Resurrection - Ascension. Father Nikolaos Ludovikos.
Let's say that the Resurrection took place.
The disciples who are disappointed, frightened, unphilosophical fishermen,
suddenly see the one who shed his blood, torn to pieces, in front of them, and he tells them I am he,
and you will understand now who I am, and suddenly they become his witnesses,
and they shout, and they cry out as ordinary people that He is Risen and they kill them for it.
If they were philosophers or Platonists or Pythagoreans, I would not believe them.
But they are completely irrelevant.
Imagine that for forty days they see him, and eat, and walk with him..
And then the Ascension takes place.
Think, if this Ascension did not take place.
And suddenly we have a Being who says:
- Look, you killed me, Did you see that I died?
- We saw it.
- Do you see that I live?
- We see it.
- Do you see that I don't even need food
and when I want I taste something to show you that I am real?
- We see it.
- Well, that's how I will be here forever. I am God who took human form.
.
Well, for two thousand years now, you have him in Jerusalem, sitting on his throne
and you know that he is God.
He doesn't even need electronic monitoring because he knows everything,
he can intervene in your life with an angel, and all you have to do is become enslaved to him.
.
How can you love such a God?
.
- And what do I care if you are eternal and immortal?
You sit above my head,
not letting me breathe, and forcing me to honor and worship you?
I will not worship you,
I will mock you,
I will mock you, and I will be the rebel,
I will become an ally of the devil who is right that you are terrible and envious,
and that you claim absolute power over everything AND I will fight you in every way I can
and if you ever destroy me,
I will consider it a great honor because you are eternal and I am nothing
and instead of elevating me to your height so that we can fight as equals, you are now enslaving me.
.
If the Ascension had not happened, all this would have happened.
.
Do you understand what man is? Man is the one who can do all this.
And in this he is the image of God.
That is why God does not want to impose himself.
.
I saw great miracles in my body
and in my existence
from Saints I met, and in many ways from an atheist who was, they put me in the Church.
People who saw the illnesses I had at that time and I was healed.
.
Father Porphyrios welcomed me by reciting my verses, unpublished verses.
.
Once in my youthful naivety, I asked Father Paisios:
- Why don't you go and do these things in public?
He tells me:
- Listen and see. With the gift I have, I can go to a camp
and tell everyone their innermost feelings and take them from the commander to the gatekeeper, all together to Mount Athos to become monks.
But God does not want that.
God wants you to love Him through your personal discovery.
That is why you see that Christ performs the miracle and leaves and says do not tell anyone what I did. Do they not have faith? He does not perform a miracle.
While you should say "do you not have faith? Now see what miracle I will perform for you".
- Come down from the Cross.
- No, I am not coming down.
He will come down from the Cross in a way that could be questioned. So that you can spiritually discover what has happened.
This spiritual discovery is shocking.
because it is personal.
Because He saves you and you understand why this is happening, and this is the greatness of God's message.
He is not interested in impressing you, and grabbing you like a gypsy:
- Come here, kneel.
You will kneel,
but inside your soul will not have kneeled, and you will seek the true God, before God.
If you understand how enormous this thing is, you will understand why God is patient with evil.
He is patient,
because the choices appear
and the wonderfulness of man, his entire godliness, appears.
And then He Himself responds with His presence in this entire life
and in eternal life.
Fr. Nikolaos Ludovicos
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