Sunday of Orthodoxy: On Icons and Ladders

Today has appeared a day full of joy because the splendor of true doctrine shines forth brilliantly, and the Church of Christ now sparkles, adorned by the elevation of the Icons of the saints and their illustrating pictures, and believers attain there a unity rewarded by God.

In this hymn for the first Sunday in Lent, we are directed to the glory of the true faith, and to the brilliance of those many saints, of different times and places, all given a particular place in the unified Body of Christ. As we look at the epistle, Hebrews 11:24-12:2, we behold a series of word-pictures, icons of the faithful on the iconostasis of the Old Testament. Our gospel, John 14:3-51, presents us with the image of the Divine Ladder, the Lord himself who joins together Old and New Covenant, heaven and earth, shining his glory upon the entire Church.

The actual epistle passage that is read this Sunday starts part-way through a list of heroes and heroines: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph all trusted God for what they did not see. Finally, as our reading starts, we come to the great deliverer, Moses, who by faith turned from the wealth of Egypt to an unseen reward, “for the sake of Christ” whom he never met in the flesh. He kept the Passover, sealed in blood, and a type of the true Pascha to come. Again, by faith, the people with him braved the waters of the Red Sea, but they were not aware that the Exodus and the crossing of the water pointed forward to the greater act that God would accomplish in Christ. By faith they also entered into their inheritance—but they never knew that this pointed forward to our entry into God’s very presence through the Incarnation and Ascension of our Lord.

The people, in their wanderings in the desert, had glimpses of God’s great glory, in the cloud by day and the fire of pillar by night. But God himself they did not see— only his “footprint.” Moreover, God waited until the first generation died off before he allowed their children to actually take possession of the Land. These sons and daughters, then, had to rely on the stories of their parents regarding God’s mighty act of deliverance from Egypt, for they had not been there themselves. Their leader, Moses, had of course been shown more of the divine mystery—at the burning bush, on Sinai, in the cleft of the rock, and finally, before his death, at Mount Pisgah. Fr. Pulcini recommends that we look to a reading in Deuteronomy 5 first verses 1 through 5, then verses 16 through 19. Moses here addresses the generation that was not personally present during many of the Exodus events, but assures them that, even so, God made the covenant with them:

“And Moses summoned all Israel, and said to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I speak in your hearing this day, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them.’ The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive this day. The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain….”

Hear these things, Moses says, and respond to God, because you trust in the witness of your parents, and in my witness. We are one people, unified, and what God has done for me, what God did in bringing your parents out of Egypt, he has done for ALL of you.

Moses then goes on to envision a future day, in verse 15:

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren — him you shall heed — just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the LORD said to me, ‘They have rightly said all that they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.’”

Yes, says God, you have been right to be in awe of me, and to ask for an intermediary. And look, I have made good on my promises to the patriarchs, and have brought you to your own land. This is good! But, says God, the time is coming when not simply Moses, but a “prophet like Moses” (and greater!) from among the Israelites will be raised up, and he will speak the very word of God in my name. When that prophet comes, everything will be different.

Perhaps Moses knew more than he told about THAT Prophet—our Lord Jesus Christ, who is infinitely more than a prophet. Moses saw the One who could not yet be seen, or at least caught a glimpse of him as he passed by. Moses heard the One who was the Word, but did not see the LORD as the apostles would when he came among human beings. Moses only looked forward to that day, when Jesus would come among those who would heed him and be transformed, not like the people of Israel who murmured and would not obey in the desert.

Let us return to the epistle’s montage of heroes. The letter of Hebrews has gone through all the major Old Testament figures leading up to Moses, under whom God’s people became a people with their own Land. By faith, Moses went through the Passover and Exodus. By faith, the people with Moses went through the Sea. AND THEN comes the surprise! The chapter is giving us a history lesson. After Moses comes Joshua, right? But who is mentioned? Rahab, the Gentile! Rahab, the prostitute! Rahab, the one who had heard of the true God’s glory by repute only, and who nevertheless trusted what she had heard, so that she broke with her own people to help the Hebrew spies. How wonderful! The letter’s display of icons-in-words is adorned by a Gentile woman of bad repute, who gained by her belief and actions a place among the people of God. She is paired with Moses: and so we see the famous law-giver and the converted Gentile together, showing that God calls his own and glorifies them in every time and place. On display side-by-side are Moses, the humble one who saw some of God’s glory, and Rahab, the Gentile who simply trusted in what she had heard of God: both portraits sparkle with divine glory. Both are exemplars of faith, and of the people whom God calls to himself.

