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Abomination of Desolation

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous

Passage: Matthew 24:3-35

The gospel this week is quite similar to the gospel from last week. That’s because the church takes a number of weeks for preparation. The church recognises that it takes a while for messages to enter into hearts. So in these weeks leading up to the feast of the New Year in the Orthodox Church on September 12, the Church reminds us that the Year is coming to an end, our lives will come to an end, and that the world will also eventually come to its end.

And because this is something we don’t want to hear, the Church repeats it to us several times. We don’t want to hear that our lives will come to an end. We know that family members suddenly become sick or pass away, that accidents happen, every day, every minute every second. So the church reminds us of this.

It’s also fortuitous that on this day also, it is Father’s Day. This is also a reminder for us fathers – both biological and priestly – of the words that Christ speaks to us. The gospel today says:

“Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

Christ then gives us a catalogue of signs and indications of the end of times. That’s what we’ve just heard in this long gospel: hearing about things that will happen on the earth, wars, rumours, persecution. And one of the warnings or the signs that he gives to us is quite striking, he says, “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place,” Matthew adds his own commentary in parentheses: “(whoever reads, let him understand)” then continues, “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.”

Be radical, because things are upon you. And these words are really strange. This abomination of desolation. It comes from Daniel 9:27 in the Old Testament where he speaks about an abomination of desolation.

And most likely, he’s speaking about a very concrete historical event. There was a figure by the name of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. His last name means the “manifestation of God” because this is who he thought he was. He was the head of the Seleucids, and they came and overtook Israel in about 70 BC. When he overtook the place, he realised that the Jews held the temple of God as the most sacred space, and as the core of their being.

He then took an altar of Zeus, one of the Greek gods, and put that in the Holy of Holies, where only God was supposed to be.

It was so horrific that that event was burnt into the times, the people, the history, that this was the symbol of how things have totally been desecrated. That the place of God has now become the place of a Greek god.

So after that, you get Christ speaking about it in this passage, most likely talking about an event that would happen with the Romans, only a few decades later, which is why Matthew wrote, “whoever reads, let him understand”. He tells us to pay attention, we know what he’s talking about. And that’s because one of the Roman emperors, Caligula, proposed to set up his own image in the temple in about 40 AD.

St Paul in Thessalonians talks again about this abomination of desolation. When something takes the rightful place of God, when the Holiest of Holies has been desecrated, when instead of being the centre, the core of where God’s presence is manifested, there is something else that takes place. But we shouldn’t think that this will help us determine when the abomination is. Christ isn’t trying to give us a timeline.

And it’s quite strange that when you actually read from the fathers, what you find when they talk about these passages, they’re very disinterested in trying to put a time on it, trying to do calculations and figure out when the end of the world will be. Instead, they understand that to be about themselves – that they themselves need to be watchful.

St. Gregory the Great says this:

“And let us keep in mind that these present afflictions are as far below the last tribulations, as is the person of the herald below the majesty of the judge he precedes.”

He is saying that what is happening to us right now is nothing compared to what will be at the end. But then he says: “Reflect with all your mind upon this day”. As in now. Not the end of times, now. “My dearest Brethren. Remedy what is now defective in your present life. Amend your ways. Conquer evil temptations by standing firm against them. Repent with tears of the sins you have committed. For the more you make ready against the severity of His justice by serving Him in fear, the more serenely shall you behold the Coming of that Eternal Judge.”

So what he’s saying is, don’t worry about the time course. Don’t worry about when this will be. Worry about you yourself being watchful and ready.

And so when Christ then says to us, “when you see the abomination of desolation,” and especially on Father’s Day, both biological and priestly, we must consider where the abomination of desolation could be. It can be in the altar of the church and can be in the altar of my heart. That’s where the abomination of desolation is. The early church fathers are very clear in the way they interpret scripture. As St. Paul said, “these things happened to them as types and were written for our admonition”. These things were written for me.

And so then when Christ says, “When you see the abomination of desolation”, He’s saying, look in your hearts and see – the place is called to be the Holiest of Holies, what do you find? What do you see?

St. Paul tells the Corinthians, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19) That is a very misunderstood passage because people believe it to mean that he’s talking about individuals, and that you shouldn’t harm your body by doing something like smoking, for example.

But he actually says it in the plural. The word “you” there is in the plural in Greek. He says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God?”

And then Origen, looking at that, says,

“but each of us is a stone of that temple.”

