a message from the pastor
Most Orthodox churches have a dome over the place where the congregation sits (or, in the oldest Orthodox traditions, stands) and painted into the dome is a picture known to the church as the “Pantocrator.” We would recognize him as the risen Christ. The Jesus who ascended into heaven 40 days after Easter is now peeking down out of heaven into what his people are now doing. I remember the first time I saw this iconic Christ staring down at me in an Orthodox church. My first thought that he was the stern judge of the final judgment, a warning to the worshippers down below.
Finally, a priest explained it to me; “Oh, no no no! He’s coming to be part of our worship!” In the Orthodox tradition, the worship of the church is the place where heaven and earth intersect on a regular basis. The heavens open during worship and everyone is there, the saints (hence, all of the icons painted on the walls) and Old Testament prophets and angels and the Holy Spirit and there in the dome, Jesus. Worship is the time when the past the present and the promise of the future all intersect. To go to church, as an old priest once told me, is to enter into a different sort of space and time, to become part of God’s notion of time. We bring our stories into church and they become part of God’s story. And God’s ongoing story, full of people and events from the past intersect with our stories. We learn from and are strengthened by those ancient stories. Heaven opens up for us for a few moments to strengthen us for the week that lies ahead of us. We have confidence in our tasks, in the work God calls us to, because we have glimpsed into God’s world together for a few moments on Sunday.
Obviously, we don’t have an image of Jesus painted into the roof and icons of the saints and prophets don’t ring the walls around us. But that doesn’t mean they’re not here. The memory of those who have gone before us, the ancient apostles and saints whose names we remember from Sunday School, and the more recent ones who we knew who taught Sunday School and sang in the choir and helped build this place with their prayers and their offerings, they’re all here with us. And if you’re nodding off during the sermon and preoccupied during the prayers and if you’re a parent trying to teach your children how to sit still through worship (and not certain that they’ll ever learn) you’re in the right place because I suspect there will be a fair bit of all of that going on in heaven, too.
And at some time during the week to come I hope that we all remember, even if it is for just a moment, that somehow we may have glimpsed heaven and we know just a bit better what it is we’re doing here on earth. And maybe for just a moment we know we have a purpose here and that we’re here on purpose. And part of that purpose is that we have glimpsed into God’s world, we have glimpsed into heaven and it has changed us and made our perspective about the world around us different. And maybe someone we know will notice that we look at the world in a different way and will ask us why this is, and we say we may not be able to tell them all about it with words, but we can show them, show them what it is like to glimpse into God’s world, to glimpse into heaven.
Peace,
Pastor Erdos
Please feel free to email me or call the church office [(757) 898-4395], if you have any questions