Sunday of St. John Climacus - Fr. Gregory - April 11, 2021

Today on the fourth Sunday of Lent the Church presents to us these two images, an anchor and a ladder. Father Gregory begins his sermon by quoting verses from today’s Epistle reading taken from Hebrews 6: 13-20, where St. Paul says, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf”. This hope or anchor of the soul is Jesus Christ who has gone on before us into the heavenly tabernacle pulling us toward Himself. The question we must answer as Orthodox Christians is where are we anchored in life. Over the past year life has given to each of us many storms and difficulties. The most significant being the inability to worship and fellowship around God’s Altar, but it is Christ, who is our anchor, that has been set in heaven pulling us upward helping us to not let ourselves be weighed down by the pleasures of this world. The second image The Church presents to us today is that of a ladder. Today we commemorate St. John Climacus, who lived in the 6th century and eventually became the abbot of a monastery on Mount Sinai. He was asked to write down his spiritual wisdom, which he did into thirty steps or rungs that would lead a person form earth to heaven. Father Gregory elaborates on the first step or rung, which is to renounce the world, meaning we must live in the world but we must have different values and orientations that transcend the world allowing us to live as already in heaven.