In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen.

You notice the words that came at the very end of the Gospel reading this morning from the mouth of the Lord: The time will come when people will kill you, thinking that they are doing Me service (to paraphrase what He said). You know to whom this must refer – the very person about whom we were hearing at the end of the reading from the Acts of the Apostles – the Apostle Paul. He had been persecuting people, thinking that he was serving the Lord, and doing God the right service. He was putting Christians into prison, because he thought out of his love for God that he was doing what was right (until the Lord appeared to him).

What is happening today to the Apostle Paul happened right after he had met the Saviour on the road to Damascus. The Saviour encountered him, and he encountered the Saviour. He was blind for a while, then he was healed from his blindness, and immediately baptised. Then his immediate response was to go into the synagogue, and to show how Jesus truly is the Messiah, the Christ. He mixed everyone up because they couldn’t understand it. He was absolutely boiling hot in one direction, and very shortly afterwards he was boiling hot in the other direction. It didn’t make sense to them. The Apostle Paul, in his encounter with the Saviour, never became a lukewarm person. His Christian faith was absolutely warm, and boiling, you could say. He was really alive with the love of Jesus Christ.

The words of the Saviour about love are lived out by the Apostle Paul. They are supposed to be lived out by you, and me, too. It’s important for us to remember in the various difficulties we face in our living out our lives, that we are supposed to be, as the Saviour says: in the world, but not of the world. For us, this term “the world” means that element in creation which is in rebellion against God. God created it good, but it’s in rebellion.

Where is this rebellion coming from? It is coming from our own hearts, because we are partly of the world. When this rebellion is happening in our hearts, we are definitely participating in the spirit of this fallen world. We are, as a race, definitely in rebellion: the turmoil of the earth’s climate, and other aspects of the earth’s existence are reflecting this rebellion. We are living in a poisonous atmosphere, and we poison the creation around us. Instead of looking to the Lord, asking Him what to do right, how to be right, we do it our own way. We don’t bother to consult the Lord until we are in a big mess. Then we say: Help! Help! Fix the mess!

The Lord says that once we are in the middle of this relationship of love with Him, it does become a matter of spiritual warfare. The powers of darkness, which are reflected in the term “world”, are trying to overcome the Light that is shining in us. The beginning of the Gospel according to St John describes the Light. What is this Light? The Light is Jesus Christ, Himself. The Light of His love is shining in us, and the powers of darkness are trying to overcome it. That’s one of the reasons in fact, that we encounter so many obstacles in our lives: inexplicable obstacles, difficulties, pain, messed-up communication, messed-up relationships between human beings.

All sorts of things like this are happening because the darkness is trying to put out the light. In our psychologised existence, we are used to being very “me-centred”, thinking that all these things are something that is stemming from “me”, and I’m responsible to fix everything that’s wrong. That’s not the reality. There is not finite “me” just by myself in isolation – anyone of us is not finite “me” in isolation. The reality of human beings is that we are all one as a race. We are all in the same boat as a race, and what affects one, affects the other for good or for bad. If I get tempted about one thing or another, those temptations don’t all come from me. I can think of bad things, that’s true. However, all those things, everything that goes through the mind: temptations of one sort or the other (and especially suspicious thoughts of division between one person and another), those are not necessarily dreamed up by me.

Those sorts of thoughts are in the atmosphere, part of a fallen world that invades us. They’re always around, invading us – suspicious, dark thoughts, dividing thoughts, destructive thoughts; they’re always floating around waiting for an opportunity to come in. As Mother N likes to repeat: Elder Paisios on Mount Athos described these thoughts as planes circling around an airport waiting to land. Our responsibility is not to let them land.

The problem is that once those things land, they’re just like mosquitoes – they immediately get to work, and they insert their poison. The loads those planes are carrying around are not life-giving loads – they are poisonous loads. As soon as they can land, they unload them. They get a hook into us, and it’s hard to get them out. It’s difficult enough to keep them from landing, but once they land, it gets much worse. This is an interesting, allegorical sort of a thought, the way this elder, who is considered a saint by very many people (and probably is), relates it.

How do you stop those thoughts from landing in the mind, in the heart? We can’t just say: We're holding them off; we're holding them off .... That’s not the way. As soon as we start to confront those thoughts that are circling like that, and address them directly, they’ve already got us. As soon as anyone engages them, they’ve got you.

The way has to be – not looking at them, not paying attention to them, but recognising them for the evil that they are as they are approaching. We must turn away from them to the Lord, and say to the Lord: Help me. Save me. Protect me. Then, in His protection, they can’t land. Those evil, dividing, suspicious, dark thoughts can’t land when we are constantly turning our hearts towards the Lord, Who is Truth. He is Truth. He is Life, Light, Love. These dark thoughts cannot stick, or have any life in us as long as our life is in Him.

That’s the most important thing for us to remember in our lives, and for some reason it is the hardest thing for human beings to manage to accomplish: always, in everything, to call to Him for help. The Saviour, Himself, said that He is with us. He is sending the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is going to teach us everything we need to know, and tutor us in everything we need to know. We have the Holy Spirit. Since we have been baptised, we have the Holy Spirit. It is important for us to allow the Holy Spirit to grow, and work in us: to be co-operative with the Holy Spirit, who is our life, after all. It is He who increases the presence of Jesus Christ in us.

Let us ask the Lord to help us call to Him. Let us ask the Lord to help us to remember to call to Him. Let us ask the Lord to come, and save us, and fill us with His love, as He filled the Apostle Paul with His love, and enable us in all things, and everywhere to glorify Him, together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America