The Paschal Mystery in the Life of the Church

Dr. Bradley Nassif Christ is Risen! I would like to say a special thank you to Fr. Tofana Stelian and Dr. Danut Manastireanu for kindly inviting me for this special lecture and book launch. We have been planning it for a long time and now, at last, I am here with both of these very fine scholars. As you know, Romania holds a very special place in Orthodoxy. Next to Russia, it is home to the second largest population of Orthodox Christians in the world. It is also the place where great and holy men, such as the late Fr. Dumitru Staniloae and others, have lived. So for me, this country is holy ground. It is blessed with a special measure of grace that many of us Orthodox in the West admire from a distance. It is indeed providential that my visit to Romania coincides with this sacred season of Pascha, for that is the very topic I have been preparing even before I knew the date of my lecture. The title of my topic tells you that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the very center of my talk today. Why is this topic so urgently needed in todays world? A few statistics will give us a partial answer: In the country of Greece, 9 out of 10 million people belong to the Orthodox Church but only 2% of the entire population go to Church on an average Sunday. In Russia , out of 147 million people, 60 million are Orthodox Christians. Yet, only 3% of them are actively involved in the Church and only 7% actually go to Church only once a month. In Romania, 17 million out of 22 million people are Orthodox Christians, but perhaps 2-4% say they take their faith seriously. Im sure it must be higher than that, but thats how some people responded to a statistical survey. In America, 3 million out of 350 million people are Orthodox Christians. Most are Protestant or Catholic. Yet of that 3 million Orthodox, a far lesser number actually attend Church on a regular basis (exact statistics are not available). The same story can be found in the Middle East. Now I dont need to tell this learned audience that the Orthodox Church possess a very rich and beautiful theological inheritance. None of us would dispute the architectural wonder of our cathedrals, the artistic beauty of our iconography or the inspirational impact of our ancient hymns and liturgical services. Sermons are preached and very often they are eloquent. In spite of this rich heritage, however, it is quite obvious from the weak participation in Church and in the personal lives of our members that Orthodoxy around the world is often failing to meet the spiritual needs of great numbers of our people. A large number of parishioners are coming and going in and out of Church with very little visible change in their lives. They are going to church but leaving the same way they came in. Their lives remain unchanged despite all our liturgies. I realize these are sad things to say, but if were honest, we will have to admit it. So before we can cure such a serious sickness we first have to correctly diagnose it. So the obvious question we should be asking is Why? Why do so few people in the Orthodox world seem to find Church irrelevant to their everyday lives? What is keeping people from experiencing the profound relevance of Orthodoxy to society, their families and their places of work? In my humble opinion, the obvious answer is the most basic one: Our people simply do not appear to know the core meaning of the gospel or how to integrate it into their everyday lives. They have a lot of religion, but no personal relationship with the Resurrected Lord.

It is for this reason that I tell you today that the most urgent need in the Orthodox world is the need for an aggressive internal mission of renewing our people, or plainly converting them, to faith in Jesus Christ. The gospel of Christ needs to be reclaimed as the very centerpiece of Church life today. It will be my thesis this morning that unless we actually invite people to embrace the Good News of the saving message of Jesus Christ, we have left out a vital element of the New Testament message. Invitation is absolutely central to the gospel. Without it, we have a truncated gospel and that, I believe, is what accounts for so much nominalism in the Orthodox world today. GOSPEL IN THE BIBLE As Orthodox students of the New Testament, it is vitally important for you to see the central importance that the gospel occupies in the apostolic documents and later Tradition of the Church. So lets turn to the New Testament now. What is the gospel and how may it be defined? The term gospel transliterates the Greek term euangelion. It literally means Good News. In todays world of mass media, the gospel has been reduced to packaging strategies by Protestant evangelicals. Too often, its a health and wealth gospel that preaches that Jesus Christ wants everyone to be healthy and wealthy. Its no surprise that such a gospel came from the United States where health and wealth abound! But this is not at all what the New Testament has in mind. The only genuine representation of the gospel includes the full range of biblical revelation that includes both Jesus gospel of the kingdom and the early Christian witness to the saving benefits of Jesus life, death, and resurrection, as