In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Christ is risen. Amen. Christ is risen.
Amen. Christ is risen. Amen. Christ is risen.
Amen. Christ is risen. Amen. Christ is risen.
Amen. Christ is risen. Amen. Christ is risen.
Amen. Christ is risen. Amen. Christ is risen.
Amen. Happy Mother’s Day. Today, in the Holy Church, we celebrate the Sunday of the Holy Mir-bearing women. We also celebrate Saint Joseph of Ermethea, and Saint Nokodimos the righteous, who are the ones to take down the body of Christ from the cross, wrap it in a linen cloth, and put it in a new tomb.
What we also celebrate today, and we do this every year on the 8th of May, the Feast of Saint John the Theologian, the beloved one, the disciple of Christ, who wrote the Gospel of John. He has several commemorations throughout the year. This one is one of those commemorations. And in honor of Saint John today, I’d like to focus this morning on the Epistle reading, which was beautiful, that we read from his first Epistle.
But before I do that, I just want to note, it’s important to know this, that of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, from the very beginning until the very end, from the Gospel of Matthew to the Book of Revelation, of those twenty-seven books, five of them were written by Saint John the Apostle, the Theologian. First, the Gospel of John, then he wrote three Epistles, the first Epistle of John, the second Epistle of John, the third Epistle of John, and he wrote the Book of Revelation, which is at the very end of the New Testament canon of Scripture. The Epistles that he wrote are often referred to as the Catholic Epistles or the Universal Epistles, along with the Epistles of Saint Peter, of Saint James and of Saint Jude. But when you hear the word Catholic, it’s not referring to the Catholic Church, it’s referring to universal, meaning that these Catholic or universal Epistles were written not to any one specific community, but they were written to the entire church.
They are for all the churches, that’s why they’re called the Catholic Epistles. So now I want to turn to today’s reading, which is from the very first chapter of the first Epistle that Saint John wrote, verses one through seven. And I want to focus on the last three verses, five, six and seven, but in addition to that, I want to add what you don’t hear in today’s reading, verses eight, nine and ten. So let me read that to you, so you have it in mind as we go through the Epistle.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you, that God is light. And in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. The holy apostle John says, if we say we have fellowship with God, while we walk in darkness, we lie.
Why, as he said, God is light and in him is no darkness at all. God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Take this beautiful church, for example, the lights are bright and luminous. Can you see any darkness in here?
You cannot because it is filled with light. It’s impossible for light and darkness to coexist. You cannot have light and darkness in the same place. It’s impossible.
So if you are walking in darkness, then you cannot be with Jesus Christ. It’s also impossible because light and dark does not mix. If you are walking in darkness and you say, I have fellowship with Christ, you lie. That’s what St.
John says today. So don’t deceive yourself. Don’t walk in darkness, say, but I love the Lord Jesus and I have a very close relationship with him. Many people say that they default to say, I’m so close to Jesus when they live in sin.
We deceive ourselves. If we live a life bound by some sinful addiction, whether it be alcohol or drugs or gambling or tobacco or hookah or food or the internet or social media, pornography, masturbation, sex, how can we say we are walking in the light and have fellowship with Christ if we do these things, if they have control over us? We cannot say we have fellowship with Christ if we live with someone outside of marriage or if we have intimate relationships with someone outside of marriage, we cannot say that we have fellowship with Christ. If we live in adultery, we cannot say that we have fellowship with Christ.
We cannot say that we have fellowship with Christ and support abortion, the murder of the innocent. We cannot say we have fellowship with Christ and support gay marriage and embrace the confused and secular twisted view of the gender, who is a man, who is a woman, the newly elected Supreme Court Justice, when she was asked what is a woman, she said she could not answer that question. And they asked, what do you mean you cannot answer that question? What is a woman?
Are you a woman? Are you married to a man? Can you answer that? She could not answer.
We cannot say we have fellowship with Christ and treat our family members and relatives with contempt. We cannot say we have fellowship with Christ and refuse to forgive others or to ask for forgiveness. We cannot say we have fellowship with Christ and lie to people and cheat people and take advantage of people, we cannot have fellowship with Christ if we live a life of sin, period. God is light and in Him is no darkness.
And if you say, St. John says, that you walk in the light but live a life of sin, then you lie and you deceive yourself and you may God out to be a liar as well. To claim we have fellowship with God who is light but to walk in darkness and error, ignorance and sillfulness is inconsistent, we deceive ourselves. He who does not obey the truth, he who does not obey the Word of God walks in darkness.
But wait a moment, hold on a second, didn’t St. John in his same epistle, didn’t he say that there is no one without sin, doesn’t scripture teach us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that there is no one without sin except Jesus Christ? St. John even says, if we say we are without sin, not only do we lie, that we may God out to be a liar.
So where does that leave us? Can we ever walk in the light? Can we ever have fellowship with Christ? Where are we now?
We’re in this dilemma that we live in sin and we cannot have fellowship with Christ. And all have sin, what do we do? Those and sisters, when we commit a sin and we continue to live in sin, we do lose our fellowship with Christ. That’s what the apostle says in verse 6.
But thanks be to God that this is not the end of the story because in verse 9, that’s not in today’s reading, but I read it to you, verse 9, St. John says, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we confess our sins, do you know what it means to confess your sins? To confess means to admit your sin, to take responsibility for your sin.
It doesn’t mean going to the priest just to defend yourself, to find excuses and to accuse others. If we come to confession and we are defending ourselves and finding excuses and accusing others for why we sin, then we are not confessing our sins. Confessing means to say, I am guilty, I admit, I acknowledge, I am taking full responsibility and I am repenting, I am changing, things will not be the same anymore. I will forgive so that I can’t be forgiven.
I am making things right. And when you do this, God is faithful to forgive your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Think about that. Not just some, all unrighteousness, that should give us great comfort.
That despite our sins, God promises to do that if we repent. And then what is it that is the seal? What seals the deal if you wish and allows us to enter into fellowship with Christ, receiving holy communion on a regular basis. That’s why the holy apostle John says in verse 7, “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
If the blood of Christ is what cleanses us, why do we not take communion every Sunday? If the blood of Christ cleanses us, why do we not prepare ourselves by repenting and confessing on a regular basis, that we might receive the blood of Christ so that it can cleanse us from all impurity and all sin?“ It’s in this way my beloved family, by repenting, going to the sacrament of confession and receiving holy communion on a weekly basis every Sunday and every feast day that we are allowed to walk in the light and enter into fellowship and communion with our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Christ is risen.
V’imasyakkam, Christos anesti.