So each of us individuals is a temple. But at the same time, each of us is a stone of the greater Temple of the body of Christ.

And that means, as Christ says to us, when you see the abomination of desolation, flee. Be radical in your action. Don’t tolerate it. We are a temple. We were fashioned by God so that we could be indwelt by him. That we could become a sanctuary of his presence. That on the altar of our hearts, we can offer gifts to him.

And so, if we look at the altar of our hearts, and here I speak more to the Father than anyone else: what is in the altar of your heart? What is in the Holiest of Holies? Look deep within – is there anything there besides Christ?

Any lust, money, pride, ambition, desire, whatever it is – what stands in the altar of your heart?

Christ tells us to take radical action. “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place”(whoever reads, let him understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.” Flee. Take radical action. Don’t tolerate having the abomination of desolation in your heart, the rightful place of Christ.

And there’s no action more radical than turning to Christ. In Romans 7, St. Paul says: “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” He says, When I look at my own heart, that which I don’t want to do, I do. That which I want to do, I can’t do. And therefore I see that there is something in me, I’m being indwelt. He says, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

St. Paul feels as we should all feel: that we are made to be a temple. We are made to be indwelt, but just as we can be indwelt by Christ, we can be indwelt by many other things.

So then, let us look at our hearts, and I speak to myself first – do we not know that we are the temple of God? So how then do we tolerate something to be in the rightful place of Christ in our hearts? How do we tolerate there’s an abomination of desolation, which is anything which takes the place of Christ in the Holiest of Holies? Let us then beg our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is ever present on the altar of our hearts. And as we read in the Matins gospel, and I say to you again, let us be forever watchful that nothing and no one takes the place of Christ in our hearts. And if anything does, we are radical, we flee, we take action. Glory be to God forevermore.

? Full sermon ?

Sensitivity For Others

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Samuel Fanous

Passage: Luke 9:10-17

The words of the Gospel today from Luke 9 begin with a realisation about something that’s happened. The disciples had been travelling with Jesus and multitudes had been following to hear him speak. And then it says, “when the day began to wear away” – when the people were exhausted and the day had come to its close, the disciples said to Christ, “Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.”

You hear those words – “send them away” – and they can sound arrogant. It almost sounds as if the disciples are annoyed – that they’ve had it with these people that they’ve been with for an entire day, even days perhaps, following them, serving them, caring for them. So in annoyance, they say: “send them away”.

But one of the most remarkable this is that this is not how the early church read these words. St Cyril of Alexandria in the fourth century spent almost an entire homily talking about these words, “send them away”. He said

“[the disciples] seized with love toward the multitudes, and beginning to have a concern for the people…”

They were beginning to have concern for them.

When they say, “send them away”, they aren’t doing it out of annoyance or frustration or arrogance – they’re doing it because they’re starting to feel people. They’re starting to become sensitive to the needs of people. So they ask the Lord to send them away to the surrounding towns before it gets dark so that they can go and eat and sleep – because this is a deserted place. It’s likely the multitude themselves hadn’t realised it – it had just started to get dark, and perhaps they were distracted, unaware of their needs that would come in just a few hours. So the disciples start to become very sensitive – St Cyril is very specific that they “seized with love… beginning to have a concern for the people”.

St Cyril goes on to say,

“for to draw near, and make supplication on the people’s behalf, is an act becoming to the saints”.

To be sensitive to people and their needs is the beginning and act of becoming to the saints. So from here, Christ commands the disciples: “You give them something to eat”. Christ could feed the multitude, but he wanted the disciples to share in that. They told Him that they had no more than five loaves and two fish, so He takes those, blesses them and gives them out to people in groups of 50, to feed perhaps 50,000 people – an event which we call the Blessing of Multiplication or the Blessing of the Little – a remarkable miracle which would’ve reminded people of the days of Moses when Manna would come from heaven and the people would eat from it.

All of this comes first in the beginning of sensitivity. Sensitivity to others, and not myself. It creates the space in which God can work, can heal and can love through us. But that sensitivity requires me first to move out of myself. It means I have to move out for my own lusts, desires, ambitions – I have to see others.

If we do not see others, we cannot be sensitive to them. We can’t feel them or their needs. If we see ourselves, we only care for ourselves. This is actually where the word “narcissism” comes from – it’s a word that we painfully throw around at others who are quite self-absorbed – but actually, the word “narcissism” comes from one of the Greek gods in mythology, Narcissus, a handsome young Greek man who was being chased by a woman, the nymph Echo, and rejected her.

He didn’t want to be loved or to love somebody else. She wasn’t beautiful enough for him. One day after hunting he came before a pool of water, and he sat down in front of the pool, as he went down to drink, he saw himself. He looked at that image, and couldn’t stop looking at it because it was so beautiful. Eventually, after hours of staring at his own image in the water, he realised he couldn’t consummate his love. He couldn’t embrace the person. And so after gazing, enraptured in his own image, he killed himself – because he couldn’t attain the object of his desire. And that’s where we get the word narcissism – somebody that was so self-absorbed, all they could see was themselves.

Yet Christ is the exact opposite. Something that always strikes me in the gospels is that if you pay attention to the words carefully you see how many times Christ sees people. How many times, the evangelists stop to make a point that He looks and sees somebody.

“And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers” (Matt. 4:18). He saw Nathaniel, and said, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” (John 1:48). With the paralytic man, it says, “When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”” (John 5:6). In Matthew, Jesus “saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). When Christ sees the rich young man and is asked how he can be saved, it says, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21). When Jesus looks up at Zacchaeus, it’s up in the sycamore tree, and he is hiding because he is so embarrassed as a tax collector to be seen by people. It says, “when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” (Luke 19:5).

These are just a few examples – the gospels are littered with them. Christ sees us. He is sensitive to our needs. He feels our needs. He looks beyond himself, He sees others, and so He is sensitive to our needs. Sensitivity to others is the beginning of saintliness. It is the beginning of drawing near to Christ and becoming like Him.

Many years ago, perhaps when I was in my first year of university, I didn’t attend university very much. I was a very poor student – I was probably attending about half an hour a week – so I had nothing to do and took up many hobbies that no 18-year-olds do.

One priest had asked me to help him – so I used to pray one liturgy every Thursday morning from 5-7 a.m., and afterwards I would drive around this elderly priest to help him give people communion, sometimes for four or five hours, sometimes until 2 p.m.

And every time after we’d finished the liturgy, I would watch this priest take the Eucharist and put on his head, and I’ve never seen anyone do what he does. He would refuse to drive – he let me drive – and he would sit in the car with the Eucharist on top of his head for five hours, going from place to place with incredible reverence. Often I would drive in silence for hours because I didn’t want to disturb him, until we’d visit the very last person receiving communion, after which, I would try to go to the drivers seat but he would refuse to give me the keys and let me drive, and say the exact same words: “before you drove because you were driving Christ. But now it is Yohanna, and I cannot allow you to drive Yohanna.” He would refuse to let me drive him, ever – but I could drive when Christ was on top of his head. This went on for a year, every Thursday, until one Thursday we came to the last communion. He told me to park the car and stay in the car, because the person he was visiting had a personal issue that he didn’t want anyone to know about except for his priest.

So as I went to park the car, I went straight into a brick wall and knocked off the bumper bar. So I sat there for a nervous half an hour trying to find the way to bring the bumper bar up, so the priest wouldn’t notice that I knocked off his bumper bar, until eventually, the priest came after the last communion as I was down on the ground trying to fix it, and in just one glance, he saw what the situation was and he looked away. I opened my mouth to begin to apologise – but he just laughed and said, “it’s nothing”. He went into his pocket and threw me the keys, and said “quick, let’s drive”.

For a year, he refused to ever let him drive him after communion, because I couldn’t drive Yohanna, I could only drive the Eucharist. But after I crashed his car with the bumper bar hanging off, he threw me the keys just so I wouldn’t be upset.

He was sensitive. Because he feared that I would become upset or feel guilt or shame because I crashed his car, he gave me the keys and let me drive him. In that moment, I possibly receive the greatest lesson of my life.

To become sensitive to others. To feel them. And that means, forgive me, we need to look very carefully at ourselves. Do I see others or do I see myself only?

How many times each day do I see others? Do I feel for others? Do I live for others? How many times a day, if at all?

And yet if I don’t go out of myself – beyond my desires, needs and ambitions, and I cannot see or feel others, I cannot be sensitive to their needs or feel for them. And if I don’t live for them, I don’t live for Him.

But if I see others, if I feel their needs much more deeply than they themselves feel their own needs, and I live for them, then I live for Christ. And that is why St Cyril of Alexandria says, being sensitive to others is an act of becoming of the saints. It was the entire beginning of the Blessing of the Multiplication story, with the disciples becoming sensitive to others.

