Today we stand before our tortured Lord, and, like a tragic overtone to everything taking place, the clock strikes the third, sixth, and ninth hours. Have you noticed how painfully the clock sometimes strikes when...
Today we stand before our tortured Lord, and, like a tragic overtone to everything taking place, the clock strikes the third, sixth, and ninth hours. Have you noticed how painfully the clock sometimes strikes when we are waiting for someone? Even when we are no longer waiting, but simply sitting in petrified stillness, as if not in this world, the clock can suddenly strike so ominously, frighteningly, and yet soberingly. And it is so remarkable that we have these prayers of the Hours. Let us turn to them now. And let us try to live through the third, sixth, and ninth once again...
But then it turns out that the third hour is about something else; it is about Pentecost, not about the nailing to the cross. "O Lord, who at the third hour sent down Your Most Holy Spirit upon Your apostles, do not take Him from us, O Good One, but renew us who pray to You." Why? Why this sudden disruption of the logic of the liturgical text's construction? But of course we remember: "...these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour..." (Acts 2:15) Someone will find this circumstance insignificant, a chance coincidence; someone else will see it as a conscious falsification for the sake of preaching "one's own" truth; someone will say that the evangelist Luke symbolically linked the event of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles to the moment when the execution began, as a symbol of the beginning of the preaching of the Word of God in the world. But perhaps we need neither the first, nor the second, nor the third line of reasoning. What we need is simply to stand before the events that are taking place and cry out: "Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me."
"O Christ God, who at the ninth hour tasted death in the flesh for our sake, put to death the reasoning of our flesh and save us." Put it to death, for "the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14). These words are often interpreted in the traditional way: I have died to the world, and the world has died to me. But if the apostle Paul had wanted to say that, he would have said that; instead he said "crucified"...
When our Lord was crucified, the world changed so much that it is now impossible to live in a world where the Lord is not crucified. And although many still live that way, we live differently; therefore we too are crucified. With Him.
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1:1 The elder - An appellation suited to a familiar letter, but upon a weighty subject. To the elect - That is, Christian.Kuria is undoubtedly a proper name, both here and in Jo2 1:5; for it was not then usual to apply the title of lady to any but the Roman empress; neither would such a manner of speaking have been suitable to the simplicity and dignity of the apostle.Whom - Both her and her children. I love in the truth - With unfeigned and holy love.
1:2 For the truth's sake, which abideth in us - As a living principle of faith and holiness.
1:3 Grace takes away guilt; mercy, misery: peace implies the abiding in grace and mercy. It includes the testimony of God's Spirit, both that we are his children, and that all our ways are acceptable to him. This is the very foretaste of heaven itself, where it is perfected. In truth and love - Or, faith and love, as St. Paul speaks. Faith and truth are here synonymous terms.
1:4 I found of thy children - Probably in their aunt's house, Jo2 1:13.Walking in the truth - In faith and love.
1:5 That which we had from the beginning - Of our Lord's ministry. Indeed it was, in some sense, from the beginning of the world. That we may love one another - More abundantly.
1:6 And this is the proof of true love, universal obedience built on the love of God. This - Love. Is the great commandment which ye have heard from the beginning - Of our preaching.
1:7 Carefully keep what ye have heard from the beginning, for many seducers are entered into the world, who confess not Jesus Christ that came in the flesh - Who disbelieve either his prophetic, or priestly, or kingly office. Whosoever does this is the seducer - From God. And the antichrist - Fighting against Christ.
1:8 That we lose not the things which we have wrought - Which every apostate does. But receive a full reward - Having fully employed all our talents to the glory of him that gave them.Here again the apostle modestly transfers it to himself.
1:9 Receive this as a certain rule: Whosoever transgresseth - Any law of God. Hath not God - For his Father and his God.He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ - Believing and obeying it. He hath both the Father and the Son - For his God.
1:10 If any came to you - Either as a teacher or a brother.And bring not this doctrine - That is, advance anything contrary to it. Receive him not into your house - As either a teacher or a brother - Neither bid him God speed - Give him no encouragement therein.
1:11 For he that biddeth him God speed - That gives him any encouragement, is accessory to his evil deeds.
1:12 Having many things to write, I was not minded to write now - Only of these, which were then peculiarly needful.
1:13 The children of thy elect or Christian sister - Absent, if not dead, when the apostle wrote this.