well as the gift of the Spirit of God to the Church on the Day of Pentecost. If the gospel Jesus preached was reshaped, in light of fuller revelation, by the apostolic witnesses (e.g., Paul, Peter, John, Hebrews), we are warranted to examine the biblical developments themselves as paradigms for how the gospel has been understood and re-articulated throughout the history of the Church. We discover that the gospel has a substantive, indeed objective, core that finds expression in various contexts in new and powerful ways. So lets look first at the background of the gospel in the Old Testament. Old Testament The quest for the precise background to the word gospel and why it was that Jesus or the early Christians chose to use this word has been discussed intensely, but the most significant context must be the Old Testament. In particular, a text like Isaiah 52.7 (among others) reveals what the choice of the term gospel framed what it was that Jesus saw at work in Gods saving plan. Thus, from Isaiah 40:9 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, Your God reigns. The good news, or the gospel (the Septuagint uses the euangelion word group), here is an announcement, a declaration that the God of Israel who is called YHWH, is king and reigns supreme. This good news means salvation, peace, love, joy and justice. NEW TESTAMENT 1. THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST

Jesus, in what is called his inaugural sermon, explicitly draws from Isaiah 61. There he announces his messianic vocation and even explains what the vocation means: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lords favor (Luke 4:18-19). Neither this text nor these ideas disappeared when the apostles began to preach, but there is a notable shift from the gospel of Jesus to the gospel about Jesus. In other words, there is a shift in emphasis from the gospel Jesus preached to the gospel about which the early church preached. The former is the subject of Jesus preaching, the later is the object about which the early church preached. The churchs gospel is rightly summarized as the proclamation of the death and resurrection of Jesus in other words, the paschal mystery. Jesus gospel and the gospel of the early church are inseparably united. Why? Because Jesus gospel was fundamentally an eschatological claim: Israels Story was opening up the decisive chapter in human history through Jesus of Nazareth. 2. GOSPEL PREACHING IN THE BOOK OF ACTS Some texts make an early Christian connection of the gospel to Jesus gospel quite clear. Were told in Acts that Philip preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12). And Paul spent three months in Ephesus arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God (19:8; cf. 20:25; 28:23). Jesus message and the message about Jesus were combined in the Acts summary statement of Pauls preaching: For two years he was proclaiming [both] the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ (28:31). The emphasis from the gospel of Jesus shifts with the apostles to the gospel about Jesus, but the substance of Jesus eschatologically-shifting kingdom vision remains present (1 Cor 4:20; Col 1:13; 4:11; James 2:5; Rev 1:6, 9). One notable shift in emphasis with the early Christian gospel is from a both-and present yet future kingdom with Jesus, where there is more of an emphasis on the presence and imminence of the kingdom of God, to a more future emphasis of the kingdoms manifestation in the early church (e.g., Gal 5:21). If the kingdom of God for Jesus is the dynamic and real presence of Gods will being done on earth (cf. Matt 6:11), then the apostles shift the substance of the dynamic saving reign of God by focusing on the reign occurring through Jesus Christ his life, death, and resurrection -- through the present power of the Spirit, and through Gods manifestation of his will in the Church. The substance of Gods presence and sovereign lordship remains the same while the means of such presence -- the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ -becomes increasingly clear as revelation unfolds. Whether we look to the preaching of Peter (Acts 2:14-41; 10:34-43) or to Paul (13:16-41; 17:2231) or to the clearly creedal language of Paul in 1 Cor 15:1-8 (perhaps 15:20-28 as well), the gospel of the earliest apostolic witness was a uniform narratival and revelatory structuring of the story of God that finds its completion in the story of the Messiah. Gospeling, to use a word that avoids the unfortunate imperialism at work for some in todays use of evangelizing, was telling the story of Jesus. Hence, the focus of the earliest gospeling was on the life, the death, the burial, and especially the resurrection of Jesus Christ, sometimes attended by his coming in glory and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. The gospel of the apostles, built as it was on Jesus vision of the historic fulfillment of Gods plan in the kingdom of God, was a revelatory narrative of what God had done for the salvation of his people Israel in and

