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Meaning of the name “Christian”

أكتوبر 4th, 2007
Meaning of the name
"Christian", a homily on Acts 11:26
by Fr Anthony Coniaris
"…and in Antioch the disciples
were for the first time called
Christians" (Acts 11:26).
The name "Christian" was first given to the followers of Jesus in Antioch. Antioch was notorious for its ability to produce nicknames. They had one even for the emperor whom they once called "the Goat." Thus the name "Christian" was given to the followers of Jesus neither by themselves nor by the Jews, but by the Greek speaking pagans in Antioch. It was a nickname, a by- word, given in derision and contempt. The Christians took this name given in mockery and turned it into one of the most revered names in history. The name tells us something very important about the Christian: that there is a resemblance between Christ and the Christian. The Christian is first and foremost a CHRIST person.
A New Name For a New People The people in Antioch had many names in their resourceful language but they had no name to cover this type of character. These followers of Jesus did things, said things, lived things hitherto unheard of in the history of the world. They lived purity — purity of a new order, purity of thought and feeling. They lived forgiveness — forgiveness of a new kind, forgiveness for friend and foe alike. They lived love — love of a new order, love for those who least deserved it. They lived humility — a new kind of humility the world had not seen before except in Jesus! So they made a new name for these people in whom they saw the purity, the forgiveness, the love, and the humility of Jesus. They called them CHRISTIANOI, Christ people! There was something so new about these people, something so refreshingly different, that they coined a new name for them. "…and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians" (Acts 1 I:26).
The early Christians
In 248 A.D. Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, wrote the following to his friend Donatus about Christians: "This seems to be a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden under the shadow of these vines. But if I climb some great mountain and look out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see — brigands on the road, pirates on the seas, in the amphitheaters men murdering each other to please the applauding crowds, and under all roofs I see misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it, I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted but they care not, These people, Donatus, are Christians and I am one of them."
They were a different people, those early Christians, conformed not to the world but to Christ. Christ people! The Athenian orator Aristides, writing to the Emperor Hadrian (117-138 A.D.), described the early Christians as follows: "The Christians know and trust God… They do good to their enemies. They love one another… They rescue the orphan from him who does him violence… If anyone among them is poor and needy, and they do not have food to spare, they fast for two or three days, that they may supply him with necessary food, They scrupulously obey the commands of their Messiah. Every morning and every hour they thank and praise God for His loving-kindness toward them…. Because of them there flows forth all the beauty that there is in the world. But the good deeds they do, they do not proclaim in the ears of the multitude, but they take care that no one shall perceive them… Truly, this is a new people and there is something divine in them." A new name had to be found for those new people — a name that expressed the Christ Who lived in them and made them "the salt of the earth and the light of the world.": CHRISTIANS! CHRIST PEOPLE!
"… and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians" (Acts 11:26).
What’s in a name?
What’s in a name? The first thing that should exist in a name is a resemblance of the one named to the one after whom one is named. Alexander the Great once found a soldier in his ranks who was accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy. When asked his name, the soldier replied, "Alexander." Whereupon Alexander the Great replied, "Either change your name or change your behaviour." Some of us, who bear the name "Christian" lightly, need to heed Alexander’s advice.
What is a Christian?
Sometimes people ask, "What is a Christian? How do I know if I am a Christian?" If someone were to ask you, "Why are you a Christian?" what would you reply? Would you say, "I am a Christian because…." Because of what? Because you were born in a Christian family? Because you were baptised? Because you try to do good? Because you try to practice the golden rule? To be a Christian means far more than that. To see exactly what it means let us go back to the very first Christians, the twelve apostles. How did they become Christians? One day Jesus said to them, "Follow me!" "And they forsook their nets and followed Him."
Here we have our answer. A Christian is someone who follows Christ consciously and by personal choice, who responds to His call, who says "Yes" to Him. First and always it is a relationship to a Person — not to a code or philosophy.
To be a Christian is to be committed to God in Christ. It is to be a living member of His Body, the Church. It is to be under compulsion to live a certain kind of life — the life of Christ.
When a famous person was asked why he was a Christian, he replied, "The world is full of fantasy; there must be some reality somewhere, and the only reality that I’ve found is the reality of the Christian faith." To be a Christian is to have found reality in Christ. If I can say, "My name is Christian," it is a truth far greater in value than any human being can possibly conceive. To be a son or daughter of God, loved by God the Father, redeemed by God the Son, indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, guaranteed His eternal and abundant riches — all this is beyond one’s wildest dreams. Yet all this is mine, for my name is Christian! The privilege of being a Christian bears a responsibility — the responsibility of knowing that I am here not to blow my own horn but to glorify Christ, to be His servant in today’s world, to work for Him, and speak for Him, and bear a cross for Him, to deny self, to minister to the sick, the weak, the hungry, the oppressed in His Name.
"Have I ever seen a Christian?"
A little boy once asked his father, "What is a Christian?" The father, who knew the Bible well, described to his son what being a Christian really is according to the New Testament. So thoroughly did he explain the matter that when he was through, the little fellow said, "Father, have I ever seen a Christian?" The early pagans in Antioch saw Christians. In fact, they saw Christ in His followers — so much so that they called them by the very name of Christ. Does the world today see something of Christ’s love, His forgiveness, His humility in us? Is or life-style, our words and deeds, a witness of our faith in Christ? When asked for the definition of a Christian, a person pointed to a friend he knew and said, "There goes a Christian!" He was a person whose life could not be explained apart from Christ.
Can anyone point to you or me and say the same? Why not? If my faith is real, if my commitment is true, if Jesus comes first in my life, if He is my ALL, if "for me to live is Christ," why not? Why shouldn’t Christ show in my everyday life as He did in the lives of the early Christians?
They just shine
Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." Christians are people who shine for Christ. As William Sangster said once, "They don’t try to shine: they just shine. It is an event to meet them. When they come into a room it is like the light being turned on. They seem to have some secret of inner happiness, of poise, of patience, and an inexhaustible capacity for love. They never speak ill of anyone else; they praise people who surpass them and do it with complete sincerity; they seldom talk of themselves and they listen when you are talking to them as though your thoughts were the most interesting thoughts they had ever heard. They are quietly strong. They leave an impression of utter goodness. Without knowing it, they put an ache in you to have this quality of life as well"*. It was because of such a Christ-like life-style that the early followers of Jesus came to be called Christians. "…and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians" (Acts 11:26). Would anyone be able to look at me today and guess that I am a Christian?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I bear Your holy name. Send Your Holy Spirit to abide in me to help me bear also Your holy life: Your love, Your forgiveness, Your humility. Amen.
* "Holiness" (Pharos Paper) by William E. Sangster.
 

