Day 1 (Monday)
Genesis 2:1-25 (Creation of Garden of Eden, Man and Woman, Tree of Life, Naming of Animals)
Last time we saw the account of the first six days of Creation, in which God made the heavens and the earth, the empty space and the physical matter that occupies it, and we saw Him systematically give shape to that formless matter, and then fill that newly ordered matter with living things, with the heavenly bodies, the sea creatures, the birds and the creatures that walk the earth. Last of all, God made man in His image, male and female, and gave them dominion over the entire creation. This time, we will see a different summary of the Creation, and how exactly God went about making woman.
Genesis 2
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. 5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Hav′ilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphra′tes.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” 18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Reading 2 – 637 words
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should point out how it’s tempting to view this account as at odds with the account we see in chapter 1, but how it reads just as well, and perhaps better, as a sort of “zooming in” on the very general picture that we get in chapter 1. Now we see that, although God has created many plants, they have not yet begun to grow, except for in the one space where God places the man that He has created, a garden in Eden, from which four rivers flow. That last image is important, because it means that this is an elevated place, a hill or mountain, and being a garden, it is implied that it is enclosed, that there is a fence around it. The ancients would have associated such an enclosed and elevated garden with the garden of a king and the mountain of the gods; what this is saying, then, is that not all the earth was a garden, but this one space where God Himself dwelt was, and it was here that God placed man, to tend the garden, to name the animals, and to enlarge this tended and orderly space out into all the world. We also see the Creation of woman, but we will talk more about that with one of the readings for Day 2.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 2 (Wednesday)
Hymns from the Feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross AND St. Augustine on the Creation of Woman
Today for our selection from Church Tradition, we’ll be looking at some of the hymns from the great Feast of the Church that we celebrate on September 14th, the Elevation of the Precious and Holy Cross. This feast commemorates both the finding of the Cross by St. Helen, and its recovery and return to Jerusalem in 627, after its seizure by the Persians a decade before. The feast of the Cross is a Strict Fast, and functions almost like mini celebration of the themes of Holy Week, all distilled into a single feast day, in the fall.
1st Hymn of the Liti
Today, what David said in the holy Psalm has truly come to pass. Lo and behold, we are worshiping at the footstool of Your immaculate feet. And now, we who are hopeful in the shadow of Your wings, cry out to You, all-compassionate Lord: Let the light of Your face be stamped on us! Exalt the horn of Your Orthodox people, by the exaltation of Your holy Cross, O very merciful Christ.
2nd Hymn of the Aposticha
Rejoice, O precious Cross of the Lord. * Through you mankind has been released from the primal curse; * the sign indicating true joy, * O wood respected by all, * in your exaltation cursing enemies. * For us you are help in need, and the strength of the Emperors, * might of the righteous, and the dignity of the priests, * for when you are signed, you redeem us from miseries. * Rod of the power from above, * by which we are shepherded; * the shield of peace that the Angels in fear attend to respectfully; * divine holy glory * of the Master Christ who grants His great mercy to the world.
Hymn from Ode 4 of the Canon
The people of Israel, ⁄ a sacred army drawn up in four divisions, ⁄ marched in this figure before the Ark of the testimony, ⁄ gaining glory by their ranks formed in the sign of the Cross.
Oikos of the Cross
Paul, who was caught up into Paradise beyond the third heaven, and who heard the unspeakable and divine words that it is not permissible for tongues to utter, writes to the Galatians what you, as lovers of the Scriptures, have read and already know. “God forbid,” says he, “that I should boast except in the Cross of the Lord, whereby He suffered and thus killed the passions.” This very Cross of the Lord, then, let us all surely hold as our boast. For this wood is our salvation, the shield of peace, the trophy invincible.
Hymn from Ode 9 of the Canon
You did not let the bitter taste of the tree annihilate us, O Lord our God, * but by Your Cross You eradicated it. * And to prefigure what Your Cross would do, * the wood dissolved the bitterness * of the water of Marah in times of old. * This power of the Cross is by all the hosts of heaven magnified.
Also St. Augustine on the Creation of Woman
There are a lot of things that happen in the Bible that seem very strange and complicated. This is especially true for the book of Genesis. It can be helpful to see what the Saints of the Church have said about these things in the past. On Day 1 we read about how God made the first woman, Eve, from a rib of the first man, Adam. The meaning of this is…not obvious, and there have been many troubling interpretations of this passage. Fortunately, St. Augustine, a 4th century saint from North Africa, has an idea about why it was that God made Eve from Adam’s side, and we will read that as well today.
