March: Day 21:
Saint James, Bishop and Confessor
(On the Confession of Faith)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
Saint James, Bishop and Confessor
(On the Confession of Faith)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. Having lived ascetically as a monk since his youth, Saint James, whose memory is celebrated today, was made a bishop for his strict life and zeal for the Christian faith. During Iconoclasm, he firmly defended the veneration of icons, for which he was persecuted: the torturers tore his chest and spine with lashes, and finally he was exiled to prison, where he died (in the 8th century).
II. Saint James is a courageous confessor of the teaching of the Orthodox Church regarding the veneration of icons and teaches us to be the same confessors of the Christian faith and the laws of the Church. The Lord said: "Whoever shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 10:32).
a) The commandment to confess Jesus Christ before men is obligatory, my brethren, not only for the chosen ones, but for everyone who believes in Christ, just as the Lord Jesus Christ confesses before His Father only those who themselves confessed Him before men. But whoever is ashamed of Him and His words before men, of him the Son of man will also be ashamed before the angels of God. Therefore, it is necessary for me, and for you, my beloved brethren, and for every Christian to be a confessor of Christ.
b) A true Christian cannot but be a confessor. The word of faith is not only in the heart, but also in his lips: "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith which we preach" (Rom. 10:8). A true believer involuntarily speaks with his lips, because he believes with his heart: "I believed, therefore I spoke," says Saint David. True faith consists in the perfect agreement of lips and heart; from this comes both our justification and salvation: "For if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart, you shall be saved." What is faith without confession? A lamp under a bushel, illuminating nothing; moreover, it is an unoild lamp, soon extinguished. For whoever does not want to show his faith in his words and deeds, his faith is dead, not animated by love for the One in whom he believes.
c) But if, in spite of all the mockery of the wicked, you confess in Jesus Christ and in Him alone the power of God and the wisdom of God, the only true Son of God and Savior of the world, the only hope of your salvation, the only source of your true greatest happiness to the grave and beyond the grave; if you are ready to abide with Him, not to betray Him, not to retreat from Him in thought or word even when everyone has abandoned Him and fled, to keep His holy commandments, to glorify and thank Him even when the whole world mocks you, persecutes you with ridicule and contempt, - to confess Him as your Lord and God even when this confession would cost you your very life; if you always show yourself in everything to be a true son of the Church of Christ, fulfilling her holy commandments and statutes, observe its sacred rites, participate in its divine services and mysteries, obey its shepherds, even if the whole world mocks you, even if your behavior seems foolish to the whole world: then you are a true confessor of Christ. For this, the Lord Jesus Christ confessed you before His Father - His true disciple and follower, His friend and brother.
d) Those who, on the contrary, are ashamed to display before others the fruits of the faith of the heart, those who, for example, are ashamed even to depict on themselves as they should the holy sign of the cross of Christ or to bow before the holy icon of the Lord Jesus Christ and His most pure Mother, because the customs of the world do not allow this; those who even avoid the temple of God and the assembly of believers, because this is not accepted in the world, and frequent going to the temple of God will probably be called hypocrisy and sanctimony; those who, fearing human gossip and ridicule, do not want to appear everywhere and always as what he is and should be, that is, a true Christian and an Orthodox son of the Church of Christ; whoever hides his heartfelt convictions and is ashamed to express them in the blasphemous environment of insane wicked people, and thus involuntarily, as it were, adapts to the tone of unbelief: he must be afraid lest the threatening word of the Lord fall upon him: "If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, even the Son of man will be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38).
III. Let the example of Saint James teach us, brethren, to courageously confess the faith of Christ.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
