Category: Union with God

From Mud to Light – the Saving Work of Christ

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 207 Leave a Comment on %s
Man is mud whom God has commanded to become god. – St. Gregory of Nyssa +++ How do you create a God? How do you create a being that has true freedom, true love and thus, true existence? This is obviously not an entirely rational question – but it is a serious question for Christian thought. For, as St. Gregory of Nyssa notes, the creation of man is more than the story in…

Emptiness

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 3 Leave a Comment on %s
Our life in the Body of Christ begins with our Baptism into Christ’s death (Romans 6:3). This phrase explains what it means to be Baptized “into the Body of Christ” (I Corinithians 12:13).  To exist in the Body of Christ is to do so by existing in the death of Christ, as well as His resurrection. How this makes us “His body” is amplified when we see that “His death” is more…

Everything Is In Motion

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 38 Leave a Comment on %s
For years I have been told that the meaning of the word hamartia (translated “sin”) means “to miss the mark.” This is certainly accurate. However, the image I have always had in mind has been an arrow aimed at a target and missing the bull’s eye. Thus I have thought of my life as a moral effort to hit the target. This is not incorrect but it leaves out important information. God…

Salvation, Ontology, Existential, and Other Large Words

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 56 Leave a Comment on %s
In recent posts I have contrasted morality with ontological, as well as existential, etc. I’ve had comments here and elsewhere in which people stumbled over the terms. The distinction offered is not a private matter. Orthodox theologians for better than a century have struggled to make these points as being utterly necessary to the life of the Orthodox faith. The following is a small article of mine that tries to do some…

The Day the Earth Stood Still

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 7 Leave a Comment on %s
Orthodox Christians (New Calendar) are currently observing a two-week fast in preparation for the Feast of the Dormition, a day which marks the death (“falling asleep”) of the Mother of God. For those for whom such feasts are foreign, it is easy to misunderstand what the Orthodox are about – and to assume that this is simply a feast to Mary because we like that sort of thing. Flippant attitudes fail to…

Miracles and Creation

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 25 Leave a Comment on %s
There is an aspect of the modern use of the word “miracle,” that is more than a little problematic. While it is true that a number of Orthodox hymns in referring to certain dramatic events use the phrase, “the order of nature is overthrown,” this is far from being a complete theological account of what we know as the miraculous. A common understanding in the secular world of the miraculous is that…

The Communion of Prayer

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 57 Leave a Comment on %s
Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12). Have you ever wondered what Jesus did when He prayed all night? Have you ever tried to pray all night? If your conception of prayer is a monologue of needs, information and requests, then your experience of prayer is either that it is very short…

Salvation, Prayer and Communion with God

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 27 Leave a Comment on %s
Few things are as fundamental to the New Testament as the reality of communion (koinonia). It means a commonality, a sharing and participation in the same thing. It is this commonality or sharing that lies at the very heart of our salvation. This communion is described in Christ’s “high priestly prayer”: I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they…

A Sacrifice of Emptiness – the Fullness of Life in Christ

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 35 Leave a Comment on %s
Conversation this past week on this site has centered around mercy and justice and the understanding of the sacrifice of Christ. I began with an article on a quote by St. Isaac of Syria, who famously questions the human concept of justice and its relation to God. The Christian treatment of the atonement – what does it mean to say that “Christ died for us” – has found expression in a variety…

We Have Seen

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 28 Leave a Comment on %s
St. John, in the prologue of his gospel, says the following: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father (John 1:14). In his first Epistle he says the following: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and…