The Mystery of Healing: Oil, Anointing, and the Unity of the Local Church
The Holy Sacraments of Baptism, Chrismation and Holy Communion
The Seven Sacraments of the Greek Orthodox Church
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The
Holy Eucharist is the central act of Christian worship. It is held on
Sunday, otherwise known as “the first day,” “the Lord’s Day,” “the Day
of Yahweh,” “the eighth Day” and as the Russians call it, “Resurrection
Day.” Each time a Liturgy is held is Sunday or the Lord’s Day, but the
Day after the Sabbath is called Sunday especially, because on that Day
the Son of God defeated the Devil by His Resurrection (and for other reasons
that we will investigate later). Every doing of the Eucharist is a “Sunday,”
but Sunday has more emphasis because of the relation between the Sunday
Eucharist and “the Day of the Lord.”
The word “Sunday” is pagan in origin. The right word is “kuriake”
or the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10). Anyway, on the first day of the week the
pagans gathered to worship the Sun and it was called by them, “the Day
of the Sun.” The Church does not believe that it was pure coincidence
that Christ was resurrected on that particular day. Of course, it was
not just for the benefit of the pagans that Christ rose from the dead,
but the Sun has a very special Christian meaning. Christ is called by
the Bible “the Sun of Justice,” because as that ball of fire in the sky.
Jesus is the source of Life and Light. Christianity accepted the name
“Sunday” for the Day of Resurrection because it was the spiritual Life
and Light given to mankind.
It should be more than obvious that between Sunday and the Sabbath
there is a great difference. Sunday is a transfer of the Sabbath to the
following Day. Sunday has a meaning the Sabbath could never have. Even
the law that no work should be done on Sunday was not a part of early
Christianity. This idea that no work should be done was changed by Christ
and the early Church. A no-work Sunday begins only with the regulations
of the Byzantine Emperors Constantine and Theodosius for their armies
and law courts. In other words, the Jewish practice of not working on
the Sabbath is not something spiritual, just keeping a law; while the
Christian belief in the Lord’s Day or Sunday is putting God in our souls.
Some writers go so far as to point with pride to the fact that on holy
days, especially Sunday, early Christians met before dawn to receive the
Sacraments. They refused to do evil, but they worked on Sunday. Thus,
we see that the Lord’s Day or Sunday is something entirely new. It is
no imitation of the Sabbath. Sunday is a Christian product which gains
importance from the celebration of the Sacraments, particularly, the Holy
Eucharist.
In the Prophets and especially Isaiah, we find the statement so
often repeated by the Fathers of the Church that the true Sabbath is not
ceasing from physical work, but to stop sinning. Listen to Isaiah (1,
13-19):
“Bring no more useless oblations; your incense is hateful to me;
the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of the assemblies, I will not
accept: even your solemn meeting in iniquities. Your new moons and your
appointed feasts my soul hates; they are troublesome to me; I am weary
of them. And when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from
you: yea, you make many prayers, I will not hear them: your hands are
full of blood. Wash yourselves clean, therefore; put away evil doings
from my sight; stop doing evil, learn to do well; seek the truth, help
the oppressed, help the fatherless, plead for the widow. Then come to
me and we can reason, said the Lord: if you do this, though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; they can be as red as crimson,
but they will be as wool.
The New Testament points out that the Old Testament Sabbath is
now gone, because Christ has come. For example, in the Gospel of St. Matthew,
the disciples were picking ears of corn in a field. The Pharisees protested
but Christ came to the defense of His own (Matt. xii, 1-8). He makes it
understood that He is free to get rid of this institution. Christ is greater
than the Jewish idea of the Sabbath. Christ is the new Sabbath and Temple
of the New Testament. He says: “Come unto me, all you that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and you shall find rest for your
souls” (Matt. xi, 28-29). Christ is the Sabbath, the time of rest.
Christ is a living Temple, a spiritual Temple, not that physical building
where the Jews had worshipped. Christ is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
He is the real Temple which the Temple of Solomon foretells. He is the
Temple in which all true believers rest.
The statement in Matthew that Christ is the true rest is followed
by the episode of the healing on the Sabbath day of the man with the withered
hand. The Jews protested, of course, but Jesus told them: “What man of
you, if he has one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will
not take hold of it and pull it out? Of how much more value is a man than
a sheep!” (xi, 11-12). This healing, like all the miracles of Jesus, is
the thing that is to be done in His Kingdom when it is established on
earth. This Kingdom, as we know, is the Church. The Church is “the Body
of Christ.” So, this miracle is like the ones that will take place in
the Church. The Church is also the Sabbath. Christ inaugurates the true
Sabbath, the Kingdom of God, the Church which replaces the Jewish Sabbath
which meant rest, rest from work. The Gospel of St. John gives us another
episode: the healing on the Sabbath of the paralyzed man at the pool of
Bethesda (v. 1-19). The Jews persecuted Jesus because He did this on the
Sabbath day wherein no work was to be done. Jesus answered: “My Father
works until now, and I work.” (v.17). The Jews were angry and sought to
kill Him “because He made Himself equal to God.” (v. 18). Thus, Christ
condemns the idea of the Sabbath—or Sunday— as idleness.
