On that first day of the Great Fast, we too shot out into the Lenten Desert like a bullet! Increased spiritual reading, increased prayers and services, a greater focus on what goes into and what comes out of our mouths. Inevitably, as we began our climb, we realized that this wasn’t going to be an easy victory.
For Isaac to be willingly sacrificed by his father Abraham doesn’t make much sense to the Jews, but for Christians, this event in history means EVERYTHING. Because 2000 years later, on the 14th day of Nisan (the exact same day), in what is in Jewish tradition the exact same place, Jesus Christ walked 1/3 of a mile, carrying a piece of wood on His own back, on His way to willingly sacrifice Himself on what would become the instrument of our Salvation…the Precious and Life-Giving Cross.
Our Orthodox Christian faith is sometimes compared to a treasure chest, filled with valuable objects. It is a total package, not a “smorgasbord” where we can pick and choose what we like and what we don’t. But what happens if we decide that one of the jewels in the chest is not to our liking? Maybe we don’t like the color of the amethyst or the clarity of the diamond? We can remove those items from the treasure but by doing so we diminish the treasure’s overall value.
To those in the world who still tragically remain skeptical to the importance of icons and imagery in the Church, I often ask the question: “Is our faith in God helped or hindered by iconography in the Church? When we pray in front of an image of our savior, illuminated in the dark by candle-light and incense, is it harder or easier for us to focus on prayer and communion with our Lord?”
