Isaiah Archives - Page 4 of 8

Forgiveness – Do We Know What We’re Doing?

03/08/2019

By Fr Stephen Freeman, March 13, 2016 The first service of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church is “Forgiveness Vespers,” served on the eve of Monday of the First Week. There is nothing unusual about the service itself – other than the “rite of forgiveness” appended to it. In this, the priest and the faithful ask forgiveness of one another. Often this is done with mutual prostrations. Each asks the forgiveness of the other. The

A Lesser Atonement

02/22/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 28, 2015 It has long been known that people tend to see what they think they are seeing. This is particularly the case where what we think is familiar and expected. The case of “mistaken identity” flows from our assumptions and expectations. This is nowhere more true than when we are reading Scripture. If a passage has years of associations, it is almost impossible to see anything else. I have noticed this

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. Christmas Eve.

12/24/2018

A WOMAN I KNOW, whose family owns a retail business in a small town, once commented, “Christmas is not a pleasant time at our house.” I found this a sad commentary on what Christmas has become for so many of us: a time of increased anxiety and stress and discord. We lash out at loved ones because we’re spending money we can’t afford to spend, or, as with this woman, because Christmas is what makes

The Thirty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. The Story of Christ’s Birth.

12/21/2018

The story of Christ’s birth speaks to us about the mysterious ways of God. The Triune God acts in ways that we do not always expect! His ways are truly wonder-filled. For centuries, the Ancient Israelites had expected the Messiah. The prophets, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah, called the people to readiness and openness to God’s actions. Their message provided the people with indications about the coming Messiah. Yet, when ‘the fullness of time had come’

The Thirty-Fifth Day of Christmas Advent. Would Have Been!

12/19/2018

I LOVE THESE LINES IN ISAIAH; the sweetness of their assurance is absolute: I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. And my heart is broken by the verses that follow. O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; Your offspring would have been

The Thirty-Fourth Day of Christmas Advent. CRY!

12/18/2018

A VOICE SAYS, “CRY!” And so I prepare to lift my voice to cry. But, like the holy prophet, even as I take in breath to make my cry, I wonder, “What shall I cry?” I’m guessing that this must be the unceasing prayer of the prophet; it is certainly the unceasing prayer of the poet. I would suppose that very few poets turn out to be prophets, but what I gather, even so, is

The Twenty-Sixth Day of Christmas Advent. Miracles Happen.

12/10/2018

IT IS JUST AS THE PROPHET ISAIAH SAID 700 YEARS before the birth of Jesus: the deaf shall hear and the blind shall see. It will happen “in that day,” said Isaiah. The angels over the fields of Bethlehem announced the coming of that day. That day will continue until the end of time. That day is now. The two blind men were persistent. Like so many who came to Jesus in their neediness, they

The Twenty-First Day of Christmas Advent. The Prince of Peace.

12/05/2018

WILL IT REALLY HAPPEN? Will it really happen that one day the wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the leopard with the baby goat, and the lion with the calf, and “a little child shall lead them”? Such, says the prophet Isaiah, is the promise of the Peaceable Kingdom. In our unpeaceable world, we long for the fulfillment of the promise. Born into a world of raging conflicts, the little child who leads

Shared Power

10/22/2018

The God of Jesus Christ exists entirely for, with, through another. The law of personhood is that the only way one “has” oneself at all is by giving oneself away. —Catherine Mowry LaCugna [1] What if we actually dropped into this Trinitarian flow and let it be our major teacher? Even our very notion of society, politics, and authority would utterly change, because most of it is still top down and outside in. Trinitarian theology says

Singing the Lord’s Song

10/12/2018

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 18, 2015 Man is a musical composition, a wonderfully written hymn to powerful creative activity. – St. Gregory of Nyssa (PG 44, 441 B) In St. Gregory’s thought, man is not only a singer, but a song. We are not only song, but the song of God. Indeed, within one theme of the fathers, all of creation is the song of God, spoken (or sung) into existence. “Let there be light,” is more

Archive

Forgiveness – Do We Know What We’re Doing?

A Lesser Atonement

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. Christmas Eve.

The Thirty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. The Story of Christ’s Birth.

The Thirty-Fifth Day of Christmas Advent. Would Have Been!

The Thirty-Fourth Day of Christmas Advent. CRY!

The Twenty-Sixth Day of Christmas Advent. Miracles Happen.

The Twenty-First Day of Christmas Advent. The Prince of Peace.

Shared Power

Singing the Lord’s Song

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