God's Love for People (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

God's Love for People

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Delivered Great Tuesday evening on April 11th 2023 at the Church of Saint Paraskevi in Nafpaktos)

We are, my beloved brethren, approximately in the middle of this Holy and Great Week and we climb the sacred steps, we climb the steps, the holy and blessed steps, in order to reach Great Thursday to venerate the Cross of Christ and to taste and feel the Resurrection of Christ on the day of Pascha.

The Church successively leads us to this great event, to experience the crucifixional and resurrectional Pascha. On the first day, she presents us with the all-comely Joseph, who was full of temperance and purity; on the second day, she presents us with the ten virgins, five foolish and five wise virgins; and today, she presents us with the harlot woman, who approached and kissed the feet of Christ and asked for repentance, Christ granted her this long-desired repentance, and a harlot essentially became a saint.

Every year on this day, I am here, in this Sacred Temple of Saint Paraskevi in Nafpaktos, and from this Despotic throne, I speak about this event. I am talking about what repentance means, what a harlot woman means, and what it means that she asked God for repentance, and what it means that Christ granted her repentance and the forgiveness of her sins.

Today, I had prepared not to speak to your love, not to quote my own words about this event, but to read to you a text from a sermon delivered by the greatest preacher, as it is said, of the ages, who is Saint John Chrysostom. He lived in the 4th century, and the texts that have survived are astonishing. They are sermons and interpretations on various passages of Scripture, on almost all the books of Holy Scripture and timely sermons and interpretations, like the one I will present to you.

Before I read you the text of Saint John Chrysostom, to prepare you, I will simply say that it has the motif, it has the image of a harlot woman, a woman of liberating morals, whom a man visits in her hut. Of course, it means that Christ visited human nature which abandoned God the Father and sinned. She was wounded and received many other gods, accepted many other lovers and now Christ comes, Who descended to earth, became man in order to meet this fallen, harlot woman and to make her His wife, to bring her out of debauchery and to make her His body. This is the image of Saint John Chrysostom. And I will read to you how exactly he analyzes it.

It begins with a wonderful discourse, which says: “God, who is so high and so great, desired a harlot. Did God desire a harlot? Yes, a harlot; by this I mean our own nature. Did God desire a harlot? Man, of course, if he desires a harlot is condemned, but God desires a harlot? And very much so. Moreover, man desires a harlot in order to make her a fornicator, while God desires a harlot in order to make her a virgin. So the desire of man is destruction for her whom he desires, while the desire of God is salvation for her whom He desires. So, then, did God, so high and so great, desire a harlot? And why? To become a Bridegroom.”

Here is presented the work of the incarnation and the purpose of the incarnation of the Son and Word of God. It is, I think, the best and most illustrative image to show what Christ did and what His work is on earth.

And he continues to tell us the way in which He came upon the hut into which He entered, the house of this harlot. And, of course, to show love and condescension to a drunken and very wounded woman. Saint John Chrysostom continues:
 

What does He do? He does not send any servant to her, He does not send an angel to the harlot, He does not send the archangel, He does not send the Cherubim, He does not send the Seraphim, but the very One who fell into erotic love with her comes. When you hear the word eros again, do not consider it physical. Separate the meanings from the words, like the beautiful bee that flies to the flowers and takes the nectar, while leaving the herbs.

So God desired the harlot. And what does He do? He does not raise her up, because He did not want to bring the harlot to heaven, but He descends down. He comes to the harlot and is not ashamed, He comes to her hut, He sees her getting drunk. And how does He come? Not with His naked essence, but He becomes what the harlot was, not in disposition, but this happens in her nature, so that she does not see Him and is frightened by Him, so that she does not move away, so that she does not flee. He comes to the harlot and becomes a man. And how does He do it? He is carried in a womb, grows little by little and walks the path of our own ageing. Who? The economy, not the Divinity; the form of the servant, not the form of the Lord; the flesh that we possess, not His essence. He grows little by little and associates with men. But He finds her full of wounds, wild, burdened with demons. And what does He do? He approaches her. She saw and fled.”

This shows the encounter of God with man; He came, became man and man did not accept Him, but crucified Him, and even His own people abandoned Him.

