me. I wondered how this could happen with other believers, but now I find myself in the same situation! The devil is really fighting me with this grievous sin I never thought or imagined I would ever struggle with.”

But if we understand before, during, and after our wilderness, we understand what’s going on—we know God is in control—and we keep on following Christ and obey His commandments.

 

The Great Lent: A Season of Victory

All of us will face the periods of before, during, and after our wilderness in different measures. They go in cycles and may differ in intensity depending on how we pass through them. (This differs from passing through the Seasons of Salvation in the Divine Calendar. We are talking about our personal and unique walk with the Lord on top of the corporate spiritual Seasons of Salvation for the church.)

But Jesus is our Forerunner through the Wilderness, and during the Season of Crucifixion, we receive grace to strengthen our personal walk in the wilderness, which will differ from person to person depending on the personal season of our life, as explained above.

“Where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 6:20). Great Lent is a season of victory, because we receive from Christ’s own victory over the temptations we face. The season helps us tremendously in our own personal walk with the Lord—especially if we found ourselves in an extended wilderness that goes beyond this forty-day fast.

Lent is a season of victory because Jesus has deep compassion for us. He knows what we are going through, because He has already been in our shoes. He offers us His hand, through this Season of Salvation, that we may be victorious in our own struggle as well.

“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:15–16).

“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Heb. 2:17–18).

Jesus was the first one to go before us, paving a way of grace for us to follow in His footsteps. “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps” (1 Pet. 1:21).

When we understand the mystery behind this period of the wilderness, we see that salvation is a journey to walk out. “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you…” (Phil. 2:12b–13a) The Early Fathers placed themselves in Christ and genuinely experienced the wilderness with Jesus. They understood the riches of this season.

The Early Fathers experienced Lent to be:

A season of victory.A season of love.A season of spiritual education and training.A season of spiritual storing.A season of unfolding our personal calling.

In this Season of Salvation, let us separate ourselves more from the world. Let our fast be the channel to enter Christ’s victory over the temptations of the devil. We just talked about our victory through the understanding of Christ conquering our temptations in His own fasting. God willing, we will cover the other points during the coming weeks of Lent.

Let us pray this week for grace to fully enter our wilderness. Christ offers the grace to do what we need to do to withdraw into His Presence during this fast. His victory has become ours. Let us pray we may experience it.

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

 Truly, it is my joy to be on this spiritual journey with you. I pray you may have a blessed second week in the wilderness with our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for reading.

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The post March 9–15, 2025 (Eastern): Sunday of Orthodoxy first appeared on Father Elisha: Let me take you on an intriguing journey..

March 9–15, 2025 (Western): Sunday of Temptation

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Crucifixion Week 3

What is the Wilderness?

Jesus spent His forty-day fast in seclusion in the wilderness, praying to His Father and defeating every temptation that poked the weakness of the fallen human nature, enticing mankind into the death trap of sin. We experience the wilderness as a time with a greater distance from things related to our normal life “in the city.” We change our diet, try to limit impressions coming from electronic medias, increase our Bible reading and prayer, listen to the Holy Spirit’s prompts to confess our sins, and forgive others.

The wilderness calls us away from the noisy busyness of life, and during Lent, the Holy Spirit leads us into fellowship with the fasting Jesus, releasing the grace from His fasting to deepen our own experience of this season.

We need a simple conviction to step into the wilderness: I will meet Jesus out there and He will change me. Let us pray about knowing practically how we should leave the hectic life in the city and find our path into the secluded desert.

In the wilderness, with the fasting Jesus, we experience Him unlike the rest of the Divine Calendar. We encounter the Bridegroom, fighting the battle to redeem His Bride, and even though Jesus deals so tenderly with us in the wilderness, He allows us to taste some of the battle He fought. We’ll encounter the uprising of our fallen human nature, but as we linger with Jesus, confessing what He shows us, His fasting will eventually defeat the fallen nature in us. Lastly, in Himself, Jesus takes our fallen nature up on the Cross during Holy Week, the end of this third Season of Salvation, to once and for all end the reign of a specific area of our fallen nature.

