Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Sunday, March28, 2021, at 10:00 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher
The Example of His Great Humility
“God took upon himself our humanity, suffering death, and exhibiting his great humility.” (Collect paraphrased, Palm Sunday)
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5-11)
I know, I know. The Passion reading this morning, as vital and dramatic as it is, is exceedingly long. It’s a challenge just to maintain our attention. We are not used to be being read to at such great length, unless it’s an audiobook. I asked our dear friend Fr. Wade Renn if it was his custom to give a full-length sermon on Palm Sunday, and he said emphatically, “Yes!”
You may be somewhat relieved to learn that I do not intend to preach a sermon this morning. But wait, I would like to read a marvelous excerpt from the 20th century monk, writer, and mystic Thomas Merton. This brilliant preparation for our walk this week to Calvary and to the tomb of Christ’s resurrection is from Merton’s masterpiece New Seeds of Contemplation.
To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.
Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.
If, therefore, I do anything or think anything or say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or joy
To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God. And to enter into His sanctity I must become holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect.
How can I even dare to entertain such a thought? Is it not madness? It is certainly madness if I think I know what the holiness and perfection of God really are in themselves and if I think that there is some way in which I can apply myself to imitating them. I must begin, then, by realizing that the holiness of God is something that is to me, and to all men, utterly mysterious, inscrutable, beyond the highest notion of any kind of perfection, beyond any relevant human statement whatever.
If I am to be “holy” I must therefore be something that I do not understand, something mysterious and hidden, something apparently self-contradictory; for God, in Christ, “emptied Himself.” He became a man, and dwelt among sinners. He was considered a sinner. He was put to death as a blasphemer, as one who at least implicitly denied God, as one who revolted against the holiness of God. Indeed, the great question in the trial and condemnation of Christ was precisely the denial of God and the denial of His holiness. So God Himself was put to death on the cross because He did not measure up to man’s conception of His Holiness . . . . He was not holy enough, He was not holy in the right way, He was not holy in the way they had been led to expect. Therefore, he was not God at all. And, indeed, He was abandoned and forsaken even by Himself. It was as if the Father had denied the Son, as if the Divine Power and mercy had utterly failed.
In dying on the Cross, Christ manifested the holiness of God in apparent contradiction with itself. But in reality this manifestation was the complete denial and rejection of all human ideas of holiness and perfection. The wisdom of God became folly to men, His power manifested itself as weakness, and His holiness was, in their eyes, unholy. But Scripture says that “what is great in the eyes of men is an abomination in the sight of God,” and again, “my thoughts are not your thoughts,” says God to men.
If, then, we want to seek some way of being holy, we must first of all renounce our own way and our own wisdom. We must “empty ourselves” as He did. We must “deny ourselves” and in some sense make ourselves “nothing” in order that we may live not so much in ourselves as in Him. We must live by a power and a light that seem not to be there. We must live by the strength of an apparent emptiness that is always truly empty and yet never fails to support us at every moment.
This is holiness.
None of this can be achieved by any effort of my own, by any striving of my own, by any competition with other men. It means leaving all the ways that men can follow or understand.
I who am without love cannot become love unless Love identifies me with Himself. But if He sends His own Love, Himself, to act and love in me and in all that I do, then I shall be transformed, I shall discover who I am and shall possess my true identity by losing myself in Him.
And that is what is called sanctity.
Amen.