The Scriptural Deacon

Today we hear those very famous words, “God is Love” (1 John 4:7), but in a world where people are so quick to use the word “love”, it seems to just rolls of must peoples tongues now without a second thought. What then does it really mean to say that “God is love”? For us to truly open our minds and hearts to this divine love let’s look at a passage in the Bible that is all about love. It comes from a beautiful book called, “the Song of Solomon”. It’s a love poem between a bride and groom. At one point the bride sings, “My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my dove, my fair one, and come away; for behold, the  winter is past , the  rain  is  over  and  gone . The  flowers  appear on the earth, the time of  pruning  has come. The  fig  tree puts forth its  figs , and the  vines  are in  blossom ; they give  forth  fragrance.  Arise , my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove,...

On the Forth Sunday of Pascha we leave behind the Tomb and the Gospels about our Lord and his post Resurrection appearances. Now we move to the theme of healing through water. The Church is telling us what it means to be a baptized Christian. She desires us to understand what is the result of a life that has encountered the risen Jesus in baptism and now therefore must encounter the world daily. The Church wants us to see that though our actions in this world daily, we bring the victory of the Resurrection to a fallen world. We bring God’s love, mercy, and healing to people who need it most, the outcast and rejected of society. Those who have no hope, who have never known true love and mercy.  This is just the scene that St. John gives us in today’s Gospel (John 5:1-15). Jesus walking in the shadow of the Temple looks out and sees this,  “Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great...

Palm Sunday – This year’s Holy Week for me began here in Rocky Mount on Saturday night, with the vigil Mass. I have been serving at this Mass for a number of years now and it has become a sort of tradition for me. I usually preach when I have served in this past and this year I gave this homily: https://thescripturaldeacon.blogspot.com/2018/03/palm-sunday-meek-and-humble-rider.html I have always found in interesting that the Passion of Lord is read on Palm Sunday in the Latin Church with the Gospel describing Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem coming at the beginning of Mass when the palms are blessed. It some ways the gospel in forgotten, but in other ways it puts the entry at the center of the Mass. Then on Sunday morning the family and I headed off to Cary for Divine Liturgy. Here I gave the same homily that I had given the night before. It’s not very often that the East and West lectionaries line up, but when they do, it is nice indeed. Another thing that happens in the Eastern Ch...