As we are together with the Bridegroom, we find our first love for Jesus awakened and nurtured. In the wilderness, the Bridal soul receives her most dramatic transformation. The soul leaving Great Lent is not the same as the one who entered it. Some monks in the early centuries left their monasteries and headed out in the wild during this fast. When they returned after forty days, they reintroduced themselves to each other because of the transformation they had passed through.

“I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holiness to the Lord, the firstfruits of His increase” (Isa. 2:2b–3a).

 

What Happens in The Wilderness?

In the wilderness, we learn more about ourselves, about our enemy, and about God. Let us now explore how the wilderness helps us better understand ourselves. Then the Sunday Gospel will reveal more about our enemy. Lastly, in the upcoming weeks, we’ll see how the wilderness teaches us more about God.

The greatest wilderness journey in the Bible is the Israelites’ forty years in the desert following their exodus from Egypt.

“These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side of the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea. Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him as commandments to them” (Deut. 1:1–3).

The Israelites could have completed the wilderness journey in few weeks after they crossed the Red Sea. Why did it take forty years? What did God have in mind for leading the Israelites for such a long time in the wilderness? If we find the answer to this question, we will better understand God’s mind while we are in the wilderness with Jesus.

The first half of Deuteronomy 8 answers this question, as it records part of the speech Moses gave to Israel toward the end of their forty-year journey.

“Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5 You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you” (Deut. 8:1–5).

The second verse is the key to understand God’s purpose in bringing us into the wilderness: “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”

 

To Humble You and Test You

Out in the wilderness, we are stripped from our normal comforts and shelters. We are put in situations where we see glimpses of our fallen self, and how we need the grace of the cross to put to death our fallen nature. “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).

“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:12–13). Notice how it says, “by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body.” We cannot put to death our fallen nature in our own might. Only the grace of God can defeat the “deeds of the body.” This is the working of Jesus’ fast in the wilderness and His crucifixion.

In the wilderness, we discover how we trust in ourselves and not in God. Circumstances put our own abilities to the test, and we experience that everything we do with our resources and strength won’t stand up to the test. Only when we are close to God, and lean on Him to work with us, will we pass the test. As God gently unveils our own fallenness and tests our way of life and work, we are humbled. We see our need for God in unfamiliar ways. This again leads us into deep repentance and produces the blessed, humble, and contrite heart.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise” (Ps. 51:17). It might sound like a paradox, but when we find ourselves broken because of our sins, God comes so close to us. When we see our hidden wretchedness and feel the pain of hurting God and others, God is right next to us to raise us up. We might feel as the worst of sinners, but those around us see the gentleness of God radiating from our lives.

“For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones’” (Isa. 57:15).

When we find our hearts contrite, we will soon experience the blessed resurrection and transformation of this agonizing area. This is God’s goal for humbling and testing us in the wilderness.

 

To Know What Was In Your Heart

Why does God need to know what is in our hearts? Doesn’t God know everything about our hearts?

“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts” (1 Chron. 28:9a). “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer. 17:10). “I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works” (Rev. 2:23).

Yes, God knows what is in our hearts, but the problem is that we do not.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9) “Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Prov. 20:5). “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23–24).

God wants us to know what’s inside our hearts. He desires we bring that knowledge into our relationship with Him. Our transparency makes Him know what’s in our hearts.

 

Whether You Would Keep His Commandments Or Not.

As we journey through the wilderness, and God humbles and tests us—humbling doesn’t mean ridiculing, but allowing us to face our true condition—we get to know what’s in our hearts. Then comes the last test. With our new knowledge about ourselves, do we keep God’s commandments or not?

Are our hearts contrite? Do we have a new desire to be restored? Will we pray and ask for God’s grace to walk out our repentance?

If we, for example, discovered that we always exaggerate our achievements, are we able to obey John 5:41,44: “I do not receive honor from men. […] How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?”

