The Christian message of salvation can best be summed up in terms of sharing, of solidarity and identification. The notion of sharing is a key alike to the doctrine of God in Trinity and to the doctrine of God made man. The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that, just as man is authentically personal only when he shares with others, so God is not a single person dwelling alone, but three parts who share each other's life in perfect love. The Incarnation equally is a doctrine of sharing or participation. Christ shares in what he is, in his divine life and glory. He became what we are, so as to make us what he is. St. Paul expresses this metaphorically in terms of wealth and poverty: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich." Christ's riches are his eternal glory; Christ's poverty is his complete self-identification with our fallen human condition. In the words of an Orthodox Christmas hymn, "Sharing wholly in our poverty, thou hast made divine our earthly nature through thy union with it and participation in it." Christ shares in our death, and we share in his life; he "empties himself" and we are "exalted." God's descent makes possible man's ascent. St Maximus the Confessor writes: "Ineffably the infinite limits itself while the finite is expanded to the measure of the infinite."
...Christ's suffering and death have, then, an objective value: he has done for us something we should be altogether incapable of doing without him. At the same time, we should not say that Christ has suffered "instead of us," But rather that he has suffered on our behalf. The son of God suffered "unto death," not that we might be exempt from suffering, but that our suffering might be like his. Christ offers us, not a way round suffering, but a way through it; not substitution, but saving companionship.
-Bishop Kallistos Ware, "God as Man," The Orthodox Way
Dodging pain and surviving as long as possible isn't the goal of life. Comfort isn't living.
To live is to love and to love is to suffer, but to suffer among. To suffer with.
Solidarity.
To live is to love
to love is to be with
To experience with
To share in
Boundaries are a good thing
Limitations are a good thing
It is good that I will one day die.
mewithoutYou - Chapelcross Towns
...Christ's suffering and death have, then, an objective value: he has done for us something we should be altogether incapable of doing without him. At the same time, we should not say that Christ has suffered "instead of us," But rather that he has suffered on our behalf. The son of God suffered "unto death," not that we might be exempt from suffering, but that our suffering might be like his. Christ offers us, not a way round suffering, but a way through it; not substitution, but saving companionship.
-Bishop Kallistos Ware, "God as Man," The Orthodox Way
Dodging pain and surviving as long as possible isn't the goal of life. Comfort isn't living.
To live is to love and to love is to suffer, but to suffer among. To suffer with.
Solidarity.
To live is to love
to love is to be with
To experience with
To share in
Boundaries are a good thing
Limitations are a good thing
It is good that I will one day die.
mewithoutYou - Chapelcross Towns