DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS
Saturday, December 22, 2007 Nativity
Fast
Great-Martyr Anastasia & Chrysogonos
Kellia: Numbers
20:22-29
Epistle: Galatians 3:8-12
Gospel: St. Luke 13:18-29
Foreshadows ~ VI * The Extraordinary One: Numbers 20:22-29 LXX, especially
vs. 24: “Let
Aaron be added to his people; for ye shall certainly not go into the land which
I have given the children of
Beloved, through this unique man, our Lord and
Christ, God has provided something extraordinary for us (Heb. 11:40): “a
kingdom which cannot be shaken...[and] grace by which
we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Heb.
12:28). Let us understand further:
this man, Jesus Christ, because He also is fully God as well as fully a man, is
“the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Christ, therefore, enabled the fallible
man, Aaron, to receive this same “kingdom which cannot be shaken”
(Heb. 12:28), even though Aaron lived centuries before Jesus, even though he
“provoked God at the water of strife” (Nu. 20:24), and even though
in his lifetime Aaron was denied entrance into the
The glorious Nativity we are preparing to
celebrate soars with power and meaning not only above those who live in this
century, but above all men in all history, exactly because of the extraordinary
One Who was born, Jesus Christ.
Recall the Apostolic message concerning this unique Child and Man Whom
we call our Savior and Lord. They
declare that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not
imputing their trespasses to them” (2 Cor.
5:19).
Hence, exclusion from the land, which God
imposed on Aaron, as it turns out, was trifling in comparison with that which
Aaron receives now together with us.
Still, Aaron’s failure is a warning not to approach the great
Feast of the Nativity frivolously, looking only for brightly wrapped joys in
this life, for we, like Aaron, also shall have to appear before “the
dread Judgment Seat” of this same Jesus Christ and answer for our
rebellion against His commands.
Let us humbly confess how easily disobedience
overtakes us, remembering what occurred when the wandering People of God came
to Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. “There was no water there”
and “they assembled themselves against Moses and against Aaron”
(Nu. 20:2). Humbly, Moses and Aaron
“fell on their faces. And the
glory of the Lord appeared to them” (Nu. 20:6). Then the Lord told Moses to take his
rod, “call ye the assembly, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye to
the rock before them, and it shall give forth its waters” (Nu.
20:8). And the two brothers
gathered the assembly together and they said to the People, “Hear me ye
disobedient ones; must we bring you water out of this rock?” (Nu.
20:10). And Moses “lifted up
his hand and struck the rock with his rod twice; and much water came
forth” (Nu. 20.11).
Moses and Aaron rebelled in three ways: 1)
Moses spoke alone - not with Aaron, 2) he spoke to the People and not the rock,
and 3) he struck the rock instead of speaking to it. They did not follow God’s
orders. Finding them disobedient,
God said to them, “Because ye have not believed Me...therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the
land” (Nu. 20:12).
What shall we render to Thee, O Christ, for
that Thou didst appear on earth as a man for our sake? Wherefore, O God before the ages, help
us to be obedient and have mercy on us.
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