Or do our hearts justify themselves, unwilling to obey the commandments?

When we obey the commandments, we complete our repentance, and God puts a seal of perfected grace upon this area of our soul.

God brings us into the wilderness, close the Jesus the Bridegroom, to gently and lovingly realign our hearts with the commandments we are consciously or subconsciously breaking.

“In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13–14).

“So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord (Deut. 8:3).

 

The Promised Land

After we complete the season in the wilderness, God takes us into the Season of Resurrection, which resembles the Israelites’ journey into the Promised Land. We see the beautiful blessings of that land in the following verses in Deuteronomy 8:

“Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you” (Deut. 8:6–10).

Let us turn to the Sunday Gospel for this upcoming week.

Sunday Gospel: Matthew 4:1–11 (NKJV)

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”

5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ” 7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ”

8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”

11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

 

The Sunday of Temptation

This Sunday is often called the Sunday of Temptation, and we can learn more about our enemy’s activity in the wilderness. Even though the Sunday Gospel is Matthew 4:1–11, we will look at this event as recorded in Luke 4:1–13.

Luke 4:1: “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” Only the Holy Spirit can lead us into the wilderness where Jesus is. Neither ourselves nor the enemy can bring us into fellowship with the fasting Jesus.

We also see how God is the one who takes us into the secluded desert in Deuteronomy 8:2: “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”

We already talked about why God leads us into the wilderness, but what about the temptations we face out there? What is a temptation, and why does God allow us to be tempted?

 

What Is Temptation?

“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:14–15). Temptation is a sinful thought or impulse that finds a landing spot in our fallen human nature. These thoughts come from evil spirits, other people, or our fallen nature, but never from God.

“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone” (James 1:13).

At the stage of a thought or impulse, we have not acted on the temptation and therefore not sinned. But if we allow the temptation to unite with our will, we accept and welcome it onto the common ground of our old nature. When a temptation unites with our fallen nature, bringing our will into this evil dance, desire is conceived.

Then we are in the danger zone. Still, we might not have sinned yet, but now we fight with our own will. If we don’t confess to God this desire, asking for the power of the cross to crucify it, we will soon act on the sinful desire. “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).

Lastly, if we remain in this evil dance between our will and our fallen desire, the temptation strengthens and will finally overpower our will, causing us to sin willfully. If we keep on sinning, a bondage will form. Ultimately, sin leads to death. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Rom. 6:23).

In the wilderness, God doesn’t tempt us—the origin of temptation lies in the fall of man under the authority of Satan—but our fallen nature tempts us to welcome sinful thoughts or impulses. Often, the temptations are “the fiery darts of the wicked one” (Eph. 6:16), but arise from the activity of our old human nature. “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matt. 15:19).

 

Why Does God Allow Temptations?

If God leads us into the wilderness, how can He allow these temptations to assail us?

Here, we can learn from the wisdom of the Early Fathers and the monastic tradition. If our faith stands confidently in the power of the cross, knowing that Jesus “disarmed principalities and powers, [and that] He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15) on the cross, we won’t allow temptations to scare or shake us. Also, “no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Christ won an absolute victory on the cross over every temptation and their evil sources, and God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what He knows we can master. God says that sin “and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it” (Gen. 4:7c).

The Early Fathers said we can use temptations to locate the open doors of our fallen human nature. By bringing repeating temptations to God, praying to understand how they access and tempt our will, the Holy Spirit will show us the weakness that God wants to overcome and heal through the power of the cross. God allows these temptations to attack us in the wilderness so we realize our weakness, and can close the open doors through our repentance. God does this to protect us from more devastating attacks later in life.

We are together with the fasting Jesus, who faced every temptation on our behalf. Therefore, in the wilderness, we have access to all the grace we need to let Christ’s victories flow into our life and crucify “the flesh with its passions and desires.”

“Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:12).

“Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him [Jesus] until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13).

