15th Sunday after Trinity Sunday
2 Corinthians 4:6-15; Matthew 22:35-46

In the passage read from the 2nd Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, there is a definition of the apostle:

"We are…always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." (2 Corinthians 4:10).

This is not the only instance that the apostle Paul connects the life of a Christian with the death of Jesus. He constantly reminds about this in his messages. Thus, in the Epistle to the Romans, which is read at the Sacrament of Baptism, the apostle says:

"Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. " (Romans 6,4)

As strange as it may seem to some, the acceptance of Baptism is first and foremost, according to the apostolic definition, the acceptance of Jesus' death. The three-time immersion in water symbolizes the three-day stay of Jesus in the grave, but just as He was resurrected in the end, so the newly baptized receives resurrection - a new birth in God. 

"For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection." (Rom. 6.5)

Due to the fact that all of us, in the Orthodox Church at least, accept our death in Baptism, becoming like Christ, we are united with Christ through death and life. After baptism, we should all live in Christ, together with Christ Jesus, living by the ideas of his faith. We should understand the personal condition of the apostle Paul, who tried to live the life of Christ:

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself  for me.” (Galatians 2:19-20)

This was not some personal boast by Paul, for this was a reflection of his spiritual state of mind in which he lived and was: he truly died mentally to sin, he lived in Christ. Although his physical self could show that he was the same as the previous Saul, that Saul really did not exist. Paul truly lived bodily by faith in the Son of God. This is the ideal of spiritual perfection to which we should strive.

Due to the fact that Paul was precisely such that Christ was in him spiritually and guided his actions - he was irrepressible - he could not be intimidated by corporal punishment or death. The person who achieves perfection and unity with Christ must be filled, not with some kind of pride, with a sense of superiority, but with love. This is also following Christ. For, Jesus showed the greatest love on earth:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him
will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

And the apostle, speaking and acknowledging love, said:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;” (1 Cor. 13:1-4)

Neither knowledge, nor great and firm faith, nor self-sacrifice, nothing can be perfect without love - without the love of Christ inside a person. A person has the three greatest guideposts in life, as ap. Paul testifies:

"faith, hope, love... And the greatest among them is love." (1 Cor. 13,13)

Even the martyrs of Christ: Faith (1 year old), Hope (10 years old), and Love (9 years old), became well-known and glorified because they showed the greatest love on the advice of their mother Sophia, who imparted to them this precept: "Children, don't be sorry to give up your temporary life for God..." (They were tortured by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the year 137 - for refusing to worship the goddess Artemis. The mother died of her own death three days later. All four were buried in one grave. Their remains now rest in El’zasa, in the temple/church of Esho.)

But we must be aware that not only Paul, but all the apostles were unanimous in showing love, although mostly only Paul's utterances have reached us. Yet, in the expressions of love, the definition of love as the revelation of God, the most notable is the apostle and evangelist John. Apostle John testifies:

"God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." (1 John 4:18)

And this same apostle confirms from God that when a person is filled with the true love of Christ, then he no longer has to fear any threats, persecutions or death from the servants of darkness:

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives fear away, because fear has torment. He who is afraid is not perfect in love." (1 John 4:18)

And the love of Christ in us (to God and to our neighbour) must overcome not only fear, but also hatred. A person full of love cannot hate his neighbour. Apostle John clearly establishes:

"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer." (1 John 3:15)

It may seem like an exaggeration to some, but life experience convinces us that it was precisely the people who hated, who acknowledged that their hatred necessarily reflects patriotism, love for their country, etc., were ones who committed fratricide. This was the case between the rival nationalist groups of our people during World War II, and it also happened between personal haters outside the wars. True love is not capable of such hypocrisy.

The apostle says:

"If someone says, ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, he is a liar;" (1 John 4,20)

If we truly want to be sincere confessors of God, the Lord of our Jesus Christ, then we should only be truthful, because, as it has been testified, only "the Truth will set us free."

Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko

Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.

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