IMAGE AND LIKENESS IN EVERY GENERATION

Fr. Joseph Huneycutt

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Your Graces, Reverend Clergy, Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

It is fitting that we shall hear from our Father, His Eminence, Metropolitan SABA today as we worship the Holy Trinity and commemorate the Holy Apostle Timon of Bosra-Hauran:

O holy apostle Timon, Entreat the merciful God,

To grant our souls forgiveness of transgressions.

It is likewise fitting – given the maddening times in which we live, and especially for our youth – that our theme for this year’s conference comes from Genesis: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.”

O ur young people are under tremendous pressure to conform to that which is not possible, seductive and shape-shifting evils which one could not have imagined in previous generations. Yet, given what I have heard from this year’s oratorical participants, the youth of this Archdiocese are encouraged by the teaching of the Church, and pious parents.

Where there is no struggle, there is no salvation. May these challenging times for children and parents alike be for our salvation! My wife and I have been blessed with three children. Everyone says my eldest daughter looks like me. Well, she got married a couple of weeks ago, and everyone keeps telling me how beautiful she looks! I know, right? How is that possible?

My son, on the other hand, is not like me at all. He is tall, thin, dark, and handsome. He is patient and pious. Yes, he is like his mother.

Recently, my youngest daughter and I were sitting on the couch engaged in, I must confess, some id le talk. She said something witty, stinging, and sarcastic. A real zinger! I said: “Why you like that?” She said: “Genetics?” As one of my parishioners says, “Sometimes I open my mouth and my father falls out!”

In the truest sense of the word, our children are our generation. By God’s providence, husband and wife come together and bring them into this world. For good or ill, they bear our likeness.

This is true – in every generation. We cherish their innocence; we lament their falls. We pick them up, bandage their wounds, comfort, correct, and console them.

We raise them, but, try as we may, we cannot give them life. We cannot, by our likeness, impart to them the divine nature. As we shall see from our young orators tomorrow, the image and likeness of parent and child are not the theme of our conference. For we all, male and female of every generation, are created in the image of God, after His likeness, only to die because of our misuse of freedom – even from the days of our first parents, Adam and Eve.

Alas, we cannot give our children life. But we can give them “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” We can raise them up in the faith in the God-Man, the Christ, the Second Adam – of Whom St. Gregory of Nyssa says that

Christ was like a man “who perceived a weak person carried away by a raging current. He knows that he himself will be sucked up by the whirlpool, wounded and lacerated by the rocks, swept away by the water. But pity for this man in danger stimulates him. He does not hesitate to throw himself into the current.” He enters, therefore, without reservations into the flow of duration. But in order to save the one who is drowning, he must “jump” from on high, that is to say, he must bring us the integrity of our own nature.1

This nature is antecedent to the passions. The only way that we can struggle toward this nature, this perfection, is through Christ who is Life. Adam was created potentially perfect; we are only perfected by grace through the Second Adam, the God-Man, Christ. Of course, our greatest struggle is that of obedience. For without obedience, we are fallen. Yet, through our obedience to Christ and His Church, we may be saved.

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38). This is the opposite of the disobedient transgression in the Garden of Eden. Both Eve and Mar y were greeted by the words of an Archangel. The former fell through uniting her will with that of a deceptive creature; the latter is praised by all generations because she united her will with that of the The first Eve, by her disobedience, bore the fruit of death to Adam, all Mankind. The new Eve, Mary, by her obedience, bears the Fruit of Life, the new Adam, her Son and God, to all mankind. This is the difference in the fruit born of disobedience and that brought forth in obedience. God created Man in His image and likeness to be in communion with Him. Man has free will to respond to this relationship. Although created in the image and after the likeness of God, he does not sustain communion with God. Though fashioned in God’s image, the likeness was lost and the image tarnished.

This great tragedy, brothers and sisters, is remedied by our adoption in the Father, by way of His Son and the grace of the Holy Spirit in the rebirth of holy baptism. In baptism, the image is washed clean, and through the Mysteries of the Church –the Body of Christ – we grow into His likeness

What is this likeness to Christ that we are to put on? The likeness of Christ consists of truth, meekness, and righteousness, and together with them humility and love of mankind.2 My mentor, Fr. Charles Caldwell – who, glory to God, became Dionysius, converting to Holy Orthodoxy on his deathbed – used to tell us in seminary, “When you are a priest, people expect a word of God from you, so give it! Like the prophets of old, we must speak the word of God to the current situation. We don’t need to beat people over the head with it – but we must speak the truth in love … at least once!”

So, it seems, Our Lord does in today’s Gospel reading, wherein He laments: “O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you?

How long am I to bear with you?” (Matthew 17:10–18). It is not as if the God-Man knew not the answer. Even I know the answer! How long? Every generation.

How long am I to bear with you? Every generation, Lord. “From my youth up many passions have warred against me. But do Thou help and save me, O my Savior” (Anabathmoi [Tone 4], Paraklesis Service). In every generation, the greatest gift we can give our children is that which we have been given, the Body of Christ, the Church. In every generation, this Pearl of Great Price resists, and the gates of hell shall not prevail. With all the madness in the world, we must believe – and pass on to the next generation – that where Christ is, even if He seems to be sleeping in the boat, there is peace. With all the darkness that surrounds us, believers are called to be that light reflecting the sweet mercy of our Good God, even to those who persecute us.

For He who is the image and likeness, the GodMan, Jesus Christ, endured all things for us: the accusations, the lies, the mockery, the spitting and scourging, even unto a humiliating death on the Cross.

Every generation to thy grave comes bringing, dear Christ, its dirge of praises.

Women bringing spices, came with loving forethought, thy due of myrrh to give thee.

Come, all things created, let us sing a dirge hymn to honor our Creator.

Him as dead though living, let us like the women, in love anoint with spices.

Holy Friday Lamentations service, Third Stasis

On that expectant eve of Holy Saturday, while the faithful sing, “The ointment-bearing women,” the priest sprinkles the joyfully mourning faithful with rosewater – for the redemption of our generation – and every generation – the Conqueror of Death, draws nigh!

Give this to your children. Nourish them in the sweetness of humility and sacrifice; the continually washed image struggling toward the likeness. And, God helping us, they shall – we shall all – be saved!

O my God, the Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, have mercy upon the world. Now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Fr. Joseph Huneycutt, Vice-Chairman The Department of Missions and