 

The Three Temptations

“Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry” (Luke 4:1–2). After Jesus had fasted forty days, the devil approached Him with three final temptations: the first directed at the body, the second tempting the soul, and the third directed toward the spiritual life.

 

The First Temptation: The Body

“And the devil said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’ But Jesus answered him, saying, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”’” (Luke 4:3–4).

The devil directed the first temptation to the body’s need to be satisfied. Our body has a natural need for food, but Jesus proved through His fasting that this basic need God can fulfill and sustain. But this temptation aimed at the source of our basic needs of food, water, clothing, and shelter. The devil tempted Jesus to obey his advice and affirm Satan as the one who satisfied the needs of our physical life.

Jesus defeated the temptation by quoting the passage of Deuteronomy 8:3 “…man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” God is the provider of our physical needs, and He alone can satisfy us. God can even keep us satisfied for forty days without food.

 

The Second Temptation: The Soul

“Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, ‘All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve”’” (Luke 4:5–8).

To understand this temptation, we should remember that the devil is the ruler of the fallen world. “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me” (John 14:30). “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19).

Through His death and resurrection, Jesus won the authority back from the enemy for our sake. “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth’” (Matt. 28:18). The only thing—the only gateway—that keeps the devil in power is the sinful choices of man. Even though Jesus defeated the enemy, His victory didn’t override the free will mankind has been granted as beings made in the image of God. Every person still needs to choose to enter Jesus’ completed work of redemption.

If mankind stopped sinning, the devil would have zero control over this world. He could only fire his temptations at mankind until Jesus’ second coming, when the Son of God comes to lay “hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished” (Rev. 20:2–3a).

The devil tempts the inclinations of the human soul to choose its own way above God’s. The devil tempted Jesus with a shortcut, a quick-fix: “Worship me, and I’ll give you all the authority I have over sinful men.” But Jesus knew the path that His Father had called Him to take to regain this authority: the Cross. Jesus served God’s plan. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38).

Jesus defeated the temptation of choosing His own way above God’s, the short-cut, by saying: “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

 

The Third Temptation: The Spirit

“Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written: “He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you,” and, “In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘It has been said, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God”’” (Luke 4:9–12).

The devil tempted Jesus to use God’s promises to twists His Father’s hand to serve Jesus. But Jesus did not need to prove Himself as the Son of God by showing off a miracle. It would demonstrate a wrong understanding of God’s Word and our relationship with the Father—that the Heavenly Father needed to be tested, assuming God was untrustworthy.

Distorted use of God’s Word proves a lack of a genuine relationship with God, not knowing His Person or His commandments. The temptation attacks our spiritual life and our relationship with God. The devil seeks to distort and abuse our spiritual relationship. Jesus—knowing the Word of God—defeats the devil’s last temptation by showing His true understanding of the spiritual life. “And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘It has been said, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”’”

Let us then conclude with Luke 4:13: “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.”

Thank you for taking the time to read. It’s a privilege to journey through Lent together. Let us pray that this second week of fasting grants us the grace to identify the open doors that temptations try to take advantage of. May Jesus’ victories during His fast become our testimonies.

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

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The post March 9–15, 2025 (Western): Sunday of Temptation first appeared on Father Elisha: Let me take you on an intriguing journey..

March 2–8, 2025 (Eastern): The Expulsion from Paradise

Reading Time: 13 minutes

Crucifixion Week 2

Sunday Gospel: Matthew 6:14–21 (NKJV)

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

16 “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 

Sunday of Forgiveness

The Great Lent begins this Monday and the very last pre-Lenten Sunday is here, the Sunday of Forgiveness.

In verses 14–15: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” In the Season of Crucifixion, the Holy Spirit seeks to crucify the fallen human nature that surrounds the divine seed of Jesus, that we received during the Season of Incarnation, and attempts to choke it.

In our current pre-Lenten period, the Divine Calendar helps us to remove hindrances before we enter the arena of bridal love: deep repentance, fervent love, and clearing our bridal garments from any “spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27b).