through the saving events of Jesus Christ. Hence, the benefits of the kingdom are sometimes pronounced in the New Testament: forgiveness of sins (Acts 10:43), salvation (Rom 1:16), or peace (Eph 2:14-18). This gospel, focused as it was on Jesus as the climax of Israels Story, is not without universal significance, as the theme of blessing from Genesis 12:2-3 onwards makes clear. The particular leads to the universal as the one leads to the many. One further element of dramatic continuity in gospel preaching in the New Testament is the response of repentance and faith and baptism. Whether we look to Jesus message (Mark 1:14-20), to Peters preaching (Acts 2:38), to Pauls preaching (13:38-39), or to Johns framing of the fundamental response through believing/faith (John 1:12), the condition for entrance into the kingdom is to repent from ones sins, to believe/trust in Jesus Christ, and to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (cf. Gal 3:27; Rom 6:1-12; Tit 3:5; 1 Pet 3:20). Gospel preaching in the pages of the New Testament involves declaring the story of Christ, promising its benefits, and summoning listeners to respond properly. If the focus of Jesus was a gospel of the kingdom in the face of an imminent collapse of Jerusalem, that collapse was understood by the apostles more as an instance of the final reckoning that summons all humans before the bar of God, and Pauls words on the Areopagus make that clear (Acts 17:31). So for St. Paul, it is of vital importance to understand that this gospel is not just one of many items on a long list of theological truths early Christians believed. On the contrary, according to Paul, the gospel has an unparalleled place of first importance in the Christian faith: For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15.3-4). It is extremely important to see that this gospel of first importance in the early church included not just a retelling of Israels story through the Messiah, but also the call to respond to that story. People were never allowed to hear the gospel without being asked to respond to it! We see this clearly in Peters preaching in the Book of Acts. We see this summons to respond in three integrally related acts: Jews and Gentiles alike are to believe, repent and to be baptized .i Peter summons people to believe in Acts 1011. Notice 10:43 and 11:17: All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God? After Peter explains the event of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost through the lens of the Story of Israel -- and that means Joel 2:28-32 (Hebrew 3:1-5) and two Psalms of David-- Luke tells us that the people who heard Peter were cut to the heart and asked Brothers, what should we do? (2:37; cf. Luke 3:10-14). Peters answer is famous (Acts 2:38-39): Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him. Again in Acts 3:19-21, Peter says: Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets. And in Acts 10:47-48, while Peter was still preaching, the Holy Spirit came down afresh on the audience, extending Pentecost to Gentiles, and Peter asked this question:

Then Peter said, Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days. Taken together, these texts make it clear that repentance, faith and baptism is the expected response to the gospel. From the days of John the Baptist to the days of the apostles, repentance and faith is the expected response, along with baptism. Baptism is the embodiment of confession, incorporation into Christ and the community by faith, and the washing away of sins. Now of course, there are other key texts in Acts and the rest of the New Testament we could point to. But this is enough to make the point. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of salvation through repentance and faith, and baptism into His Name. The Good News is plainly incomplete without a clear call to the people to repent and believe in Gods Son, Jesus Christ, as His Messiah. To share the gospel is to share the saving significance of the story of Jesus Christ and invite people to respond to it. 3. THE GOSPEL IN THE APOSTOLIC CHURCHES As Orthodox students of the New Testament and early Church, it is vitally important to ask, How did this gospel live on in the Church the apostles ministered to and, eventually, left behind? This gospel that narrates the story of God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ yielded three permanent developments in the wider apostolic Churches. The basic narrative develops, first, into the canonical Gospels . The Gospels themselves Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are embodiments of the gospel itself. The narrative of the story about Jesus became the fourfold witness to Jesus Christ in the Churchs canonical Gospels. Far from being precursors to gospel preaching, the Gospels themselves embody the story of the Messiah that is the skeleton for all genuine gospel preaching. We dont often think of the gospels doing that, but that is what they did. The gospels themselves are the product of a Church that is preaching the gospel! Look at what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are doing, and you will see a Church that is preaching the gospel in a gospel sort of way. They narrate the saving significance of the story of Jesus Christ, and they call their readers to repentance and faith in Him. Second, in addition to that basic story line leading inexorably to the Gospels themselves, baptism is a gospel rite. Baptism is both death and