September: Day 23: Teaching 1:
The Conception of the Honorable Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John
(A Person's Triple Birthday)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
The Conception of the Honorable Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John
(A Person's Triple Birthday)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. Today, brethren, we celebrate the conception of the Holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John. On September 23, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Saint Zechariah when he, celebrating a service in the temple, approached the altar of incense to burn incense. Zechariah was frightened, upon suddenly seeing the angel. The Archangel said: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John (i.e. grace of God). He will be great before God, from birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord. And he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to present a people prepared for the Lord.” Then Zechariah said to the angel: “How do I know this? For I am old, and so is my wife." The angel answered him, "I am Gabriel, sent by God to bring you this good news. And now, because you do not trust me, you will be mute until my prediction is fulfilled." Meanwhile, the people were amazed at why Zechariah lingered so long in the sanctuary. And when he came out, he could not speak. The people realized that he had seen a vision. Saint Zechariah returned to the house, and soon Saint Elizabeth conceived the predicted son and hid herself for a long time, saying, "The Lord has looked upon me to take away my reproach among people for childlessness."
II. Without a doubt, the righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth had great joy over the predicted birth of their great son before God and people, Saint John the Baptist. Many other people also rejoice over the expected, i.e., children to be born from them. It has even become a custom to celebrate and have fun on a birthday. So that our joy over this family event has a reasonable basis and is revealed in a Christian spirit, accompanied by Christian thoughts and feelings, let us, brethren, reflect on the birthdays of a Christian.
Each of us, as a true Christian, has not one birthday, but three.
a) The first birthday is the day on which we were born into this world, like all people. On this birthday we received bodily life from the Lord God and became humans, i.e. the best creation of God on earth, a creation gifted with reason, free will and feeling. Since we were all born very powerless and unable to help ourselves, God put a very tender love for us in the heart of our father, an even more tender love in the heart of our mother, and as if said to them: "Take care of those born by you, bring them up, I entrust them to your love!" And how they took care of us! How they loved us!
b) Our second birthday is the day when we were born into spiritual life through the Holy Mystery of Baptism. The Lord God has given us not only physical life and cares for its preservation, but He has also given us spiritual life and cares for its preservation even more. Through the original sin we became, as everyone knows, unclean, very inclined to sin and unworthy of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore the Lord was pleased to send to us His Only Begotten Son, Who by His death, on His part, and by our faith and holy baptism, on our part, cleansed us, sanctified us and granted us the right to the heavenly kingdom. This day can rightly be called the second day of our birth. The first birth made us human, the second Christians, children of God. The first birth gave us physical, earthly life, the second – spiritual, heavenly life. Our baptism Christ Himself calls birth: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5), and the Holy Apostle Paul calls it “the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5).
c) The third day of our birth comes to us on the day of our death. If the truly spiritual life, which we receive through faith and holy baptism, is preserved, nourished, and strengthened in the years of full meaning and reasoning; if our soul, through holy, constant and strong love for God and neighbor, matures for eternity, then at last the third day of birth comes to us – the day of death. Because for a true Christian, to die is the same as to be born, to be born into eternal life. And the first Christians, as history tells, always called the day of the death of the holy martyrs "the day of birth"; and therefore they celebrated the days of their death as solemn days, the days in which they were born into eternal and truly blessed life.
The first birth introduces us to the present world, the second to the kingdom of God on earth, the third to the kingdom of God in heaven – to heavenly blessedness.
Thus, every true Christian has truly three birthdays. But of all these birthdays, the most important is the third birthday – the day of death; because only the day of death decides what our lot in eternity should be and will be, that is, not a lot for a certain time, but a permanent, eternal lot. The day of physical birth is good, the day of spiritual birth is even better; but they do not decide our eternal lot: it is decided by the day of death.
Death – birth or transition to the future life – must be very terrible for many, and therefore we must all use this life in every possible way in accordance with what the Lord God gave it to us for. We were born not just to live, or to live as we wish; but to live as the Lord God pleases; and the Lord God pleases that we live in holiness in this life. “This is the will of God: your holiness,” says the holy apostle (1 Thessalonians 4:3). For this was earthly life given to us! And without holiness there is no true blessedness and life: “He who keeps the law” is “blessed” (Proverbs 29:18); “the wicked will perish in the day of evil” (Proverbs 16:4), says the wise man.
"How old are you?" someone asked an old man of a hundred years. "Fifty," he answered. "Only fifty?" the questioner said in amazement. "Fifty," the old man answered again. "I have lived only fifty years wisely and for God. The first fifty years of my life, spent in sinful frivolity, I cannot count as my life. Those years were not life: my soul did not feel itself then; various passions lived within me then, and I was, so to speak, insane: then I did not live!"
This old man reasoned about the years of his life quite rightly; because the importance of life really lies not in how long someone lived, but in whether someone lived well. If we were asked about the years of our life in this sense, then very many, acting sincerely and conscientiously, would say: I have lived only one, two, three years, and so on; and many, perhaps, would say: “I have not yet lived at all!”
III. Remember more often, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, the days of your birth and the reason why we are all born! For what is life to us if we spend it in such a way that we must suffer forever, suffer in the most terrible way and without any hope of consolation?! Let us live in such a way that we may celebrate throughout all eternity the day of our death as the day of our birth to blessedness and the day of entry into eternal blessedness.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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