One of the biggest obstacles to the Holy Spirit leading us into the wilderness is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is like a chain to another person that we refuse to break. We might not realize that the chain only restricts us, and not the other person. Unforgiveness dictates our thoughts, words, and behavior around the person we have not forgiven, but the other person might not feel this chain at all.

To forgive does not mean that we say what a person did to us was right. Forgiveness means handing the judgment over to God, because only God is just, and who are we to sit in God’s judgement seat, judging another’s action?

Unforgiveness, in its most grotesque visualization, is like climbing up on the cross while Jesus hangs crucified, and say to the Lord: “Jesus, I see all the sins of the world written on all these notes attached to You. Thank You. But this one here, I’ll take it off from You. You can die for all the sins of the world, except for what this person said to me. This sin You cannot die for. I will hold this person personally accountable through my unforgiveness.” Doesn’t this sound like madness?

So, on this last day before the Lent, the Fathers of the church encourage us to see if we feel chained to someone because of unforgiveness.

“Then Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven’” (Matt. 18:21–22). Seventy times seven means continually. Therefore, since Jesus “brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their chains in pieces” (Ps. 107:14), we should do the same through forgiveness.

Let us search our hearts this weekend. Who do we need to forgive? Apart from expressing forgiveness in a prayer to God, is there someone we should approach and ask to forgive us? These days are the perfect time to do so.

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise

The Sunday of Forgiveness also goes by the name The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. We will talk more about the relationship between the Lent and entering the spiritual state of Paradise below, but this last day before the Lent highlights our need to be forgiven.

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (Gen. 3:6–7).

When God saw mankind chose to trust the snake instead of their Heavenly Father, and how sin and death entered their nature, He began His rescue plan. To avoid man from eating from the tree of life and forever live in their fallen state, God drove them out of Paradise and began His plan of salvation.

“Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’—therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:22–24).

God sent Adam and Eve into the wilderness of the world. Soon, He would come after them as a Man, fasting forty days in the wilderness for their salvation. And so Lent begins … let us go into the wilderness and find Jesus, the Bridegroom.

 

Highlights of The Great Lent

Here are some highlights taken from the spiritual wisdom and experience of the Fathers of the Church, which help us summarize the purpose of this fast.

