Eclipsing God during Lent

Armodoxy for Today: Unexpectedly Eclipsing God

Astronomical events have caught my attention since early childhood, especially the kind that you can see from the comfort of your home. So, I stayed up and with that childhood wonder watched in awe as the Moon slipped out of the Sun’s light into the Earth’s shadow and then slipped back out. I don’t know what is more amazing to me, the fact that these huge astronomical bodies dance with grace in the sky, or the fact that their motion is so delicately aligned with the universal laws of motion that this event was predicted to the minute several hundreds of years ago.

This week, we have been inspired by the Gospel passage which was read on Expulsion Sunday. In it, Jesus says, “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5)

Did you catch the eclipse? Jesus, in these words, is saying there is something more important than God! God is eclipsed by our need to reconcile with one another. You’ve gone to church to worship God, to offer your sacrifice to God, but there is something more important, being reconciled with your brother. He says, drop your offering at the church – turn away from God – until you first reconcile with your brother. To be at peace and in harmony with one another eclipses any pious gesture of worship or adoration of God.

The Christian message is about people. It’s about harmony and that peaceful existence comes about when we become part of the solution. It’s not about looking up to heaven but reaching out to one another here on Earth. If there is going to be harmony in our lives, if there is going to be peace in this world, it’s not because I am offering a prayer upwards, rather it is because I am offering a prayer sideways. I am reaching out to my brothers and my sisters as a vehicle of love. True peace, true harmony, true existence is about us loving with one another.

This comes to us today as a reminder that our Lenten journey is about using these 40 days to make the 325 days that follow it – that is life – more meaningful and in harmony with others.

Practice charity today by providing a light to someone who is bitter with life. Push them out of the shadow and into the light. Fast today from superficial piety and understand that Christianity is about peace on Earth through the goodwill among people.

Let us pray the prayer of St. Nersess Shnorhali (23), “All merciful Lord, have mercy upon all your faithful, on those who are mine and those who are strangers to me, on those whom I know and those whom I do not know, on the living and on the dead, and forgive all my enemies, and those who hate me, the trespasses that they have committed against me, turn them from the malice which they bear towards me, that they may be worthy of Your mercy. Amen.”