resurrection in Romans 6:1-14, and one can infer that the rite is a gospeling event. I spoke of this above but wanted to call attention to the sacramental nature of the gospel. The baptismal liturgy is an evangelical sacrament of the churchs symbolic and ritual proclamation of Christ. It summons us and our children to costly faith and discipleship. Listen to the contemporary baptismal rite in our Church which remains faithful to the apostolic faith: At one point in the service the priest asks the following questions THREE TIMES: Do you renounce Satan and all his angels and all his works and all his service and all his pride? (Answer: I do) Have you renounced Satan? (Answer: I have) Breathe and spit on him! (spit) Do you unite yourself to Christ? (Answer: I do!) Have you united yourself to Christ? (Answer: I have!) Do you believe in Him? (Answer: I believe in Him as King and as God!) In this liturgical setting the gospel of Christ is vividly confessed. The conversion theology of the liturgy is directly tied to the gospel and saving story of Jesus Christ. One would be hard pressed to find a clearer gospel rite than this one.

But what is the relation between the Gospel and infant baptism? What does baptism mean to an adult Orthodox Christian today? I will answer that in the last part of our lecture and perhaps answer some questions. For it is there that the gospel speaks forcefully to those of us who grew up in the Church but strangely were never asked to respond wholeheartedly to the gospel. Third, in addition to that basic story line leading to the writing of the Gospels themselves, and the rite of baptism, the gospel also developed into an embodied rite, the Eucharist . The apostle Paul, at the end of his presentation of the words of institution, says this: For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lords death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26). Eucharist is evangelism according to the apostle Paul. The death, resurrection and Second Coming of Christ are the very core of the Eucharistic celebration. 4. The Gospel in the History of the Church to Fall of Constantinople (1453) Niceea and Chalcedon Reductive realities are so at work in populist understandings of the gospel among Protestant evangelicals today, especially in America, that they can be reduced at times to the simple assertion, Jesus came to die for sins so humans can go to heaven when they die. While this is true, it is put to a shivering, revealing test when they are faced with the robust and profound articulations of the gospel in the history of the Church. In particular, 1 Corinthians15:1-8 became the scaffolding for the development of early Christian orthodox creeds. The creeds, and one thinks here of the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, bring to expression the dynamic significance, with a focus on Christology usually, of what lies behind and under a proper understanding of the gospel. The creeds are the ongoing explication of the tradition process at work from the time of the apostle Paul onwards (see 1 Corinthians 15:1 [parelabete or received; see also Luke 1:2; 1 Cor. 11:23; 2 Thess 2:15]. The Nicene Creed and its later developments were not exercises simply in sophisticated theology but in the exploration of what had always been at work in the gospel (tradition) itself. Their narrative anchor in 1 Cor 15:1-8 proves this and it justifiable to say that the creeds are instances of gospeling and traditioning. The early orthodox creeds, however, emerge out of the dynamics of gospel work and pastoral theology on the part of seminal influences in the Church. Orthodoxy is gospel centered at heart, and one needs to emphasize that. Orthodoxy is evangelical in the proper senses of the word. Catechesis Because of the significance of the creedal formulations of the orthodox faith in the earliest churches, there developed a profound, if at times elaborate and overdone, catechesis that prepared a person for baptism. Two of the more noteworthy instances of such a catechesis can be found in Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, and in his younger contemporary John Chrysostoms Baptismal Instructions. It is sometimes missed how significant catechesis is for comprehending the gospel for premoderns. For them, a profound educational process was at work that prepared the catechumen in mind and soul for the holy moment of baptism and Eucharist. This liturgical shaping of gospel is inherent in all understandings of the gospel in the history of the Church. Icons In Christian iconography, the Incarnation and Resurrection formed the basis for the justification of icons in the iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries. Building on Scripture and the conclusions reached by the Council of Chalcedon nearly three hundred years earlier, the Orthodox drew out the implications of the gospel for Christian art, arguing that icons function as witnesses to the ultimate transfiguration of the cosmos. Above all else, they are dogmatic confessions in lines and colors that the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (Jn. 1.14) The mystery of the Incarnation of the Word made flesh became the medium of theological integration of the gospel in all its rich complexity.