The key to this season is the wilderness. For the Early Fathers and monastics, this was a literal experience of entering the wild, but we can attain the important spiritual effects of silence and seclusion in the city as well. The secluded quiet place, separated from the noise of the world, is the key that helps us enter the unique spiritual atmosphere of this season. In the spiritual wilderness, together with Jesus, we confess our temptations, strengthened by Him. Then we experience His victory from when He faced our battle, and He gives us His victory through the grace of the fast.This is the only fast in the Divine Calendar that Jesus Himself fasted. It’s our unique chance to encounter and get to know the fasting Jesus.Our repentance goes deep during this season because of the revelations from the Holy Spirit about the roots of our sins. When we experience revelatory repentance—different from normal repentance—the Holy Spirit works deep to crucify the fallen nature.The Fathers of the Church spoke about how Great Lent is an opportunity to return to the state of Paradise. As we grow in the experience of the victory in Christ over temptation and sin, we can taste the freedom of the life in Eden. This is the sinless state. Even though our current fragile frame hinders us from remaining in this state, the Lent allows us to enter periods when grace fully sustains our body, soul, and spirit. We might taste the state of Paradise in brief moments, but the spiritual Fathers of the Church continued in this state for days, weeks, and months…This Eden-state of overflowing grace makes us think about our physical death as a mere change of location because we entered the stream of eternal life. We feel whole, made complete. The Holy Spirit takes us even further into the presence of God, and the deep inner sadness in the human heart over losing paradise disappears. Then our hearts expand toward embracing all of creation.The Fathers of the Church also describe the Lent as the spring of our spiritual life. As we strive in the grace of God to restrict and put to death the fallen nature in our soul, the new life of the new man soon sprouts. In the sweet fellowship with Jesus, we experience the newness of our spiritual lives in the same way as the spring prepares nature for summer.The Fathers of the Church refer to Great Lent as a spiritual storage. God has infinite grace available that He wants to give us in this season. Our ascetic efforts can’t compare to what God grants us through our weak attempts at increased prayer, fasting, and Bible reading. Like Joseph declared the need to store up grain for the upcoming years of drought in Egypt (Gen. 41:28–36), so we can store up spiritual blessing and grace that we will draw from throughout the entire year during periods of spiritual drought—without us even being aware of this happening.We can receive a detailed plan about God’s call to us during this fast. Jesus received the anointing for His mission as the Messiah in His Baptism, but it was in the wilderness the Holy Spirit empowered Him (more about this under the last point), and the Father revealed details about His calling.The Lent is a special opportunity to draw near to God the Father as we learn, through the Holy Spirit, about the prayers Jesus prayed to God, His Father, in the wilderness.Angels can minister to us while we’re in the wilderness (Matt. 4:11; Mark 1:13).This fast is a corporate and historical church fast which releases a mystical and powerful impact in our world. We realign our lives with our brothers and sisters throughout history who fasted these weeks. This unified act in the global body of Christ results in answers to global prayer requests and the awakening of people’s conscience. Strangers around us, people we won’t know on this side of eternity, comes of faith as a result from a historical and global fast as the Lent. We might remember from the Book of Jonah how even an entire city repented and turned to God.And even though it might seem like the opposite, this forty-day fast strengthens our spirits. Jesus entered the wilderness “being filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:1), but after His fast, Jesus “returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region” (Luke 4:14). Like we said several weeks ago, only the Holy Spirit can lead us into the wilderness. And if we discern God’s purpose in leading us out there and we complete our repentance, we will come out of the wilderness with new spiritual strength and zeal. If we enter the mystery—the wilderness—of the Great Lent, this fast catapults us into the Season of Resurrection. “And declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). 

Other Biblical Examples of the Wilderness

Jacob’s wilderness was his twenty years with Laban, awaiting the release of his bride. “I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks” (Gen. 31:38).

David’s wilderness lasted for seventeen years, including fleeing from his own son and engage in war against his own people.

Joseph’s wilderness continued for thirteen years (Gen. 37:2 & 41:46). He was a spoiled child, but spent many years in prison in Egypt. The wilderness can be cruel and tough, like a jail, and we can’t escape it. But once we complete the needed inner change, we have fulfilled the ordained time in the unavoidable wilderness. Everyone is called to be changed. “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son….” (Rom. 8:29)

This can answer many of our questions. Our life is tough and sometimes it can look like as if God is not there. This is because God wants to lead us into the wilderness so that we might become different. Because of God’s love, He called us to become greater than what we are now—to be more like Jesus.

If we don’t want God, then He will leave us alone, but we will suffer all the more. The cause of this suffering is not from Him, but ourselves. The death inside and in the world creates our misery. But God became Man to give us His divine-human nature, and since we carry our old human nature, we need renewal sometimes—in the wilderness (we’ll talk more about how Christians still can carry the old man).

A New Testament example of the wilderness we find in the Apostle Paul. After the Lord encountered Paul and transformed him profoundly, the Apostle didn’t preach right away. He also carried the old human nature that needed to be crucified. Similar to Moses, Apostle Paul spent about fourteen years in Arabia, Tarsus, and Damascus before being fully released into his calling.

Even the beloved disciple John, the only disciple by Jesus’ side during His crucifixion, spent years in exile on Patmos. The Apostle Paul (and the other apostles) spent much time in prisons. If even the apostles spent a lot of time in different wildernesses, then no one can escape from this way God is dealing with us. Our Heavenly Father is passionate about restoring us because He sees what we yet cannot see.

In the wilderness, we face what’s buried deep within. We must not be afraid or think that God has left us. Apostle Paul’s own experience consoles us:

“I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Rom. 7:21–25).

