Today is the First Sunday of Great Lent, in which we hear the Gospel from the Evangelist St. John 1:43-51.
This First of Great Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy is a monumental reminder liturgically and spiritually of the centrality of Jesus Christ in the Orthodox Church. It is a Spiritual Feast in which we Orthodox Christians reaffirm our confession of faith in Christ and His saving work.
It is the day in which we lift up Christ in praise and glorification, evidenced in the hymnography of the day proclaiming the expectations of the Old Testament Prophets and the real presence of Christ not only in history and in the Church but most of all in our personal lives. It is a time to proclaim that the most important reason for being a Christian is to bring honor to Christ – to glorify Him- in all that we are and do. This Sunday also marks the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the restoration of Icons into the Churches, as an important way of living and expressing the Christian Faith.
This Sunday is one in which we publicly make our Confession of Faith as an expression of the reality of our salvation and the important fact that we belong to one family of God Almighty. For as Phillip tells Nathaniel in today’s Gospel, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law – Jesus Christ … Come and see”.
Let us rejoice in our unity in Christ Jesus!