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You’re Invited…

أكتوبر 4th, 2007
You’re Invited…
(homily on Luke 14: 16-24)
by Fr Anthony M. Coniaris
The master of the feast made doubly sure that the guests received the invitations. He issued two invitations to each: the first was to tell each one that he was invited; the second, on the day of the dinner, to announce that all was ready: "Come; for all is now ready. "
"Come!" The Gospel is not so much a command as an offer; not so much a demand as a gift - an invitation to share in the unbelievable joy of the kingdom.
"Come!" God is expecting you! He is ready for the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame. He is ready for those who have spent their lives in the highways and byways of life. He invites all: "Come; for all is now ready. "
As a shepherd seeks for the lost sheep, as a woman gets down on her knees to look for a lost coin, as a father waits for the lost son to come home again, so God is ever seeking, calling, inviting.
"Come; for all is now ready. " Come you who seek meaning for life. Come you who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Come you who falter under the burden of sin and guilt. Come you who are anxious and fearful. Come you who mourn. Come you who seek peace and fulfillment. Come, "the table is richly laden. Fare ye royally on it. The calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry… Enjoy ye all the riches of his goodness.. Let no one mourn that he hath fallen again and chain; for forgiveness hath risen from the grave. Let no one fear death; for the death of our Saviour hath set us free. "
There are many people who consider Christianity a type of tyrannical religion. To them it is nothing but a series of commandments, You should do this. You should not do that. But Christianity is not first and foremost a "should" religion. It is first and foremost a "come" religion. The great drawing power of Christ is not in His "Thou shalt not" but in His "Come to me. " Come be filled with the Holy Spirit. Come be filled with the power of God’s presence. If we come to Him, then we shall do certain things, not because we "should" do them, but because we delight in doing them as an expression of our love for Jesus.
Commenting on this word "Come" and, in particular, on the words of Jesus "Come to me all you who labour… " St. Chrysostom wrote these precious words, "His invitation is one of kindness. His goodness is beyond description. ‘Come to me all, ‘ not only rulers but also their subjects, not only the rich, but also the poor, not only the free but also the slaves, not only men but women, not only the young but also the old, not only those of sound body but also the maimed and those with mutilated limbs, all of you, He says, come! For such are the Master’s gifts; He knows no distinction of slave and free, nor of rich and poor, but all such inequality is cast aside. ‘Come, ‘ He says, ‘all who labour and are burdened!’
"And see whom He calls! Those who have spent their strength in breaking the law, those who are burdened with their sins, those who can no longer lift up their heads, those who are filled with shame, those who can no longer speak out. And why does He call them? Not to demand an accounting, nor to hold court. But why? To relieve them of their pain, to take away their heavy burdens. "
When Jesus says, "Come, " He does not stand on the top rung of a long, high ladder in heaven to signal us to start climbing. For He Himself has climbed down the ladder to stand at our very elbows. He has come to us.
"For us people and for our salvation (He) came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and became man" (Nicene Creed). "She brought forth her first-born Son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger. " He came, born in a stable. He came and died on the cross. He came to prepare the banquet of salvation for us. And now - today - He sends His servants to extend us His invitation: "Come, for all is now ready. "
Far from being accepted, this gracious invitation was rejected. "I have bought a field .. I have bought five yoke of oxen… I have married a wife… I cannot come. Have me excused .. " This was the response. Is it not the same response today? Our great tragedy is that we end up accepting the wrong invitations in life. We miss the banquet, the abundant life of Christ, and settle for the lesser, and the fleeting. And Jesus still laments, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not " (Matt 23 37).
"Come, for all is now ready. " "But," you object, "I am not worthy to come. My clothes are not suitable. I wouldn’t know how to act in the Master’s palace." None of this makes any difference. The invitation goes out to all. The good news is that you don’t have to be perfect to come. Come as you are - with all of your sins and sorrows, weaknesses and failures, problems and anxieties. Come to the only One who can forgive you and heal you. Come to the only One who can make you worthy.
"Come, for all is now ready. " Coming to Jesus is a way of life. It begins with baptism. It involves daily commitment, repentance, obedience, worship, prayer, Bible reading, and regular communion. It involves a daily walk with Jesus. It involves not only "Come!" but also "Go!" "Go out into the world and be my disciples. Be servants. Be lights. Be salt."
None of us will ever know the wonder of the brightly lighted banquet hall, the goodness of the food, and the joy of being a part of this amazing fellowship unless we lay aside the excuses and dare to accept the invitation.
Come to Him now and be assured that on the last day He will direct to you the greatest "Come" of all; "Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
Prayer
Lord, I’m coming. No excuses. No alibis. I know I’m not worthy. Without You, I have lived as if I were blind and lame. I come hungry and thirsty. I come to be fed. Amen. 
 

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How to Celebrate Pentecost at Home