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35–39).

 

The Mindset to Finish Strong

Let us embark on our journey through the wilderness with a new understanding. Jesus’ baptism was the sign of the New Covenant—so we have been baptized. Then we have to experience our own journeys of death and resurrection, which are the meaning of baptism. But Jesus did it first, and He is close to us. If we think we can conquer our fallen nature in our own might through our clever ways, then the realization that we cannot will soon humble us. It is by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the fallen flesh (Rom. 8:13).

In the wilderness, we realize how weak we are and how easily we’re defeated. But when we finish these fights from the devil, we leave with Christ’s power of resurrection.

“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Phil. 3:7–11).

In conclusion, let us pray this week for the grace to break any unforgiveness and for the Holy Spirit to guide us into our unique entrance into the Lenten wilderness. Blessed fast.

As always, thank you for reading. I hope this Lent may be a true spring for us all. It’s my joy we can journey through these weeks together.

 

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

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March 2–8, 2025 (Western): Sunday of Treasures

Reading Time: 12 minutes

Crucifixion Week 2

The Wilderness Journey Has Begun

“Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him” (Mark 1:12–13). For forty days, Jesus faced all the weaknesses of the human nature—our nature—but never sinned once in word, thought, or deed. Jesus knows everything about the struggle of our earthly life. He fought every conceivable battle on our behalf, but unlike us, He always won. Now, Jesus can offer us the victories He gained during His fast and the grace to overcome by following in His footsteps.

“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:15–16).

“For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Heb. 2:16–18).

This gives an unparalleled perspective on an age-old problem: If God is good, how can there be so much pain and suffering in the world? Yes, pain and suffering are real, but no one has suffered more than God Himself. He is not distant from our suffering, but in its very center. This truth anchors a deep trust in God. Even though we cannot fully solve the question of evil and suffering, what we know about Jesus is enough to trust God that the future glory will be worth our present suffering.

“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18).

Jesus, during his forty-day fast, defeated Satan, the evil spirits, and ultimately death itself when He ascended the Cross, showing that all the gates of His human nature were closed off to sin. Therefore, the Fathers of the Church established a forty-day fast before Easter, originally starting directly after the feast of Theophany/Epiphany. Our focus during the Lent is twofold: To defeat and crucify the fallen nature that surrounds the grace of Incarnation in our soul, and to be transformed toward the bridal state by being secluded with Jesus the Bridegroom. The Fathers of the Church often refer to the Lent as “the return to the state of Paradise.” We will return to this theme during these weeks.

Depending on your local church, we’ll start the Lent this Monday, March 3—or Ash Wednesday, March 5—and we’ll fast forty days. (Please don’t panic when you read “fast forty days.” At the end of this post, you’ll find the link to the fasting guidelines we introduced last week.) If we count forty days, including the Sundays, we arrive Lazarus Saturday, April 12. That Saturday marks the beginning of Holy Week, or Passion Week, which ends with Easter on Sunday, April 20.

The previous Sunday introduced us to the Preparatory Week: a week to enter the fasting lifestyle of the Lent. This Sunday takes us to the first week of the forty-day fast of the Great Lent. These Sunday Gospels of the Lent are the oldest sets of liturgical readings in the entire Divine Calendar. Originally, they were used as curriculum for the “original Alpha Course” (catechumen classes) to teach those with a pagan background who wanted to become Christians. After Lent, these new believers entered the Church by being baptized on Lazarus Saturday.

The Holy Spirit uses these readings to guide us through Lent, and He gives us understanding of what He does. Our fallen human nature—the pagan nature of our soul—is to be “buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:4–5).

 

Sunday Gospel: Matthew 6:19–33 (NKJV)

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Earthly and Heavenly Treasures

We read in verse 19: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal” The Sunday Gospel for the first week of Lent goes directly to the heart of our problem: Where is our heart? What treasure fascinates our heart? What treasure does our heart guard?

