In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today we are still within the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Today the Lord says to us: "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take his Cross, and follow Me". We are not taking up the Cross in a literal fashion, but we are imitating Jesus Christ, and His life. If we are going to follow Christ, and imitate Him, first it is important that we know Him, and we love Him. For us to know Him, and love Him means that we have to be reading the Bible regularly. When we are reading the Bible, we are encountering Jesus Christ personally. When we read these words, by the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ comes to us. He fills us with His love. If we are filled with this love it becomes possible to follow Him. As He, Himself, tells us, this love is not like the ordinary love of human beings. I used to like to tell this illustration, and I will still tell it now. When you go to the United States, and you want to drink tea, the tea bag has a string attached to it. This is how usual human love is. Human beings say to each other: I will love you if …. There is almost always some kind of condition attached to this love.
Sometimes we approach God in the same way, and we say to God: I will love You if You give me what I am asking for. Not one of us, when we know that this is how people are treating us, likes it. Things have changed, but when I was young, Canadian tea bags used to be always different from the American ones: Canadian tea bags never had strings attached to them. I suppose this is because Canadians still knew how to make tea in a tea pot. Now we forget that. But still, a tea bag without a string helps us to understand the love of God. There are no conditions attached to the love of God. There are no “ifs” attached to the love of God. God simply loves us.
Anyone who is going to read in the New Testament about the love of God will see, and understand that God Himself is love. This is why He does love us because He is love. If each one of us exists at all, it is because He loves each one of us, and each one of us is one of His creations. We tend to think that somehow everything is automatic in human life, and in animal life, but there is nothing automatic. Everything lives because God loves. If we have anything good in life, it is because He loves us.
So how further do I know that there are no strings attached to the love of God? We see in the middle of us the Cross. On this Cross the Saviour is hanging, and His arms are stretched out. Because of His love, He allows us to crucify Him. When I say that we are crucifying Him, I am saying that we contributed to it, and we are also responsible for what happened. Every time we are rebelling against the love of God, and doing things against His love or doing things our own way, we are contributing to that Crucifixion. However, when Christ is hanging on the Cross with His arms stretched out, He voluntarily allowed Himself to do this for us. And so when His arms are stretched out on the Cross, He is, at the same time as we are killing Him, embracing us with His love. He forgave people from the Cross, and He forgives us from the Cross.
When He died, and descended into Hades, He gathered people who were believers, who were dead, and He brought them up out of Hades with Him. We see this in the icon that we are venerating at the time of Pascha: Christ is breaking the doors of Hades, and He is bringing Adam and Eve out, and He is bringing everyone else out. When He is rising from the dead, He is not alone. Because He is light, because He is love, He gives light, and love to everyone.
When we are living our lives, and when people are sometimes mean to us or hurting us in some way, it is important for us to remember Jesus Christ on the Cross, and how He suffered because of love. If we are suffering because of love, He will help us. If He forgave us from the Cross, we in love can forgive other people who hurt us. Because Jesus Christ loves us, He will give us the strength, and the love to forgive as He forgives.
Look, too, how the Lord loves us because of the loving intercession of His Mother. She, an ordinary human being, shows that the Christian life can be lived. In this icon of the Mother of God of Port Arthur which is visiting us today, you see under her feet there are broken swords. By her prayers the Mother of God can bring peace, and break wars. She has sent away foreign armies more than one time when people have prayed to her. And now that this icon has come to Canada, the Lord, through the prayers of the Mother of God, has been helping people who have come to pray to her.
The Lord loves us; the Lord helps us; He gives us everything we need. It is important for us to be faithful to His love, and every day turn to Him, and ask Him for help. This way we take up the Cross. This way we follow Christ, and we glorify Him together with His Father, who is from everlasting, together with His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.