Soldier of Christ

Propers: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, AD 2022 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

It is something quite remarkable to go back and read the old pagan Romans’ descriptions of their first encounters with Christianity. You mean to tell me there’s a death-worshipping cult that believes they’ll live forever if they eat the flesh and drink the blood of their resurrected God? How scandalous—you must tell me more!

You mean they actually believe that a little water and some words can wash away the accumulated sins of a lifetime? That they refuse to fight the battles of a corrupt and decaying empire? That they neither harm their young nor kill their old when they become burdensome to them? Sign me up!

Christians took the Roman social hierarchy—based on fama, which is something like reputation or fame—and flipped it entirely on its head. Romans viewed the poor and unimportant as literally less than human. But this Christos Christians worship, He says the craziest things: blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers; wild stuff.

And He died in the most humiliating and dehumanizing way imaginable, yet rather than take this as the defeat it obviously is, Christians instead boast of His Cross as His victory. And they say now He lives in them, such that they no longer fear death, because they have been joined to Jesus’ death, already died for them, and to Jesus’ own eternal life, already begun. And so they go singing to the lions and the lash.

Love them or hate them, the one thing it was hard to do was to ignore these early Christians—not because they preached on street corners, or picketed funerals, or ranted long and loud about the downfall of public morality. No, it was impossible to ignore these Christians because of how they lived, how they gave, how they served one another, and not just their own. In times of plague, the wealthy fled the cities, but Christians stayed to care for the sick, to bury the dead.

Theirs was a religion that was barely a religion. It wasn’t just about public festivals and processions. It was an entire philosophy, an entire way of life. And it uplifted slaves and women and foreigners. And they all ate at the same table—rich and poor, young and old, Jew and Gentile, slave and free. Inconceivable.

“It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us,” wrote the early Church Father Tertullian: “See how they love one another, they say, for they themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, they say, for they themselves will sooner put to death.”

Indeed, people lived this way, embraced this faith, even upon pain of death. When they refused to worship the emperor, when they refused to fight in wars of aggression for the state, Christians were beheaded, crucified, burned alive, and thrown to wild beasts. And still they kept worshipping. Still they kept singing.

That’s how Christianity conquered the empire. Not by the sword, not simply by the decrees of Constantine and Theodosius, but by showing us a different world, a different kingdom, deeper and truer and better than all the kingdoms we know. “Christianity,” wrote Maximus Confessor, “is an entirely new way of being human.” Wouldn’t that be wonderful if that’s what we still were?

So how did one sign up? It would’ve been quite an event. First there came an extended period of discernment, of instruction, of prayer and of penance. You had to know what you were getting into. You had to be prepared to die and to rise again.

Then, on a night like the Easter Vigil, perhaps, you would have been welcomed as an adult into the community of faith, into the Body of Christ. You would have been baptized into Jesus, drowned in the waters, rising with the Name and the Spirit of Christ within you. Immediately then the apostles would lay their hands upon you, confirming the gifts of the Holy Spirit, strengthening you for the ministry of service, for new life in Jesus’ Name; that you might then go out as Jesus into a world in need of resurrection.

Finally you would be welcomed to the Eucharist, to the Lord’s Supper, to the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb who stands as though slain. And you would eat the Body and drink the Blood of God in flesh on earth. And once you have the Name of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the Body and the Blood of Christ, what does that make you? Who does that make you? You know darn well.

Baptism, Confirmation, and Communion: all at once, all as an adult. That’s how we used to do it, jumping in feet first. But a lot can change in 2000 years, can’t it? As the Way of Jesus spread, people were born into the community rather than converting to it. And children were welcomed by grace, absolutely. Children were beloved by God from before they were born. So, yes, we baptize infants. Always have.

Confirmation varied. It was considered important that the apostles lay on hands, and later their successors, the bishops. Thus we saw and touched the unity of the Church, and the unbroken line of succession stretching back to Jesus Christ. When the apostles couldn’t be there, tradition has it, they would bless oil and send that out, such that Confirmation became Chrismation, anointing. The oil we use for Confirmation to this day is still blessed by the bishop at Holy Week. You are anointed, by one who was anointed, by one who was anointed, back to the apostles, back 2000 years.

These days we do it when you’re older, don’t we? We do it when you’re old enough to have some idea of what’s going on. But Confirmation is not graduation. It is not your completion in instruction for the faith. Quite the opposite. Confirmation is only secondarily a coming-of-age ritual. Its true purpose is pour out into you the gifts of the Holy Spirit: “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in God’s presence, both now and forever.” And you’re going to need it.

It is to strengthen you, to fortify you, because the life of faith is hard. The Way of Christ is hard. You think it’s a simple thing to love as Christ loves us, and to love like that for a lifetime? Try it. It is nothing less than death and resurrection every day.

I have in my office a sword—a replica from the late twelfth, early thirteenth century—with a seal on the pommel, of two knights on one horse, that reads Sigillum Militum Xpisti: “the sign of a soldier of Christ.” This is language that comes from early on, at least as far back as St Cyril of Jerusalem, who would Confirm people by saying “Peace be with you”—and then slapping them on the face!

This pontifical slap was intended as a reminder to be brave in spreading and defending the faith: not by the sword, of course, but with honesty, integrity, charity, humility, generosity, forgiveness and joy. That’s what makes you a soldier of Christ: not trampling the enemy but sharing with him your horse.

My dear graduates and confirmands, you live in a wild time, of political division, ideological extremism, economic hardship, global pandemic, and, oh yeah, war. That old chestnut. Moreover, you come of age in a time of isolation. Virtually we are more connected than ever, but in reality our communities are dying: not just the church but the neighborhood, the nation, anything that requires us to actually interact with real human beings and to love them as they are.

From birth you have been bombarded by propaganda that the only things which matter in life are employment and entertainment: that you work hard to get money, and spend money to get stuff: that your purpose is to consume goods and services. Higher questions—of God, of the soul, of morality, of the Good and the True and the Beautiful—have been cast aside in favor of stock markets and balance sheets. The immaterial, we are told, is immaterial. But here you’ve learned differently.

Here you’ve learned that the spiritual is more real than the physical; that we are to love people and to use things rather than use people and love things; that you in fact are loved by God infinitely, unconditionally, drawing from a well of living water which can never be exhausted; and that this love, this truth, has set you free—free from fear, free from death, free from the tyranny of the ego, free to be a new kind of human being, one fully and at last alive in Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is where your journey begins, a lifetime of growth and of ever-maturing faith. We send you out as sheep amidst the wolves. But have no fear, little flock; for Christ is with you every step of the Way. And He will bring you—all of you—home.

Be brave, my children. For God is with you.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.