January 3: We Are Called
♫ Music:
Day 33 - Thursday, January 3
We Are Called
Scripture: 2 Peter 1:3-9
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Poetry:
Taking Down the Tree
by Jane Kenyon
"Give me some light!" cries Hamlet's
uncle midway through the murder
of Gonzago. "Light! Light!" cry scattering
courtesans. Here, as in Denmark,
it's dark at four, and even the moon
shines with only half a heart.
The ornaments go down into the box:
the silver spaniel, My Darling
on its collar, from Mother's childhood
in Illinois; the balsa jumping jack
my brother and I fought over,
pulling limb from limb. Mother
drew it together again with thread
while I watched, feeling depraved
at the age of ten.
With something more than caution
I handle them, and the lights, with their
tin star-shaped reflectors, brought along
from house to house, their pasteboard
toy suitcases increasingly flimsy.
Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.
By suppertime all that remains is the scent
of balsam fir. If it's darkness
we're having, let it be extravagant.
WE ARE CALLED!
Christians are a called people. The word “church” literally means those who are called out. We are called out of the world by God so that we can be united to Jesus Christ in order to serve Him and manifest Him to the world. The Bible is full of language which describes God’s people as being called, as we see even in the accompanying passage from Peter’s second epistle. Everything that we need for a robust and healthy spiritual life we can receive from God, who has “called us to His own glory and excellence.” With the Apostle’s words fresh in our minds, let us consider the following: If we accept that followers of Jesus are a called people, let us ask and answer the following two questions. 1. How are we called? 2. To what are we called?
How are we called? This could be answered in a variety of ways. We are called by God who gives us the gift of faith. But what does this calling look like? How does it happen? May I suggest that baptism is the lens through which we may understand this calling? Baptism and its importance is a theme that Peter preached on (Acts 2:38, 10:48), and wrote about (I Peter 3:21). It was never far from his mind.
Baptism is much more than the faithful response of obedience to the command of Christ. It is primarily, God acting within a person to transform him or her into a new creation, through union with Christ and an indwelling of the Holy Spirit. After baptism, a person becomes a completely renewed in Christ.
To what are we called? Peter says we are called to God’s own glory and excellence. Okay, so where and how do we experience that? By God’s grace and in the midst of God’s people, in His holy church! We are called to be members of His church, His body. How else could we “become partakers of the divine nature” if we are not grafted onto Christ and adopted into His family?
In de’ Menabuoi’s stunning fresco, we glimpse a rendering of the glory of Christ’s church. We see a myriad of saints surrounding Jesus in a circle, which itself, suggests fullness and unending eternity. This grand scene was painted on the ceiling of a baptistery, a chapel set aside for the purpose of uniting new believers to the Lord and His church. So when the newly illumined ones came up out of the waters of baptism, they would see a representation of what and who they were just joined to: Jesus Christ as the Lord of Hosts, arrayed in the midst of His mother and the various ranks of saints, an image of God’s kingdom. It depicts what is described for us in Hebrews 12:22-23: “But you have come… to the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven.... to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant....”
The joyous truth is that we are called to a life in Christ, which is life in His body, the church, and that calling begins at our baptism!
Prayer:
O Lord, who blesses those who bless You and sanctify those who put their trust in You: save Your people and bless Your inheritance. Preserve the fullness of Your church. Glorify us in recompense by Your divine power and forsake us not who hope in You. To You we ascribe glory, thanksgiving and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
Amen.
Adapted from “The Prayer Behind the Ambon” in the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
Fr. Ignatius Valentine
Graduate of Biola University, BA in Biblical Studies
Pastor of St. Raphael Orthodox Church in Iowa City, Iowa
About the Artwork:
Paradise, c. 1378 (2 views)
Giusto de' Menabuoi
Dome fresco
Baptistery of Padua, Italy
As the place for the rite of baptism, which formally marks a believer’s entry into the family of God, the theme of paradise for the dome of the Baptistery of Padua is fitting. Paradise is depicted as a retinue of saints and angels surrounding the central figure of Christ Pantocrator, ruler of all, who is encircled in a rainbow, a sign of God’s faithfulness and mercy. A recurring subject in the fourteenth century, it may be attributed to the influence of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Beneath Christ is his mother Mary, framed by a gilded mandorla. Directly beneath Mary is a vignette depicting Christ in the act of creating the world, which is encircled by the signs of the zodiac in a ring of scenes from Genesis. Arranged in five concentric rings surrounding Christ, the gilded discs of the halos create a unique mesmerizing magnificence that draws one’s eye inexorably upward to Christ, the stable center.
About the Artist:
Giusto de' Menabuoi (c. 1320–1391) was an early Renaissance Italian painter born in Florence, Italy. He is thought to have been a pupil of artist Giotto, eventually becoming a painter at the court of the Carrara, a leading family in Padua. His mature work is notable for its orderly clarity and bright color, reminiscent of Romanesque and Byzantine designs. He worked briefly in Milan, but is best known for the numerous frescoes he completed in Padua for the Church of the Eremitani, the Basilica of St. Anthony, and, most notably, the Baptistery of the Duomo of Padua, near which he was buried.
About the Music:
“Circle” from the album Occasus
About the Composer and Performer:
A Pennsylvanian by birth, Keith Kenniff (b. 1981) is an honors graduate of Boston’s esteemed Berklee College of Music and is best known as the dulcet ambient/electronic artist Helios and post-classical piano minimalist musician Goldmund. Together with his wife Hollie, Keith also records as Mint Julep, and the two released their debut album Save Your Season that the NME coined as “unquestionably beautiful.” A succession of albums under those various aliases has made Kenniff a well-respected artist of discerning critics. His music has been widely used in film, TV, and advertising for corporate clients such as Apple, Facebook, Google, Paramount, MTV, and Warner Brothers.
About the Poet:
New Hampshire's poet laureate at the time of her untimely death at age forty-seven, Jane Kenyon (1947-1995) was noted for verse that probed the inner psyche, particularly with regard to her own battle against the depression that lasted throughout much of her adult life. Writing for the last two decades of her life at her farm in northern New England, Kenyon is also remembered for her stoic portraits of domestic and rural life. Essayist Gary Roberts noted in Contemporary Women Poets, that her poetry was "acutely faithful to the familiarities and mysteries of home life, and it is distinguished by intense calmness in the face of routine disappointments and tragedies."
About the Devotional Writer:
Father Ignatius Valentine
Pastor of St. Raphael Orthodox Church
Iowa City, Iowa
Father Ignatius Valentine is a 1993 graduate of Biola University with a BA in Biblical Studies. Since 2006, he has been the pastor of St. Raphael Orthodox Church in Iowa City, Iowa, where he lives with his wife Maria and their children.