And Chrysostom proceeds to show the great love that God reveals and shows to man. And he also presents an astonishing dialogue of Christ with human nature, of Christ with this harlot. Saint John Chrysostom says:

This is a characteristic of a lover, not to demand responsibility for sins, but to forgive unlawful errors. And what does He do? He takes her and betroths her. And what does He give her? A ring. What kind? The Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul says, "He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge." Therefore, He gives the Spirit to her. Then He says:

"Did I not plant you in Paradise?" She answers. "Yes." "How did you fall from there?" "The devil came and took me from Paradise." "You were planted in Paradise and he cast you out; behold, I plant you within Myself, I bear you." "How?" "He does not dare to approach Me. I do not even raise you to heaven, but here you are higher than heaven, I carry you within Me, I, the Lord of heaven. The shepherd carries and the wolf does not come or better yet I will let him approach." And He carries our own nature. The devil approaches and is defeated. "I planted you within Me. That is why I am the root, you the vines." And He planted her within him. "And what then? [says the woman]. I am a sinner and unclean." "Do not be trouble by this, I am a physician. I know my own vessel, I know how it was destroyed. It was clay before this and was destroyed. I mold it again from the beginning with the bath of rebirth and I deliver it to the fire.”

Finally, the next part of this discourse refers to the fact that He takes this harlot woman, assumes fallen human nature, makes her His wife, makes her a virgin, despite the objections she had, with His love and condescension and then gives her a dowry. Saint John Chrysostom says:

God came to take the harlot, for so I call her, unclean as she was, that you might understand the love of the Bridegroom. "He came; [says the woman] He took me; He assigns me a dowry." He says, "I give you my wealth." "How?" "Have you lost," He says, "Paradise? Take it back. Have you lost your beauty? Take it back; take all these things. But yet the dowry was not given to me here."

"Observe, this is the reason why He speaks beforehand with reference to this dowry; He warranted to me in the dowry the resurrection of the body — immortality. For immortality does not always follow resurrection, but the two are distinct. For many have risen, and been again laid low, like Lazarus and the bodies of the saints. But in this case it is not so, but the promise is of resurrection, immortality, a place in the joyful company of angels, the meeting of the Son of Man in the clouds, and the fulfillment of the saying 'so shall we ever be with the Lord,' the release from death, the freedom from sin, the complete overthrow of destruction. Of what kind is that? 'Eye has not seen nor ear heard neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.' Do you give me good things which I know not?" He says: "Yes; only be espoused to me here, love me in this world." "Why do you not give me the dowry here?" "It will be given when you have come to My Father, when you have entered the royal palace. Did you come to me? No, I came to you. I came not that you should abide here but that I might take you and return. Seek not the dowry here: all depends on hope, and faith." "And do you give me nothing in this world?" He answers: "Receive a betrothal that you may trust me concerning that which is to come; receive pledges and betrothal gifts. Therefore Paul says, 'I have espoused you.'"

As gifts of betrothal God has given us present blessings: they are a betrothal of the future; but the full dowry abides in the other world. How so? I will tell you. Here I grow old, there I grow not old; here I die, there I die not; here I sorrow, there I sorrow not; here is poverty, and disease, and intrigue, there nothing of that kind exists; here is darkness and light, there is light alone; here is intrigue, there is liberty; here is disease, there is health; here is life which has an end, there is life which has no end; here is sin, there is righteousness, and sin is banished; here is envy, there nothing of the kind exists. "Give me these things [the woman says]." "No! Wait in order that your fellow-servants also may be saved; wait I say. He who establishes us and has given us the betrothal." "What kind of betrothal?" "The Holy Spirit, the filling of the Spirit."

 

This is an amazing discourse from Saint John Chrysostom, which shows that all of us, human nature and each one of us individually, are wounded, injured, and Christ comes to each of us with Holy Baptism, with the opportunities that He gives us, brings us to the Church, gives us the betrothal, the first goods, and says to us: “Live your life with Me like this.” And while we are sinners, He makes us virgins and saints. “And I will give you all the good things, the whole dowry in heavenly life.”

And what will we respond with to this great gift and great love, the kenotic love of God? What will we respond with? Let each one respond personally in his heart. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.