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Following the cosmic dimensions of salvation described by St. Paul in Colossians 1, all creation is believed to have been affected by the salvation accomplished by the Incarnate Lord. Thus creation becomes a vehicle of saving grace through the Churchs physical sacraments, by its audible preaching of the gospel, by pen and parchment of the written Word (the Bible), by the visible witness of the Churchs icons, by the blessing of the body in prayer and even in the daily routines of everyday life. Mystical Theology Finally, the gospel story of the Incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension and sending of the Spirit on Pentecost is imbedded in the mystical theology of the Church. Great saints, such as Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas taught by word and life the need for a direct, personal experience of the gospel. Palamas, the last great theologian and mystic of the Church, synthesized the preceding centuries of patristic tradition concerning the knowledge of God. His famous essence/energies distinction clarified the difference between Gods unknowable essence and his knowable energies realities inherent in the very Incarnation of the Logos. Based on the earlier Council of Chalcedon and St. Maximus the Confessor, Palamas strenuously defended the churchs teaching that a direct, personal experience of God himself (theosis) was accessible through Gods energies made available through they hypostatic union of the divine and human natures of Christ. God gives himself to us in a living, personal way so that the gift and the giver are one and the same. This union according to energy is a patristic way of affirming the good news of the gospel. This union becomes accessible to all those who are in Christ through the gospel sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. It was Palamas defense of the knowability of God through participation in the life of the Church and the monastic practice of hesychasm (stillness) that gave to Orthodoxy its personalist emphasis on Christian spirituality. Summary: I have only begun to touch the surface in this brief lecture on the Paschal Mystery in the Life of the Church. I left out much such as Irenaeus rule of faith, St. Athanasius classic text On the Incarnation of the Word and more. But we must summarize now. In sum, the content of the gospel in the Orthodox Church from the biblical and patristic tradition in the first 14 centuries is Jesus of Nazareth, Gods only-begotten Son, who became what we are by being born of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos (God-bearer), and who suffered and died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven and sent His Spirit into the life of the Church. Christ did this so that we might become by grace what he is by nature so that all those who put their faith in him may be joined to him and participate in the fellowship he shares within the life of the Holy Trinity and be joined with one another in his body, the Church. The Church celebrates this Good News and its life-giving power in its sacramental life and its worship of God the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. It may be said, therefore, that over the entire course of Eastern Orthodox history, Christ himself, as one of the Holy Trinity, was the unifying medium through which the church interpreted the whole range of Christian doctrine, worship and spirituality. The Church is thus the eschatological presence and promise of the very Kingdom of God preached by the very Word made flesh. MISSIOLOGICAL CHALLENGES With all this Good News in the Church, we end strangely where we began! Millions of Orthodox Christians all over the world today are experientially removed from these realities. As noted in my introduction, we have cultural Christianity but seemingly very little real life-changing experience with the Risen Lord. Why? I believe the answer is very simple: We are leaving the work of the gospel unfinished in our Churches! And you students are the hope of the Church. It is up to you to make a difference.