Our hearts easily cling to the visible, what we can control, material security, and honor. We might not even be aware that our heart clings to earthly treasures, but this week the Holy Spirt opens our eyes to what our hearts cling to and guard as a treasure.

“For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:16–17). “Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:18–19).

These earthly treasures and false securities our hearts cling to will eventually fail us. Moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. So what do we do? Where is our security?

Verse 20: “but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

We can store treasures in Heaven. How do we do that? By following the principle we talked about last Sunday by living before the eyes of God and not the eyes of men. Once we do things in a secret place, we are rewarded openly. “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matt. 6:17–18). Whatever we do, whether righteous acts, spiritual disciples, or silently following the commandments of God, we collect treasures in Heaven.

“The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver” (Ps. 119:72). In Heaven, neither moth nor rust can destroy, nor can thieves reach and plunder.

In verse 21, we read: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If we want to find out where our heart is, we can look at what is important to us. Our heart guards what we see as most valuable. Therefore, we want to lift our hearts from Earth to Heaven by replacing earthly treasures with heavenly. This does not necessarily mean removing all our earthly treasures, but surrounding our ownership over them into God’s hand by holding everything with opens hands as gifts from God.

This then becomes a journey from Earth to Heaven by surrendering our earthly treasures and gathering the heavenly instead. How can we replace the earthly treasures of our hearts with the heavenly?

 

The Eye of The Soul

We read in verse 22: “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.” This means our eyes are windows into our souls. If we direct our eyes toward things of light, the light fills our souls. But if darkness attracts our eyes, darkness fills our souls.

But it also says “the lamp of the body is the eye.” This eye, which shines and illumines the body, is the eye of the soul. What gets the attention of our souls? What gets the devotion of our thoughts and emotions? What sways our will? If we direct the eye of our soul toward the commandments of God, light fills our soul, even to such a degree our body appears illumined.

Verse 23 reads: “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” But if evil and the activity of the old man win the attention of the soul’s eye, darkness fills our soul and our body appears gloomy.

“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19–21).

“If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.” What does this mean? Last Sunday, we talked about how our inner life contains limitless layers, since we’re created as a temple for the unlimited God. “Both the inward thought and the heart of man are deep” (Ps. 64:6c).

This means that there is much darkness in the deep layers of the soul we’re not even aware of. Only when the light reaches this darkness does it get revealed. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9)

The eye of the soul is the window that brings light into the deep layers of the soul and illumines us from within. The more the commandments of God occupy the eye of our soul, such as the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control), the brighter our souls become.

But if darkness fills the eye of our soul, how dark must the unknown deep layers of darkness then become?

 

Seek First The Kingdom

In verse 24, we read: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [earthly treasures].”

We have both light and dark areas in our souls, but do we serve two masters? God and sin? Our heart cannot serve two masters. We deceive ourselves if we think we can. We will love one and hate the other. Either we will love or hate our sins. If we love our sins, we serve darkness. If we hate our sins, we serve light. Yes, we might sin, but our reaction reveals what master we serve. Our cry is to bring our entire being under God that we may not sin, and if we fall into sin, we utterly despise them. This is our struggle, and we cry with King David:

“Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart” (Ps. 86:11–12a).

The last verse of the Sunday Gospel is verse 33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” In our journey of directing our hearts from Earth to Heaven by replacing earthy treasures with the heavenly, we might worry about earthly necessities. But God consoles us and says: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

Let us pray for the grace to comprehend what treasure our hearts guard. If we fiercely protect an earthly treasure, let’s pray we may receive the grace to fill the eyes of our soul with light instead of darkness. Eventually, our heart finds its rest in Heaven.

“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1–2).

“That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:2–3).

It’s my honor to travel together. Thank you for taking the time to read. The Lent is here—the spring of our spiritual life—may the Lord bless you and keep you these weeks until Easter.

 

If helpful, you can review: How do I fast during Great Lent?

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The post March 2–8, 2025 (Western): Sunday of Treasures first appeared on Father Elisha: Let me take you on an intriguing journey..