The letter to the Hebrews then lists in quick succession, without any word-pictures, a group of heroic figures, and then goes on to give word-icons of others without naming them. It is as though there are icons there ready for us to add in the names around the halos–Daniel, who shut the mouth of lions, the Maccabees who were martyred for holding to the true God “that they might rise again to a better life.” Of all these valiant men and women, we are told, “the world was not worthy.” What a variegated company of people! Some were outwardly victorious, others humble and suffering, yet they all persisted in faith. All God’s Old Testament people were waiting for God to act, so that God would join everything and everyone together, one company with Christ and with us.

The moment of reunion arrived when God the Son entered our human realm in the flesh, providing a living ladder to God: this we see in our gospel reading. John 1:43-51, also sends us back to Moses and the prophets, but then reaches further back to the book of Genesis and the early patriarch, Jacob! Nathanael is skeptical of the report that the chosen one prophesied by Moses and the prophets has come from Nazareth. The apostle Philip simply says to him, as we often say to those who question us about the Lord “Come and see!”

And what does Nathanael see? He sees (and hears!) someone who has seen and known him. We are not told exactly what were the circumstances of Nathanael when our Lord saw him—perhaps he was in prayer under that tree—but Nathanael knows! He responds in wonder, “You are the Messiah! You are the King!” Just that small word from Jesus, and the honest disciple responds. So Jesus promises him even more—to faith is added even more promises, even more occasion for hope:   “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

What a strange thing to say! What could Jesus mean? Nathanael has called him the Son of God, the Messiah, but Jesus uses a different image for himself. He is not simply the anointed One through whom God will work, he is the Ladder, the One joining heaven and earth. He is the holy place, enfleshed Temple where God himself is seen. He is the fulfillment of the patriarch Jacob’s dream of a ladder from heaven to earth, narrated in Genesis 28, during which God had promised blessing for his family, and blessing through that family to the whole world. When Jacob awoke, he remarked, “Surely the LORD is in this place; and I did not know it….How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Gen 28:16-17). Nathaniel, of course, knew of Jacob’s ladder. So when referring to the glorious Son of Man as a ladder, Jesus suggests to Nathaniel: you have called me Messiah, but the LORD is in this place, and you have not recognized it. Jesus, the Son of Man who share glory with the Father, Jesus is nothing less than the House of God, nothing less than the Gate of Heaven, by which others will also see glory. Through him, the nation of Israel will bless all the nations on earth, including us!

Those who lived in Jesus’ day were privileged to have him physically in their midst: but even more blessing has been given to us, for we know the rest of the story. What they glimpsed, we more fully gaze upon—his glorious death, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Holy Spirit! We are grafted into the Church, replete with that cloud of witnesses, past and present, and across the globe, that shows forth the brilliance and many-colored wisdom of God!

These are the riches that we enjoy as we journey towards the cross this Lent with our Lord. Because of his glory, divine splendor shines on the faces of all those whom we see in the icons on our walls and iconostasis, in the pages of Scriptures (as we have read in Hebrews), and in our brothers and sisters around us. Because of the one who is the Image of God, we too are being given true faces. Because of the One who is the Ladder, we too will enter into his glory. As St. Andrew of Crete put it, “The ladder which long ago Jacob the great patriarch saw is for you, O my soul, an image to consider.” That true Ladder, Christ our God, has changed, is changing, and will change everything! And for now we are called to run the same race that He ran, with perseverance and in anticipation of what God will do in us this Great Lent.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb 12:1-2 RSV)