So let us all, as one church, especially in the coming weeks, let us train ourselves to become sensitive to others. To see others and to feel their needs. To look beyond ourselves and our needs, but to see others.

Glory be to God Amen.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It

Extra! Extra! Read All About It

By: St Mark’s Youth

I don’t consider myself an avid reader of the daily newspaper, but like a lot of people, I’ll pick it up every so often so long as it’s nearby or I’m having my breakfast at Maccas. Usually I would just flip to the back and glance over the sports section, reading up on everything from the football to golf just to pass time while I wait for my order to come out. On this one particular occasion however, I noticed the Pope of Rome on the front page smiling infectiously whilst passing through the crowd swarming around him. The best part though? The title read – “Christ is coming!” From what I understood, the piece was declaring the Pope’s upcoming visit to the US at the time, perhaps the title suggesting he was a figure of Christ on earth. I didn’t get time to read the whole way through, my bacon & egg roll came out before I could finish the article but still – talk about good news!

It’s not every day that we hear or read about good news. Unfortunately, we live in a world that is getting significantly darker each passing day, so anything that shines even the slightest of lights in our lives should be met with joy. That’s not really the case though is it? Each passing day we read about another shooting, another killing somewhere in the world, another terrorist attack, more hurt, more pain, more and more darkness. So where will the good news come from, if there is any left at all? Fortunately, by the grace of God we have been given the ultimate Good News, readily available to us every moment of every day – the Gospel.

So then, it begs the question, what is Gospel? The word “Gospel” comes from old English “God spell” meaning “glad tidings” or “good news,” and is a direct translation of the Greek word “Evangelion.” This is why we call the writers of the 4 Gospels “evangelists,” because they spread the good news. And what was the good news that they were spreading? Salvation!! It’s the ultimate Good News. Christ conquering death by the power of His own death, breaking the gates of Hades and opening up Paradise for us to enter into eternal life with Him. That’s some pretty great news.

But hang on, does that mean the 4 books we call “The Gospels” are the only ones that talk about the Good News of Salvation? What about the salvation of the Israelites in the Exodus from Egypt? Or the salvation offered to Rahab in the battle for Jericho? And surely the three youth rescued from the fire got a taste of this salvation? The truth is, the entire bible is filled with good news! The pinnacle of this good news being the life and works of our Lord Jesus Christ written by evangelists – Christ died, rose again and ascended to Heaven to prepare a place for us!

Okay, so we have this Good News, sweet, what next? Well, like we said, the world is in need of some good news, it is a dark place, and when you’re in a dark room and you want to see, what do you do? You turn on a bit of light.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven.” (Matt 5:16)

This light that is in us is the Good News of Salvation and if we are called to be the light of the world then ultimately we are called to be the Gospel. How? Are we supposed to walk around yelling on the streets “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”? Sure, but these days that would warrant a trip to the mental health department. The key is in the verse above spoken by our Lord Himself, “that they may see your good works,” He said, not “words” but “works.” Our Lord Christ knew that actions spoke louder than words. St. Francis of Assisi used to reiterate this sentiment when he taught his own disciples saying, “preach at all times, and only use words if you have to.” It is not enough to talk about giving – I must give. It is not enough to talk about loving – I must love. People don’t want to hear about Christ, they want to see Him!

There is a beautiful story about a missionary who travelled to a country in Africa to serve in the villages there. The problem was, he didn’t know the language. So he made a conscious decision to serve them, heal their wounds, feed them and above all, love them as best as he could until one day many years later, he died. The organization or church that he was a part of decided to send another missionary but this time, someone who knew the language in order that they may preach to the villagers also. When the new missionary arrived in the country, the first thing he did was assemble the villagers in one place, and he began to preach to them about our Lord Jesus Christ. He told them of all the wonderful things Christ did when He was on earth – how He cared for the children, how He healed the broken, how He loved everyone, until one villager stood up and said, “What are you talking about? We know this story already.” The man, taken aback responded, “How? No ones ever told it to you.” The villager confidently replied, “No we know this man you’re talking about – we just buried him last week.”

We have been given the only gift capable of healing the world, the only news that has the capacity to bring light to this slowly dimming planet. Because of this gift, I am no longer brought under the darkness of this earth – for I am light. Because of this gift, many around me, myself included, no longer have to live in captivity to pain and hurt – for I am encouragement. And because of this gift, many around me can finally see the beautiful and precious face of our Friend Jesus Christ – for I am the Good News.