In Christ, God has shown Himself to us in a way that was previously unheard of


“In Christ, God has shown Himself to us in a way that was previously unheard of. Non-Christian religions have created images of the inscrutable God, of a great God, in whom all the aspirations, all the searches of man, all that man would have wanted to be, or all that he would have wanted to see in his God were reflected.

Only God Himself could reveal to us who He truly is, as He revealed Himself in Christ. In Christ, God has shown Himself to us helpless, a God Who gives Himself willingly into the hands of those who seize Him, a vulnerable God, a God Who seems defeated, and Who, from the perspective of those who believe only in power, in success, in victory, seems worthy of contempt.

Such a God is presented to us in the Gospels in the Person of Christ: a humble and abandoned God, a God Who gives Himself to us. And He not only told us this, but showed us with His whole life, not only through the words of teaching, that this is an example worthy of imitation (John 13:15).

Here is the first truth: we, the Church, are called to be in the world what Christ was in the world. We are called to enter this world not clothed with a protective armor that would protect us from any danger. We are not called to gather in powerful organizations or communities that can stand against the troubles that surround us. We must not establish human alliances to defeat the enemy, whoever he may be.

We must accept to be only what Christ was, what God was shown in His human flesh: vulnerable, helpless, fragile, defeated, as if despised and hated — and yet, through this, He revealed to the world something of overwhelming significance: the greatness of man.”

Metropolitan Anthony of Suroj

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