Cycles of Newness

These past 7 or 8 years I have been writing code as a software developer and I have been teaching code for four semesters at ISU. Coding is very much “figuring things out” and over the years the cycle of code and business projects has become very obvious to me. A person wants a thing to happen – sell an insurance policy, print a piece of paper with text on it, click a button and have a screen pop up, and we all have a solution in mind when we pitch our various projects. My part in the process has always been some way of fixing things – throwing out old code or processes for the new and improved. Each new project, product and process brings a temptation of revolution to establish the new regime, the solution to end all solutions. We expel the old systems, upgrade to the cloud and reach for Utopia.

Back in February a big thing happened when I met Bishop Constantine in Boise and got his blessing to go to Holy Cross Seminary. Something within my heart was revealed and it was very solid. It had presence and substance and an ineffability to it, I have been stumbling for words to describe it since it first appeared. I hesitate to call it a mystery, a word used in Orthodoxy to describe the Eucharist and the other Holy Sacraments that God dwells in and our faith revolves around. But something was definitely revealed and perhaps this is the connection to Mystery. In 2018 when I was at the Connect Conference in Atlanta, Father Stephen Freeman referred to something he learned from Father Alexander Schmemann, “Sacraments (Mysteries) reveal things that are already there. Bread and wine in the hands of Christ are revealed to be what they truly are, the very Body and Blood of Christ.” For Orthodox Christians Christ is the Revelation of All things, the End of all Ends, and thus the Eucharist is also the perfect Revelation as it is the presence of Christ par excellence. This is most obvious when we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, the entire service is anchored on the act of Christ offering His Body and Blood to the Faithful. We sing, “Thine own of Thine own, do we offer to Thee on behalf of all and for all.” His offering is the source, the substance, and the resolution of the service. His Body and Blood have been revealed as the call that brought us to the Divine Liturgy.

All through Lent I pondered that substance that my meeting with Bishop Constantine had revealed. Things got really quiet and only standing in God’s silence brought me any peace. I continued my projects at work and teaching at ISU but I no longer had a desire to “fix things for good” or start a new revolution of change. (Side note: This lack actually scared me and sent me into a week long panic attack.) Revelation is a complete inversion from revolution. Our failing flesh tries so hard to bring about change and make the world a better place but the Kingdom of God is already at hand. In his Epistle to the Ephesians Saint Ignatius tells us that the Kingdom comes in silence, “Mary’s virginity was hidden from the prince of this world; so was her child bearing, and so was the death of the Lord. All these three trumpet-tounged secrets were brought to pass in the deep silence of God.” When God became incarnate the pyramid of power was inverted to stand on the revelation of humility. Rather than revolt, it revolved. In the same letter Saint Ignatius offers this command to all who long to be revealed like Christ (1 John 2:3) and are called to the revelation of His silence,

“Indeed it is better to keep quiet and be, than to make fluent professions and not to be. No doubt it is a fine thing to instruct others, but only if the speaker practices what he preaches. One such teacher there is: He who spake the word, and it was done; and what He achieved even by His silences was well worthy of the Father. A man who has truly mastered the utterances of Jesus will also be able to apprehend His silence, and thus reach full spiritual maturity, so that his own words have the force of actions and his silences the significance of speech.” 

It is the Revelation of God that drives revolution rather than revolt as He draws all things to Himself. This change of focal point is not only challenging because it asks us to surrender but also because it rests on the Mystery of His Silence. By this revelation the planets turn and the day begins. By Him we liturgize and consume His flesh to be like Him. By his call we are born, we learn, we grow, we marry and we repose. We do not build the world for God, we make no house that could contain Him. The world did not prepare itself for the coming of the King of Glory by its own plans nor will there be a new revelation that will finally explain Christ’s incarnation, his crucifixion or His resurrection. The Lamb was slain before the world was ever founded. Christ reveals what He wills and all of Creation revolves around His Revelation.

Christ is risen!