Easter 2001 was to have been a glorious excursion into the Orthodox celebration of the world's greatest event. Unfortunately there was one little fact Anna and I did not know: Orthodox Easter (Pascha) begins about 10:00pm Saturday night and runs till about 4:00am Sunday morning. We thought by showing up in the vicinity of 7:00am-ish we'd make the "sunrise" service.
Out of luck due to indavertent ignorance, we eventually found our way to a local church of Christ (almost the only Stone-Campbell/Restorationist representation in the Chicago area). This church of Christ was a capella--no instruments. And also not a lot of anything else.
As many of you may know, but in case you don't, all Orthodox--even if they follow the Gregorian (or modern) calendar for the non-movable feasts--utilize by canonical fiat the Julian calendar to calculate Easter. The Julian calendar is about two weeks behind the current Gregorian calendar, and when you factor in the cycles of the moon, the differences in when Easter is celebrated can be several weeks.
In 2001, in one of those rare, and thus precious, cyclical patterns, Easter just happened to be celebrated at the same time by all Christian churches. So Anna and I went to the church of Christ hopeful. Here was a chance to reconnect with one of our heritage churches, and a chance to have some celebratory solidarity with our brother and sister Christians around the world.
Alas such was not the case. The only reference to Easter was made by the song leader about half-way through the song service when he said, "We don't need to celebrate Easter today because we celebrate it every Sunday." I wanted to say, "If this is how you do it every Sunday, then you don't celebrate it very well." In my great disappointment and ache, I would have felt justified, too. But I held my tongue, and tried to hold my anger in check. Needless to say, Anna and I have not been back.
The other most obvious lacks were an absence of almost all Christian ornamentation. There was a gold cross on the altar, and there were stained glass windows (which did not depict any pictorial scenes), but I cannot recall anything else except light colored wood and bare white walls. In what now does not seem too-surprising conformity, the sermon was primarily intellectual, about what we should understand of certain matters. There may have been some ethical application, but this did not stay with me. I had not worshipped in one of my heritage churches for a few years, but it was certainly familiar. This was my heritage. Admit nothing which cannot be proven from Scripture.
I don't recall any overt heresy, or non-Christian doctrine, taught at the church of Christ we visited. One may be guarded to some degree (though not completely) by sola scriptura. But then again, the silence may have spoken more to that. On that, more in a moment.
By way of contrast, today, I was struck by the incredibly tangible nature of Orthodox worship. I went to Matins and Divine Liturgy at All Saints again. Incense was thick. Candles were kissed and lit. People bowed, kissed icons, crossed themselves, tasted the body and blood of our Lord. Pregnant mothers had stoles laid across their heads, and hands placed on their head in blessing. Children were held and blessed. Blessed bread (the antidoron) was consumed. Some parishioners would take the antidoron home to use in their own homely liturgies. Everywhere language flowed like rivers of warm oil. Any chance to worship and glorify the Trinity is a good one, and many are programmed in the Liturgy. Saints relics were in the altar as the elements were consecrated. Crosses and Gospel books were kissed, as were the hands of the priests. The sermon was about time and eternity--intellectual topics to be sure--but mostly about how Christians sanctify time at transitions: Prayers are to be prayed, particularly the Our Father, at dawn, third hour, noon, ninth hour, evening; and, most gloriously, the Divine Liturgy on Sunday, the eighth day. This dates back to the New Testament and the book of Acts.
Surely my account is biased in feeling, but not in fact. Which service believed in the Incarnation? Or, perhaps more fairly, at which service was such belief most clearly in evidence?
At this time of the Christmas feast (only a week of the feast left!), and with a pregnant wife, it surely is no wonder that the Incarnation is at the forefront of my mind.
I love my heritage churches. I take them with me always. But while there is something attractive about the simplicity and "purity" of minimalist Christianity, in the end, for me, it leaves me feeling empty. And it takes me dangerously close to Gnosticism, which denigrates the physical for the exaltation of the spiritual. In the end, however, by divorcing the spiritual and the physical, however naively and unintended, one is left with an ugly monstrosity that has little to do with how I live in the present now. Some people like that--or think they do. But the void created by this divorce has to be filled somehow, and so we quite instinctively turn back to things, but things left unconsecrated. In our technologically advanced age that means we are left with godless consumerism. We turn again to things to fill the void. But unless the physical is sanctified, by the Spirit and by prayer, we only pile emptiness on emptiness.
And in so doing, we lose our souls.
Christ is born to us. Glory to God in the highest.
Posted by Clifton at December 29, 2002 01:03 PM | TrackBack