It might be asked why the seventh day was given to the Jews as
a day of rest in the Ten Commandments. It was given as a means of education.
God worked gradually. He gave them a law to prepare them for the real
spiritual meaning. The spiritual meaning is made known in Jesus Christ.
As St. Paul said: “Let no one, then, call you to account for what you
eat or drink, or in regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These
were all a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.”
(Col. ii. 16). Everything in the Old Testament points in one way or another
to Christ. Christ is the Sabbath. For the Jews the Sabbath was the day
in which they were to rest and go to the Temple or Synagogue. For Christians,
the Sabbath is Christ in Whom we are to rest from sin and in which we
are to live. The Jews too rest. In Christ we are given rest. It is possible
now to live in God, as the Jews lived in the Temple on the Sabbath. Now
it is possible not to sin, as the Jews had the possibility not to work.
Christ is the Sabbath, Christ brought the Kingdom of God which
is begun in the Church. The Church is the entrance of man into the future
world. The future world is perfect unity with God. We have this unity
even now in the Holy Eucharist which is given on the Lord’s Day. Before
we can enter the Lord’s Day, we must fulfill the Sabbath: join ourselves
to Christ or rest from sin. This is done by being Baptized or as St. Paul
said:
“Know ye not that as many of you are were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore, we are buried with Him
by baptism, into death and just as Christ was raised up from the dead
by the glory of God the Father, likewise we will be able to have a new
life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death,
we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” (Rom. vi. 2-5).
Being crucified with Christ
through Baptism, we may be resurrected with Him. You see, Baptism means
drowning the original sin in purifying water. That original sin corrupts
our soul and body and makes us like Adam. Being Baptized, we are changed.
We are given the possibility to be perfect. Jesus Christ died so that
sin would be drowned. When we die with Christ, we can be resurrected with
Him on “the Lord’s Day”. Sunday, then, is the Day of the Resurrection
of Christ. Each Sunday is a “little Easter.” By partaking in the Body
and Blood of Christ, i.e., His Sacrifice to the Father, we share in His
Death and therefore His Resurrection.
When the Church assembles on the Lord’s Day, She celebrates that
which made the Resurrection possible, also. The Holy Eucharist is the
Lord’s Supper, a participation in the Body and Blood of Christ. That Body
and Blood hung on the Cross. Receiving the Body and Blood, we hang on
the Cross. We die with Christ. We therefore, rise with Him on the Lord’s
Day, Sunday. When we receive the Holy Eucharist we are in union with God:
that is finally what we mean by the Kingdom of God. The Holy Communion
which we must take each Sunday is therefore a taste of complete Resurrection
and the Kingdom to come, the time when there will be perfect rest. When
we receive Holy Communion our souls are resurrected so that in the Day
of Judgment our bodies will be resurrected. In the Church, where we are
offered the Holy Eucharist, we live in an acorn of rest that will grow
and grow into the perfect oak of rest. Those who have been baptized into
His Death and live in His Resurrected Body will be raised in the Last
Day, “the eighth Day,” at the end, we who live in Christ, will be perfect
as Christ and will be the “the seventh Day.” Listen to St. Augustine (C.D.
xxii):
“For we shall ourselves be the seventh Day, when we shall be
filled and replenished with God’s blessing and sanctification . . . when
we are (completely) restored by Him and made perfect with greater grace,
we shall have eternal leisure to see that He is God, for we shall be full
of Him when He shall be all in all. For even our good works, when they
are understood to be His rather than ours . . we may enjoy this Sabbath
rest. For if we trace good works to ourselves, they will be work: for
it is said of the Sabbath. ‘You shall do not work in it’ (Deut. v,
14). Wherefore also it is said by Ezekiel the prophet. ‘And I gave them
my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that
I am the Lord who sanctify them’. . . .This knowledge shall be perfect
when we shall be perfectly at rest and know God perfectly. . . .
In other words. by joining
ourselves to Christ, we live in Christ and have the possibility of all
the things God has promised us. Living in Christ, we live in the Sabbath
and are introduced to the Kingdom to come. We are introduced into the
Lord’s Day which we meet all too briefly on Sunday or whenever the Divine
Liturgy is held. The Lord’s Day is the Day of Christ’s Resurrection. The
Day when Christ rose from the dead and gave all men who are in the Church
the possibility to do the same. We can be physically resurrected at the
end of time. The soul is taken from death so later the body will be resurrected.
The soul is risen from spiritual death, so that the body will join it
in heaven. The soul that does not receive spiritual life in Christ will
join the body in spiritual death in hell. (I say, the Church, because
She is His Body.) When we die spiritually with Christ through Baptism
and are resurrected spiritually with Him in the Holy Eucharist, we establish
in our hearts the Sabbath and enter the Lord’s Day. We enter ahead of
time, the “Eighth Day.”
From Word
Magazine
Publication of the Antiochian Orthodox
Christian Archdiocese of North America
September 1960
pp. 5-6
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