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As I demonstrated in my treatment of the New Testament, every act of gospel communication in the New Testament required a response from the people who heard it. Without a call to respond, the celebration of the gospel in the worshipping life of the Church remains an unfinished task it is a truncated gospel. What I'm saying is that contemporary Orthodoxy possesses the gospel in a formal way but we are not translating it in a relevant, life-changing way. The clarity of the gospel is not intentionally made central to our liturgical services and everyday lives. Formally , in its liturgy, in practice, however, often it is not. Just because the gospel is formally in the life of the Church does not mean that Orthodox parishioners have understood and appropriated its message! Our bishops, priests and lay leaders need to make the gospel crystal clear and absolutely central in our parishes. And they must call our people to respond to it by embracing Jesus Christ through repentance and faith. This is not to say sermons are not preached. They are, and often are eloquent. But very often what priests preach are not the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and His call to total commitment and what that means to everyday life and liturgy. Our leaders sometimes wrongly assume everybody knows about that subject. Instead of Christ-centered messages we hear sermons dealing with isolated moral values, social issues, money, the environment, or the need for more Church attendance all inseparably related to the gospel, but not to be confused with the good news itself. In effect, the gospel of salvation is replaced with a social gospel or a liturgical gospel (as if simply getting involved in society or "going to Church" is all that is needed). I often wonder, "Are our people really evangelized, or are they simply sacramentalized?" True sacramental preaching makes the gospel central to every liturgical act and every liturgical season of fasting and prayer. Without the centrality of the gospel we end up imposing on our people the evil of religious formalism and barren ritualism. It is, in effect, not a true Orthodoxy but a false Orthodoxy. Bishops and priests must not take for granted that everyone in the Church is converted and has no need to hear the basic gospel message. The life-changing message of the forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ must be deliberately applied to the entire sacramental life of the Church. Christcentered preaching and Christ-centered worship must be faithfully performed by our priests and bishops if they wish to truly worship God in "spirit and in truth" (John 4.24). Speak from the Center! I was recently giving a weekend retreat at an Orthodox parish. The priest and I were having a heart-to-heart talk in his office about the pastoral needs of the parish. In desperation, he asked, How can I keep the gospel central to all we do in Church? I know its there in the liturgy, but how can I talk about it in a life-changing way for my people? The answer was simple: Speak from the center! I replied. I cupped my hands together to form a circle before me eyes. Imagine that circle is Jesus. Emphasize Him first and foremost and then, from the center, move out to the icons, incense, hymnography, feasts, fasts and everything else we do in Church. Start with Christ, in His Trinitarian relations, and keep Him on the throne in everything you do. Show how He relates to everything in the Church. The priests eyes began to light up with recognition. Yes, that makes sense he said. I continued: Dont do it the other way around. Dont talk about icons in the abstract, as though they had a life of their own. Speak about Christ and how He is the ultimate content of our sacred images. Icons simply testify that the Word became flesh (John 1.14). The saints depicted in them are nothing less than Christ-bearers. They show us what God can do in the life of a man or woman who is fully yielded to the will of God. Do you see how its all about Gods revelation in Christ? I like that, said the priest. Thats just what Im going to do. The point: Speak from the center! and everything else will come into focus.

Wonderful consequences will result if we intentionally make the gospel clear and central to our Church life, as it actually is. Once Jesus, in His Trinitarian relations, is proclaimed in all the Church's sacraments and liturgical actions, the Churchs preaching, worship, missions, and education will reflect that Christ-centeredness. For example, Worship services will be more meaningful because the priest will show how Christ heals us through the different sacraments. The Divine Liturgy will not focus on the Eucharist per se in the abstract -- but on Christ in the life-giving sacrament. The Liturgy of the Word (the first half of the liturgy) directs us to think this way. The priest elevates the Book of the Gospels as he goes in procession so that we will be properly focused on the Person of Christ in the Eucharist that follows. Christian education will not simply be about learning the symbolic meaning of the priest's vestments, Church architecture, etc., but on the Bible itself and how Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity are the primary focus of those vestments and artistic expressions of theology. If I am correct in saying that the most urgent need in the Orthodox world today is the need for an internal mission of re-converting our people to Jesus Christ, then