In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

When the Saviour is saying today that even greater works than the works that He does, we should be doing, He is saying this not only to the Apostles, but he is saying this to us, to the whole Church. He is addressing, for instance, this very occasion that we just encountered with the Apostle Paul. When the Apostle was preaching, this young man fell down three stories from a window. When you fall down three stories, usually you die (some people don’t, but usually you die). This young man had been taken up dead.

However, the Apostle Paul knew the will of the Father, and this is what is really important. When he ran downstairs to the young man, and picked him up, he knew that this young man was not ready to die. He was taken up alive through the prayers of the holy Apostle. At the end it is said: “and they were not a little comforted". I love this sort of understatement (it’s almost a Canadian or British way of speaking). I can imagine how the parents of that young man or his family would have felt after the shock of his being killed in the fall, and then his being restored to life. It’s such a wonderful understatement.

Greater things than these will you be doing, says the Lord to us. He also says (to paraphrase): If you ask Me anything in My Name, I will give it to you. In this case, all sorts of people take that as if God were attached to some giant, cosmic milking machine, as if He were some sort of cosmic cow as it were: you just have to do things the right way, and you will get from God what you want. There are all sorts of people on television, and on the radio who talk like this, thinking that this is how God gives things. When you treat God like that – just ask anything, and you’ll get it, if you know how to ask it right, as it were – usually you get something much darker. You get not from God, but from below, the opposition, from the powers of darkness instead. It looks for a while that it might be from God, but in the end it’s from below.

Why am I saying these things? Well, because for the most part, we don’t know what to ask for or how to ask anything of the Lord, because what we are asking is usually quite self-centered. It’s really all: Give me; give me; give me this, this, and that. I’ll be good if You give me this; I’ll be good if You give me that. I’ll do this for You if you give me that: just give this nice thing to me (whatever it is). This is not exactly what the Lord is talking about when He is saying: Ask in My Name, and I will give it to you.

If we are going to ask something from the Lord, our hearts have to be attuned to the Lord and His love, to know what to ask rightly. This is where we all get lost, because we are so distracted in our lives. Our lives are so busy, and so self-preoccupied that we don’t take the time to listen to the Lord, to hear what He is saying to us about what is right, so that we can ask rightly. We don’t listen to our hearts properly so that our hearts, like Adam and Eve before the Fall will ask automatically for what is right.

Adam and Eve before the Fall were in complete harmony with the Lord. They knew what to ask. Their hearts automatically asked for what is right. They knew what was good for them because the Holy Spirit, the Grace of God was in them, and they understood. Their hearts understood. They were always asking for what was right, and getting what was right – until they got distracted, until they turned in on themselves. Since then we have been in a mess.

Some human beings actually do manage by God’s mercy, and by God’s Grace to come to this place where they can truly know God’s will, and know how to ask for what is right. Then, in fact, whatever they ask, God gives because it’s always what God wants to give to His people. It’s the right thing, the right way to ask for what the people need without any self-interest, without any distraction. This is the hard part for us (especially in these days) to be able to come to this point of stillness with the Lord, knowing the Lord, putting the Lord first above everything, having Him as the sole focus, and purpose of our lives, and then being able in that context to do everything in accordance with His will, in accordance with His love.

Today, when the Lord is talking about keeping His commandments, He is speaking of them in the context of His love. He is speaking about how this loving relationship with Him produces our living in accordance with His commandments. When we are talking about these commandments, we’re talking really about the Ten Commandments, and the commandment of love that introduced them. The commandments are an expression of how a person, who lives in love and harmony with the Lord, will live.

So, an expression, then, of exactly what the Lord is talking about today is found in the Apostle Paul’s action in the middle of the night when he is preaching, and the young man falls out of the window, and the Apostle takes him up alive from the dead. This is because the Apostle Paul was living according to those words that the Saviour gave to the Apostles, and to us this morning. It’s for us to learn how to do this as well: to put the Lord first. The problem with this sort of learning is that it is not intellectual learning. It’s learning in the heart. It’s a much longer process. It’s a much more difficult process. However, it’s not an impossible process.

So, let’s ask the Lord to renew our love, and confidence in Him so that we can come at least a step or two closer to being like the Apostle Paul, and the other Apostles who were able to live in such harmony. Like the other saints, also, by whom we are surrounded on these walls, may we be able, with our hearts in harmony with the Lord, more and more to do His will as our beloved St Herman of Alaska says: “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and glorify the all-holy Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America