Today's exploration of the Eastern Orthodox faith

Today, I led the service at the Dummerston Church. Pastor Shawn is on a 2-week vacation. This is Easter Sunday in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and that provided me with my theme. I made a connection with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, wondering what it was like celebrating Easter today in Ukraine, surrounded as they are by destruction and death. I also explored one of the central concepts of Orthodox theology, the holiness of God, an aspect of faith which I feel is neglected in much of Protestant Christianity. One is confronted with God's holiness the moment one sets foot in an Orthodox Cathedral and, to quote from my sermon, one confronts a vast domed sanctuary which creates a sense of eternity, of the heavenly realm. The chanting, the incredibly sonorous music of the choir, the incense, the icons on the walls, the processions of priests, elaborately clothed in other-worldly garb, the vast dome with a mosaic of Christ Pantocrator--Christ the Cosmic Ruler, mosaics of angels and all the saints gathered about the Lord in eternal worship--it is an unforgettable experience which inspires awe in the worshipper.

Christ Pantocrator, a mosaic commonly found in the dome of an Orthodox cathedral.********************************* The scriptures that were read emphasized the dual nature of the holy which is expressed in Hebrew by the word qodesh. The holy is powerfully dangerous and also calls forth a feeling of ecstasy. In II Samuel 6, David and the people are moved to "make merry, sing and dance and play instruments" in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant which contains God's holiness, but when Uzzah reaches out his hand to steady the ark when the cart carrying it tips, he is struck dead on the spot as though he had touched a 10,000 volt bare wire. I compared this experience with one Shirley and I had decades ago when we were driving through Arkansas to visit Betsey and we were hit by a violent storm, a turquoise wall streching from earth to heaven racing across the countryside at breakneck speed. To be engulfed by that storm was frightening and exhilerating at the same time. Annie DIllard catches this duality when she writes in Teaching a Stone to Talk "does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of POWER we blithely invoke in our worship? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT..It is madness to be wearing hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets! Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares! They should lash us to our pews. For someday God may just draw us out to where we can never return." I got a lot of really positive comments on the sermon, which was gratifying. The service was also enhanced by a quartet (Eliza, Ellen, Sam Farwell and myself) singing two pieces from the Orthodox liturgy, Tebe Poyem and Mnohaya Lita, which is a Ukrainian blessing for long life. (Both can be found on YouTube). John and Cynthia were in church and brought me home while Ellen went to pick up Brendon to take him "antiquing" - something he loves to do. So I am having a lovely afternoon at home by the fire.

An artist's depiction of Uzzah and the Ark of the Covenant