we must focus on reaching out to parishioners who are Orthodox in name only. We must explain the gospel all over again to them as if for the first time! We need to give the gospel and then ask them to do something about it: Repent and believe! We must show them that it is not enough simply to be Orthodox but to trust in Christ just as they responded to Peters sermon on the day of Pentecost. They should not be re-baptized, of course, but they will experience their baptism in a life-changing way as described by our mystical theologians St. Symeon the New Theologian and others. In short, we need to make the pulpit agree with the altar. Strange as it may sound, the Churchs preaching needs to become more Eucharistic. Why? Because the Eucharist proclaims the gospel! It proclaims the Lords death, until He comes. The death, resurrection and second coming of Christ are the very core of the Good News. Quite simply, we need to recover the gospel dimensions of our Churchs faith (see my chapter The Evangelical Theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism , ed. James Stamoolis (Zondervan, 2004)). Consider this single proposition: If the gospel is made clearer and more central to all we do in the Church, we will truly be Orthodox in reality and not in name only. I am not trying to be simplistic or reductionistic; on the contrary, I am seeking to be faithful to the maximalist vision of the faith of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things, and the cure for all our sins and weaknesses. Finally, Be Clear About the Gospel and Make it the Core of Your Life and Ministry In the end, if we Orthodox wish to possess a truly Incarnational, Trinitarian faith we will need to constantly recover the personal and relational aspects of God in every life-giving action of the Church. Failure to keep the gospel central will constitute a theological and experiential denial of our own faith. We need rather to recover the evangelical dimensions of our total Church life. The liturgy itself exhorts us to that end. The next time you go to Church, notice whats resting on the very center of the altar table. Its the Book of the Gospels! Why? Because the good news lies at the very core of the Churchs faith. If we keep our eyes faithfully on that or rather Him our lives will be properly focused and spiritually balanced. An Invitation

There is big difference between knowing the gospel and being asked to respond to it. As we saw, every time the gospel was presented in the New Testament (in preaching, at baptism or at the Eucharist), it was always accompanied by an invitation to respond to it. There is a true story Id like to tell that illustrates the difference. A number of years ago, there was a famous tightrope walker named Blondin. One day he decided to do a very difficult balancing act. He went to the great Niagra Falls in Canada where he was going to walk across the Falls on a tight rope. So he tied one end of the rope on one side of the Falls and the other end on the other side. There were hundreds of people gathered around to see if hed fall or make it across. He took a balancing pole and placed his foot on the rope and slowly walked across the falls. If he lost his balance, he would die for certain on the rocks beneath him. So he walked to one side of the fall, and then slowly turned around and walked back. Everyone cheered when they saw him make it safely across the falls. Then Blondin did something unexpected. He turned to the people and asked them a challenging question: How many of you believe I could put one of you on my back and take you safely across the falls and back? Everyone raised their hands and cheered him on. Very well, he said. Then he walked over to one man and said Do you believe I can take you across the falls safely? Yes, I do! he replied. OK, said Blondin, Then get on my back and lets go! Oh, no, I cant do that, the man responded. I believe you can take me across the falls, but Im not willing to get on your back. So Blondin went to everyone in the crowd and asked the same question. Everyone believe Blondin could do it, but no one was willing to get on his back and trust him to take them across the falls. Finally a little 12 year old boy stepped up to Blondin and said, Sir, I believe you can take me across the falls. You do? Yes, said the boy. OK then, get on my back. Lets go! (Now I dont know where this little boys mother was but he got on Blondins back anyway!) Very slowly Blondin put his foot on the rope and began walking to the other side of the falls with the crashing water beneath him. Then he slowly walked back safely and everyone cheered with loud applause. Do you see the point of this story? Its not enough just to say I believe you can take me across the falls. Someone had to actually get on Blondins back and trust him to do so. So it is with the gospel in the life of the Orthodox Church. Theres a difference between believing the gospel with your head and actually entrusting your life to Jesus Christ. Whenever the gospel is given, it always demands a response. It is not enough simply to believe what the gospel stands for. Each of us must get on Christs back and entrust our lives to Him in faith. If we do that with our Orthodox people we will see the Church thrive in unprecedented ways. We will turn our people from nominal Orthodox to real Christians who know God because they have responded to the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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