Just as our Lord Jesus Christ is the true and Second Adam — the true man, through whom all humanity can become truly human — so also is Mary, the Mother of God (Theotokos) the true and second Eve. She is The Woman, through whose womb was salvation and the restoration of the cosmos to be wrought.
We see Jesus call upon his mother in this way in the Gospel According to John:
“And the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him: ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus saith to her: ‘Woman, what is that to me and to thee? my hour is not yet come.’ His mother saith to the waiters: ‘Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye.’”
According to John 2:3-5 (Douay Rheims)
While some interpret this passage through modern language and culture — wrongly believing that Jesus has “rebuked” his own mother (which is a blasphemous accusation) — what Jesus is saying here is actually a great sign of respect. And indeed, Jesus obeys his mother, and does exactly as she says. The Mother of God in turn gives us the most important of precepts as followers of Christ: “Do whatever He tells you.”
David Bazan is an indie-rock musician that once fronted and originated a musical group called “Pedro the Lion,” an easy-listening indie band with some distinctly religious overtones.
I’ve recently been listening to some lectures by Fr Thomas Hopko (Dean Emeritus of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary) that deal with both the Apocalypse and the Divine Liturgy. I highly recommend his work, especially for those who have come from an evangelical or Baptist background, as he can make things quite simple for us.
Let’s be honest — most converts to the Orthodox Faith that have arrived from an evangelical or Protestant background are faced with quite a challenge when it comes to the subject of Icons.
The High Priest of Israel entered into the holiest recesses of the Temple while wearing a breastplate (Hebrew חֹשֶׁן or “choshen“) adorned with precious stones and jewels, along with the mysterious Urim and Thummim. The scriptures record:
One of the most distinguished characteristics of the Orthodox Church is the nuanced (some might say “eastern” or “Greek”) understanding of “symbol” that is transcendant and goes beyond mere externals or the recesses of one’s brain. The concept of “symbol” for most people in the west today is — in the words of the reposed Fr Alexander Schmemann: “an illustration whose purpose can be termed pedagogic or educational.” In other words, a symbol merely points to or teaches about an idea or concept, but offers no real or transcendant connection to anything beyond itself. In Orthodoxy, however, a symbol is a gateway or “window” to something beyond itself; it is something that truly connects the person with the thing signified.
Today is actually Palm Sunday.
You’ve probably heard it said that “time heals all wounds.” This is one of those quotes that gets repeated over and over again, but no one really knows where it came from. It is very similar to what the Greek dramatist Menander (circa 4th century BC) once said: “Time is the healer of all necessary evils” (Fragments), so perhaps it is derived from him.
When a Protestant approaches the scriptures in order to rightly interpret them and apply them to their lives, the approach is typically that of a scientist and a historian – they are attempting to abstract and be removed from the context of today’s western world and be found within the culture, language and context of the original authors of divine literature. There is rooted in this approach not only a reliance upon Nominalism (as with all things Western and/or Protestant) but also the fundamental belief that we are “separate from” both these original authors and from God Himself (He is the “Man upstairs” and Protestant worship focuses on asking God to be present or “show up”). As such, Protestant hermeneutics, if you will, is an exercise in textual archaeology.