“There was a reason that God made the woman from the rib of the sleeping man. God wanted to symbolize the union of Christ and His Church. When Adam slept, it was a symbol of Christ’s death. When Christ died, and the soldier stabbed His side, blood and water came from His side. That blood and water represents the Sacraments of the Church, like Communion, and Baptism, and Holy Water. These Sacraments build the Church; they make Christians, as all of us are built as Christians through Baptism (Water) and Holy Communion (Flesh & Blood). The Bible even uses the word build; it says that God built Adam’s rib into a woman, the same way that St. Paul talks about building up the Body of Christ, the Church. This means that the woman is just as much God’s Creation as the man is; she was only made differently from the man to show that the man and the woman are one, and this is important most of all to remind us of the one-ness of Christ and the Church.”
(The above is adapted from the following, in order to make it more comprehensible. Those who are interested can read this “original” more exacting translation as well)
“Even in the beginning, when woman was made from a rib in the side of the sleeping man, that had no less a purpose than to symbolize prophetically the union of Christ and his church. Adam’s sleep was a mystical foreshadowing of Christ’s death, and when his dead body hanging from the cross was pierced by the lance, it was from his side that there issued forth that blood and water that, as we know, signifies the sacraments by which the church is built up. “Built” is the very word the Scripture uses in connection with Eve: “He built the rib into a woman.” … So too St. Paul speaks of “building up the body of Christ,” which is his church. Therefore woman is as much the creation of God as man is. If she was made from the man, this was to show her oneness with him; and if she was made in the way she was, this was to prefigure the oneness of Christ and the church. (From the City of God, 22.17, as quoted in Louth, A., & Conti, M. (2001). Genesis 1–11 (p. 70). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.)”
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (Leader should note that these two readings, different though they are, are surprisingly connected. It is by means of the Cross that the Lord united Himself with us in death, and having done so, He renewed our broken nature and raised us upas His glorious Bride, the Church, and it is this precise reality of which the creation of the woman from the man’s rib was a sign and prophecy. In troubled times, it is also vital that we remember the manner in which the Lord has won this utter victory of the enemies arrayed against Him and against us; by humility, obedience, endurance, humiliation, and suffering. We pray that, as we abide in His love, having sprung up from the very blood that flowed from His side, we may always walk in faithfulness to Him, and take up and carry our Cross at all times.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 3 (Friday)
Luke 1:26-56 (Birth of John the Baptist)
Last time, we saw the Annunciation, as the Archangel Gabriel brought to the Virgin Mary the news of imminent conception of the Son of God. Mary questioned the angel calmly, and then assented to this great task, and having done so, hurried to visit her relative Elizabeth, and upon her entry into the house, St. John the Baptist proclaimed for the first time the coming of the Messiah as he leapt in his mother’s womb. Following this wonder, the Virgin Mary spoke the great hymn of praise to God which we call the Magnificat or Megalynarion. She remained for three months, and then returned to her home, which indicates that either she was present for the birth of the Forerunner, or returned immediately beforehand. We will see this birth in our reading today.
The Birth of John the Baptist
57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to be delivered, and she gave birth to a son. 58 And her neighbors and kinsfolk heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they would have named him Zechari′ah after his father, 60 but his mother said, “Not so; he shall be called John.” 61 And they said to her, “None of your kindred is called by this name.”
62 And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he would have him called. 63 And he asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all marveled. 64 And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. 65 And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea; 66 and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.
Zechariah’s Prophecy
67 And his father Zechari′ah was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying,
68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people,
69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
71 that we should be saved from our enemies,
and from the hand of all who hate us;
72 to perform the mercy promised to our fathers,
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, 74 to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 through the tender mercy of our God,
when the day shall dawn upon us from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel.
Reading 3
441 words
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should note that, whatever Zechariah’s doubts when the Archangel came to him before in the Temple, they are gone now; his prophecy is nothing less than the proclamation that the Messiah is indeed about to be born (and if Mary remained for the birth, then Zechariah is in fact proclaiming that He is already present, even there in the room at that moment). The language with which he speaks expresses the full consolation of the long hopes and griefs of Israel, and the fulfillment of the oldest prophecies, even from the book of Genesis; we have indeed seen one of these prophecies this week in the creation of the woman from the rib of the man, and will see another one in the coming two weeks, as we see the promise that the seed of the woman will bruise or crush the head of the serpent.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?