أكتوبر 4th, 2007
by Fr. Anthony Coniaris
Since Pentecost is the birthday of the Church it can be celebrated in the home by baking a special birthday cake for the Church and serving it as dessert. One candle may be used to represent each 100 years of the Church’s existence. Nineteen or twenty candles may be used. The whole family can sing "Happy Birthday" to the Church and blow the candles out together.
The opportunity may be used to read and discuss the Scripture lessons that are read in Church on Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11 and John 7:37-52, 8:12).
A discussion can follow on what the Church is. It is the Body of Christ through which He continues to be present in the world today: to teach us, forgive us, guide us, bless us, strengthen us. After Christ ascended into heaven, He established the Church to carry on His work. When we go to Church on Sunday, we are going to Christ. When we support the Church with our offerings, we are supporting Christ. When we listen to the Church, we are listening to Christ.
The Body of Christ
The Church is called the Body of Christ because just as Christ once used His physical Body to do the work of God in the world, so now He uses His mystical Body, the Church.
On the long high front wall of a church that was just being completed, an artist started painting a picture of Christ as the Good Shepherd. Only the firm brush strokes outlining the head could be seen. A stranger stopped in and asked curiously, "When will the picture be finished?"
A workman replied. ”That picture? It is finished.”
"Finished?" repeated the startled visitor. "Why all it is, is the outline of a head. Most of it is still missing - the eyes, mouth, arms, legs and feet - the whole body is missing!"
"You won’t see that on a wall," the workman replied. "The body of Christ is the congregation of people who will be worshipping in this church. The Body of Christ is the Church."
St. Paul writes, "He (Christ) is the head of the body, the Church" (Col. 1:18). St. [John] Chrysostom said, "Christ is the head of the body, but what can the head do without hands, without feet, without eyes, without ears, without a mouth?"
As the Head of the Body, Christ issues orders to the various members. He is the brain; the One in Whom all the fullness of God dwells bodily. What a privilege God bestows on us when He ties us so intimately with Christ and with each other as to make us constitute one Body with Him as the Head. When we meditate on this analogy, we come to look at prayer as the members of the Body (the Church) reporting for duty to the Head (Christ). He continues to be present in the world today.
The Holy Spirit
Finally, parents may explain that Pentecost is the day on which the Holy Spirit came to us in His fullness. On this day we kneel three times during the church service as we pray together with the priest that the same Holy Spirit Who filled the first apostles with God’s presence and power may fill us today with the same power that we may experience the reality of God in our lives.
The Holy Spirit must be constantly attained. He should be received daily. To achieve this, it is necessary to wait prayerfully and expectantly for Him as the apostles did before Pentecost. "All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer…" (Acts 1:14). This kind of prayerful waiting is essential if we are to receive the Holy Spirit.
St. Seraphim of Sarov describes the whole purpose of the Christian life as nothing more than the receiving of the Holy Spirit: "Prayer, fasting, vigils and all other Christian acts, however good they may be in themselves, certainly do not constitute the aim of our Christian life; they are but the indispensable means of attaining that aim. For the true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. As for fasts, vigils, prayer and almsgiving, and other good works done in the name of Christ, they are only the means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God… [Ed. Note: emphasis mine]. Prayer is always possible for everyone, rich and poor, noble and simple, strong and weak, healthy and suffering, righteous and sinful. Great is the power of prayer; most of all does it bring the Spirit of God and easiest of all is it to exercise."
It has been said that St. Seraphim in the above words sums up the whole spiritual tradition of the Orthodox Church. For, what is greater than to possess the Holy Spirit? And what is easier than the means by which He comes to us: prayer?
No prayer is complete unless it includes a petition to the Holy Spirit that He come to dwell in us. Thus, through prayer every day becomes Pentecost.
This would be a good time to teach your children one of the best known and most used prayers of the Orthodox Church. Almost every one of our church services begins with it. It is a prayer to the Holy Spirit and should be used often in your family devotions:
O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who are everywhere present and fills all things, Treasury of good gifts and Giver of Life, come and abide in us, and cleanse us of all impurity, and save our souls, 0 Good One.
 

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The Centrality of the Resurrection in the Orthodox Church

أكتوبر 4th, 2007
By Anthony M. Coniaris
      
       Someone said, "Easter is the one day in the year when anyone may attend church without incurring any suspicion that he is deeply committed to Christian faith and life."
       And yet Easter is the highest holy day of our Orthodox Christian faith. Without the resurrection of Jesus, life has no meaning. Referring to the burial of our body after we die, Pascal said, "The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play. They throw dirt over your head and it is finished forever." Without the resurrection, the ultimate end of man is nothing more than a shovel full of dirt over a dead body. Without the resurrection of Jesus, to use the words of Eric Hoffer, "We are condemned to death at birth, and life is a bus ride to the place of execution. All of our struggling and vying is about seats on the bus, and the ride is over before we know it."
       Death surrounds us. Daily we hear of war. The globe is overloaded with nuclear arsenals of death and destruction. Diseases old and new stalk our land, leaving death in their wake. Oppression and injustice rob human life of its fullness. Death is present in so many forms we could despair.
       If we are indeed part and parcel of a meaningless universe, the kind in which Jesus could be murdered on a cross with no resurrection, then being depressed only makes good sense. For, indeed, we have something to be depressed about.
       Father Dimitrii Dudko said, "What sense is there if everything ends in death? A person dies and that is it. One can only really speak of life if life is eternal."
       And that is why Easter is the festival of festivals for Orthodox Christianity. It is the festival of the most radical, decisive and ultimate deliverance and joy this universe has ever seen.
       Meliton of Sardis in a memorable Paschal letter written in the second century explains the reason for this Paschal joy by placing these words in the mouth of the Resurrected Christ:
Come to me all-you families of mankind, sullied with sin, and receive the remission of sins. For I am your forgiveness. I am the Pascha of salvation. I am the Lamb sacrificed for you. I am your redemption. I am your life. I am your resurrection. I am your light. I am your salvation. I am your king. I lead you to the heights of heaven. I will show you the Father eternal. I will raise you by my right hand.
       Father John Meyendorff explained what the centrality of Pascha in the
Orthodox Church means:
·         that in the midst of a world dominated by death, there is one single and unique hope: the Risen Christ:
·         that in the midst of a world conscious of its mortality and therefore determined by fear of death, there is a solution: life
·         that in the midst of a world which continually offers man false securities, such as power, money, illusions of “social” or “scientific” progress, there is also an offer made by God Himself: that of eternity and joy in Christ.
       There are those who say, "I believe only in the spiritual resurrection of Jesus," to which we reply, "There is no such thing as a spiritual resurrection. The Spirit of Jesus did not go into the tomb. It was His body that was laid in that sepulcher. His Spirit was alive as He descended into Hades to bring salvation to the Old Testament saints."
       It was not a ghost that walked out of that tomb. It was the whole person of Jesus Christ - body, soul, and divinity. Following the resurrection, Jesus ate and drank with His disciples even allowing them to touch Him to see that He was not a ghost. … for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have, he said in Luke 224:39.
       We live in the dark labyrinth of death. We seek desperately to discover the fabled lost thread of Ariadne, that will lead us to the way out, to the exit. That precious thread of Ariadne that leads us out of the dark labyrinth of death is none other than the Risen Christ. He is the exit from the dark tomb of death to life. This is expressed so well in the Orthodox icon of the Resurrection which shows the Risen Lord reaching down into the labyrinth of Hades to lift Adam and Eve and with them the rest of mankind from death to life.
       I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the ages to come, we proclaim in the Nicene Creed. Pascha involved the raising of the body of Jesus and it will involve our bodies when He comes again to raise us from the dead at the General Resurrection.
 

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The New Gnostics

أكتوبر 4th, 2007

By Anthony M. Coniaris

      
       St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:14, “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” Falsehood also disguises itself to appear as truth. The New Age religion, for example, is a grand collection of all the heresies (false teachings) that existed from the beginning of time. Yet, visit any large bookstore and you will find ten or more bookstalls under “New Age” and only two or three under “Christianity” or “World Religions”. Many brands of new age philosophies are again propagating themselves in today’s culture. These are nothing more than the revival and revitalization of the ancient practices of magic, natural healings and self- awareness.  Today, they bear the names of earth worship, humanism and the occult.
       The DaVinci Code fictionalizes the truth of Jesus. Liberal Christian churches deny basic Christian teachings such as the divinity of Jesus, his bodily resurrection, and His miracles
       Gnosticism, for example, is known to have flourished in the Hellenistic culture.  Some believe it originated in Persia.  The belief that knowledge, a special hidden knowledge, that only a few may possess, was the key to salvation. Scientology resembles these tenets today. Ancient Gnostic “gospels” written after the New Testament and condemned by the Church as pseudepigraphal and false are being resurrected as “genuine” gospels.
       To combat such heresies the early Church developed safeguards to protect the truth. They developed what is called the rule of faith – the Nicene Creed, the New Testament Canon, the role of bishops in apostolic succession – to keep individuals and groups from spinning any fantasy they liked and presenting it as the truth. This is why the Church developed the word “dogma” to signify a fixed, unchanging truth about God. Science, too, has dogmas, i.e., water is always H2O. Two plus two always equals four etc. These are dogmas or unchanging truths.
       The word “dogma” – truth – appeared only when heresy – untruth – began to threaten divinely revealed truth. Christos Yannaras tells us that, “the word ‘heresy’ means the choice, selection, and preference of one part of the truth to the detriment of the whole truth, the catholic universal truth.” Heresy, thus, is the opposite of catholicity (wholeness). It is to take a half-truth and pass it off as the whole truth as Arius did with the person of Jesus, claiming that Jesus was the Son of man but not the Son of God. The Church proclaimed the whole truth, the catholic truth, that Jesus was both God and man in one and the same Person. We know that there is not a greater or more dangerous lie than a half-truth. That is why the Church, using dogmas and the Nicene Creed, defined truth and established its boundaries once and for all.
       Today, however, dogma is a bad word because it implies to the secular, unbelieving world, that there exists such a thing as absolute, unchanging truth. Some even say that there cannot be any heresy today because there is no longer any dogma (absolute truth) from which to stray. Contrary to what some believe, however, dogmas do not imprison the truth. They set truth free by defining it and establishing its boundaries. One of the early church fathers said, “Something can sound very logical and still be false” (Mark Felix). This is how the Anti-Christ will deceive many in the last days. St. Irenaeus summarized these thoughts when he wrote in his masterful work Against Heresies:

 

Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself.

 

       As Solomon stated in the book of Ecclesiastes, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.”

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