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Maximum Christ, Maximum Ambition, Maximum Repentance
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Repent,
for the Kingdom of God is near!
That is how the way was paved,
For the coming of the Son of God,
Perfect God and Perfect Man:
Maximum God and Maximum Man,
Maximally united,
Yet the Divine and human natures,
Maximally unconfused:
This is what the Church proclaims,
In her maximum Christology,
Proclaiming the Maximum Christ.
Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near!
Repent, and believe the Gospel.
The Revelation
to St. John tells,
Words that bear hard truth in hard times:
And I heard the altar cry,
"Yea, Lord God the Almighty,
True and just are thy judgments!"
The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun,
And it was allowed to scorch men with fire;
Men were scorched by the fierce heat,
And they cursed the name of God,
Who had power over these plagues,
And they did not repent and give him glory.
The fifth angel poured his bowl on the throne of the beast,
And its kingdom was in darkness;
Men gnawed their tongues in anguish,
And cursed the God of heaven
For their pain and sores,
And did not repent of their deeds.
If our time looks like a time of plagues,
Do not be like these.
Repentance is not intended,
For a more ideal time:
Do not pray as the Blessed Augustine:
"O Lord, give me chastity and continence,
But not yet,"
Do not seek to repent later,
But keep on struggling to repent now.
Do you live in tough times,
And do you fear for even worse disasters?
Repent,
for the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Do you not see?
Are your eyes closed?
God is not gone in a global financial crisis:
Do you not see,
The hand of God,
Working to give in hard times,
What we overlooked in a comfortable age?
Can you not see a God
Who whispers in our pleasures,
Shouts in our pains,
Whispers also, in times of comfort and ease,
And shouts in a time of crisis,
Crisis,
Κρισις,
A Greek word meaning,
"Judgment."
If we experience judgment,
Do we need to assume the Judge has abandoned his post?
Do we really need to try and escape him?
Make
friends quickly with your accuser!
Would you rather know God as your friend or accuser?
It
hurts you to kick against the goads.
Are you terrified to face what you have to repent of?
Take courage:
Repentance terrifies like nothing else,
An unconditional surrender,
Terrifying to a saint as much as to either of us,
Only afterwards does it show its true nature,
As an awakening and more:
As Heaven's best-kept secret.
God has ambitions for you,
Beyond your wildest dreams,
And commands you to want the best for yourself.
And if it seems that God only gives you,
Things that areharder and worse,
Then you do not understand this:
God's desires for you are beyond your wildest dreams:
Your wildest dreams are yet not wild enough,
To see the true good that God holds in store for you.
Jonathan's Corner
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> Orthodox Books Online, and More >
Orthodox
Theology >
Maximum Christ, Maximum Ambition, Maximum Repentance
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