Author: Fr Yuhanna Azize

This Sunday, in the Maronite Church (Second Sunday after Epiphany), the readings are Jeremiah 1:4-10, 2 Corinthians 4:5-15, and John 1:35-42. The first reading alludes to how we are neither ready, nor fit to preach the Kingdom of God, but when He works through us, we are able to go forward, using His words, and His power.

St Paul takes this further, pointing out that the light we bear (if there is any light in us), is that of Christ, and so we preach Christ as Lord and we only as His servants. Even the life of Jesus is at work in our bodies, for these clay vessels of ours will die, that the life which comes from Christ will survive our deaths, and the Resurrection of Christ is our guarantee of that.

Then, in the reading from the Gospel, we hear of how, at the start of Christ’s ministry, St John the Baptist declared that Jesus was the “lamb of God,” meaning, the one of God who would be sacrificed for the people, just like the first Paschal Lamb in Exodus 12. However, John is aware that the Lamb was divine, for He takes away the sins of the world (which only God can do), and He is not going to lose His life, because He existed before John (v.30).

This leads to Christ’s speaking with Ss Andrew and (probably) John, and then Peter, and says to Peter that he will be called “Kefa” or “rock.” This is not the same incident as reported in Matthew 18. Rather, since St John was writing with knowledge of the Gospel of Matthew, he was adding to that story, not substituting. St John is saying that at the very moment Our Lord met Peter, He made a prophecy of what would happen (just as He does, twice, in John 21). Therefore, with the knowledge which John provides, we can see that Christ had predicted what would happen, but it still needed St Peter’s affirmation of faith before it could be fulfilled. John tells us how this happened at the very start of the Lord’s mission, so that we could understand that the entire ministry of Christ was according to His plan.

These readings are set for the second Sunday after the Epiphany, because they reveal another perspective of the Baptism of Christ, that it was the commencement not only of His own public ministry, but also that it led up to the selection of the Apostles who would spread the Gospel.

We apply this to ourselves because, in accordance with the ancient principle of typology, all which happens in sacred history has some relation to us and our lives. We all, by virtue of our baptisms, share in the Baptism of Our Lord (just as we shall share in His resurrection if we follow His commandments). We are, all of us, in the position of Andrew and John who, when they asked where the Lord lived, were told: “Come and see.”

This going to see the Lord is never finished (because we always need His help), and in itself, it helps prepare us for the work we shall have to do for Him. This raises the question: how do we visit the Lord? What work do we perform for Him?

Of course we can go to the church and pray before the tabernacle, or attend the Divine Liturgy, but we also visit God each time we turn to our consciences in a spirit of religion. We are apostles for Christ in so far as we act in accordance with His Will; or rather, we are good apostles when we do that.

But there is something very intimate which happens when we examine our lives, not by way of self-analysis, but in the spirit of religion: asking how I have lived as a Christian. I examine my actions, thoughts, and omissions from the perspective of my final goal: The Kingdom of Heaven.

Let us bring this down to earth and take one very concrete issue: false self-love. We know that we have to love our neighbour as ourselves; that means, therefore, that we do have to love ourselves. But what sort of love can be applicable to both our neighbours and ourselves? The first clue, perhaps, is that the love of God comes first (Matthew 22; Mark 12; Luke 19). Loving God, striving to know and serve Him, then we come to the love of self and neighbour. This must mean helping them and ourselves come to God.

In other words, true self-love and true love of neighbour is based on the salvation of our souls. It means practising the virtues and seeking holiness in our daily lives and in our stations (whether as a parent, a child, a spouse, an employee, a boss, a student, whatever). False self-love, therefore, is selfishness. It is never satisfied, and makes us hyper-sensitive, saying and doing foolish and unnecessary things. To be free of that would be something: it would be to become a rock, not the rock, but just one of many, in our own small ways.

Fr Yuhanna Azize is the Chancellor of the Maronite Eparchy of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania