Day 1 (Monday)
4 Kingdoms 4:8-44 (Miracles Done Through Elisha)
Last time, we moved quickly through the series of usurpers after Jeroboam’s death until we came to Omri, king of Israel and builder of Samaria, which will be the capital of Israel until the kingdom’s defeat and destruction by the Assyrians. Omri’s son, Ahab, together with his wife Jezebel, led Israel into the worship of Baal, and things went from bad to worse. However, at that time we saw the Lord send prophets, first Elijah, and then Elijah’s successor Elisha, to preach and minister to His people and to call them to repentance, and to care for them in these troubled times. This week, we will see some of the miracles which the Lord did for His people through Elisha.
Elisha Raises the Shunammite’s Son
8 One day Eli′sha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food. 9 And she said to her husband, “Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God, who is continually passing our way. 10 Let us make a small roof chamber with walls, and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there.”
11 One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. 12 And he said to Geha′zi his servant, “Call this Shu′nammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. 13 And he said to him, “Say now to her, See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.” 14 And he said, “What then is to be done for her?” Geha′zi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” 15 He said, “Call her.” And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. 16 And he said, “At this season, when the time comes round, you shall embrace a son.” And she said, “No, my lord, O man of God; do not lie to your maidservant.” 17 But the woman conceived, and she bore a son about that time the following spring, as Eli′sha had said to her.
18 When the child had grown, he went out one day to his father among the reapers. 19 And he said to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” The father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20 And when he had lifted him, and brought him to his mother, the child sat on her lap till noon, and then he died. 21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out. 22 Then she called to her husband, and said, “Send me one of the servants and one of the asses, that I may quickly go to the man of God, and come back again.” 23 And he said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath.” She said, “It will be well.” 24 Then she saddled the ass, and she said to her servant, “Urge the beast on; do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.” 25 So she set out, and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
When the man of God saw her coming, he said to Geha′zi his servant, “Look, yonder is the Shu′nammite; 26 run at once to meet her, and say to her, Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?” And she answered, “It is well.” 27 And when she came to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet. And Geha′zi came to thrust her away. But the man of God said, “Let her alone, for she is in bitter distress; and the Lord has hidden it from me, and has not told me.” 28 Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, Do not deceive me?” 29 He said to Geha′zi, “Gird up your loins, and take my staff in your hand, and go. If you meet any one, do not salute him; and if any one salutes you, do not reply; and lay my staff upon the face of the child.” 30 Then the mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he arose and followed her. 31 Geha′zi went on ahead and laid the staff upon the face of the child, but there was no sound or sign of life. Therefore he returned to meet him, and told him, “The child has not awaked.”
32 When Eli′sha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. 33 So he went in and shut the door upon the two of them, and prayed to the Lord. 34 Then he went up and lay upon the child, putting his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands; and as he stretched himself upon him, the flesh of the child became warm. 35 Then he got up again, and walked once to and fro in the house, and went up, and stretched himself upon him; the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 36 Then he summoned Geha′zi and said, “Call this Shu′nammite.” So he called her. And when she came to him, he said, “Take up your son.” 37 She came and fell at his feet, bowing to the ground; then she took up her son and went out.
Elisha Purifies the Pot of Stew
38 And Eli′sha came again to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land. And as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Set on the great pot, and boil pottage for the sons of the prophets.” 39 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds, and came and cut them up into the pot of pottage, not knowing what they were. 40 And they poured out for the men to eat. But while they were eating of the pottage, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it. 41 He said, “Then bring meal.” And he threw it into the pot, and said, “Pour out for the men, that they may eat.” And there was no harm in the pot.
Elisha Feeds One Hundred Men
42 A man came from Ba′al-shal′ishah, bringing the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Eli′sha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How am I to set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” 44 So he set it before them. And they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.
Reading 8 – 1153 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 Elisha escalates his intercessions for the son of the Shunamite woman. First he sends Gehazi with his staff, and has him lay it upon the face of the boy. Then he arrives himself, and prays, then lays himself upon the child, in direct contact with him, and at this, the child grows warm. Then Elisha walks around, and then lays himself upon the child once more, and the child sneezes seven times and wakes up. We do not need to read the Fathers of the Church to know what they will say about this; this is clearly a sign and foreshadowing, and indeed a participation, in the Lord’s Resurrection. It is not His suffering on the Cross which resurrects the dead, and thus the rod of the prophet does not accomplish the raising of the boy. It is when the Lord unites Himself with us in our death and our lowliness that life and warmth returns to us, and thus the instant that He dies, the tombs are broken open. But the second day, the great and holy Sabbath Day that we have just finished reading about from St. Epiphanios, is the day when He fills Hades with Himself, and raises them up, and thus it is the second time that Elisha lays himself down upon the boy that the life returns to him, and he sneezes seven times, to signify the completion of the days of the Creation and the beginning of the New Creation, and then he gets up and goes with Elisha, who gives him to his mother, and in this we see a sign of the Lord’s Resurrection, raising up our mortal nature and restoring us to the fullness of life in Him.)
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)
St. Gregory the Theologian – On the Holy Lights – 1
St. Gregory the Theologian, sometimes referred to as St. Gregory of Nazianzus, his hometown, is one of the three Cappadocian Fathers (the other two are St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa, his brother). He was a close friend and schoolmate of St. Basil the Great, and despite his preference for a life of prayer and study, was pressed into service by St. Basil in the theological and political struggles of the later Arian controversy. The culmination of this resulted in his installation in 379 as the Nicene bishop of Constantinople, a city whose churches were entirely controlled by the Arians, such that the new bishop was reduced to establishing a chapel in the home of a wealthy cousin. With the arrival of the Nicene emperor Theodosius in the city in November 380, however, St. Gregory was suddenly installed the Archbishop of the entire city, in charge of the all the Churches. He preached a series of three festal sermons on the great feasts that winter: one on Christmas, the beginning of which has been adopted as the Christmas Katavasies (Christ is born; glorify Him!), this one we are about to read, on the Lord’s Baptism, and another preached the day after Theophany, on the baptism of the Christian. He only served as the Archbishop until July of the following year, at which point he retired to Cappadocia, where he wrote and taught until his repose in 390.
For this text, please note that there are a number of numbers in the text; these are footnotes, and contain either Scriptural references or additional information that can be found at the end of the main text.
St. Gregory the Theologian
ORATION 39
On the Baptism of Christ (On the Holy Lights)
1 Again my Jesus, and again a mystery, a mystery not deceitful or disorderly, nor belonging to the disorder and drunkenness of the [pagan] Greeks—for thus I name their solemnities, as, I think, everyone sensible will—but a mystery exalted and divine and bringing the radiance from above. For the holy day of lights, to which we have come and which we are deemed worthy to celebrate today, takes its origin from the baptism of my Christ, the true light, which illumines every human being coming into the world,1 effects my purification, and strengthens the light we received from him from the beginning, which we darkened and blotted out through sin.
2 Therefore listen to the divine voice, which resounds very strongly in me, the initiate and the initiator of these mysteries; and may it also resound in you: “I am the light of the world.”2 And because of this “come near to him and be illumined and your faces will not be ashamed,”3 being marked with the sign of the true light.4 It is the time of rebirth; let us be born from above. It is the time of refashioning; let us receive again the first Adam.5
Let us not remain what we are but become what we once were. “The light shines in the darkness” of this life and the flesh, and it is persecuted by the darkness but not overcome,6 I mean by the adverse power, who out of shamelessness leapt upon the visible Adam7 but encountered God and was defeated, so that we, putting aside the darkness,8 may draw near to the light,9 and thus become perfect light, children of perfect light.10 Do you see the grace of this day? Do you see the power of the mystery? Have you not been lifted up from the earth? Have you not clearly been placed above, exalted by our voice and our guidance upward? And you will be placed still higher when the Word has guided this discourse well.
3 Is it some kind of legal and shadowy purification, providing aid through temporary sprinklings and sprinkling the ashes of a heifer on those who have become unclean?11 Is it something like what the Greeks reveal in their initiations? To me all their initiations and mysteries are nonsense, dark inventions of demons and fabrications of a demon-possessed mind, assisted by time and deceived by myth. For what they worship as true they hide as mythical. If these things are true, they should not call them myths but show that they are not shameful; if false, they should not marvel, nor so recklessly hold opposite opinions about the same subject. It is as if they were playing in the marketplace with children, or rather with truly demon-possessed men, and not conversing with men of reason who worship the Word though they spit upon this contrived and sordid plausibility.
4. With us there are no births and thefts of Zeus, the Cretan tyrant, though the Greeks are displeased; nor Curetes shouting and clapping and dancing with their weapons, drowning out the noise of a crying god, so as to hide him from a father who hates children; for it would have been strange for one swallowed as a stone to cry as a child.12 Nor the Phrygians’ mutilations and flutes and Corybantes, nor all the people’s ravings about Rhea, initiating others into the cult of the mother of the gods and being initiated as befits the mother of such gods.13 Nor for us is there any maiden abducted, nor does Demeter wander or introduce any Cerei and Triptolemoi and dragons or things she does and suffers. For I am ashamed to grant to the day the initiation of the night and make what is unseemly a mystery. Eleusis knows these things, as do those who see the things that are guarded in silence and are surely deserving of silence.14 Nor is there Dionysus or the thigh in labor with an unformed fetus, as formerly a head was with another one;15 nor the androgynous god and the drunken chorus and the relaxed army and the Theban madness honoring this god and the thunderbolt of Semele that is worshipped.16 Nor the harlot mysteries of Aphrodite, who, as they say themselves, was shamefully born and is shamefully honored. Nor any Phalloi and Ithyphalloi, shameful both as images and as objects;17 nor Taurian murders of strangers,18 nor blood of Lacedemonian youths on the altar, as they are scourged with the whips and in this alone are manly in a bad way, who honor a goddess, one who is a virgin. For they both honored effeminacy and revered boldness.19
5 And where will you place the butchery of Pelops, who provides a feast to hungry gods and his cruel and inhuman hospitality?20 Where will you place the frightening and nocturnal phantoms of Hekate, and the subterranean games and oracles of Trophanius, and the gibberish of the oak of Dordona, and the fallacies of the tripod of Delphi, and the prophetic drink of Castalia?21 This alone they could not prophesy, their own silence. Nor is there the sacrificial skill of the magi and their predictions through cutting victims, nor the astronomy of the Chaldeans and their horoscopes that connect our affairs with the movements of the heavens, who themselves are unable to understand what they are or will be.22 Nor are there those Thracian orgies, from which, they say, come the word for “worship”;23 nor the initiations and mysteries of Orpheus, at whom the Greeks marveled so much for his wisdom that they also made for him a lyre that draws all things by its music;24 nor the just punishment of Mithras against those who accept to be initiated into such mysteries;25 nor the tearing apart of Osiris, another disaster honored by the Egyptians; nor the misfortunes of Isis26 and the goats more venerable than the Mendesians and the feeding trough of Apis, the calf feasting on the foolishness of the Memphites;27 nor those honors by which they insult the Nile,28 while themselves singing its praises as giver of fruit and rich in grain and measuring happiness by its cubits.
6 For I do not speak of the honors given to reptiles and beasts and the emulation of impropriety, none of which have any initiation or festival of their own. Yet all share a common demonic possession. So if indeed they absolutely had to be ungodly and fall away from the glory of God,29 bowing down to idols and works of art and things made by hands, sensible people could not wish anything worse for themselves than to venerate such things and to honor them in such a way, “that they might receive the recompense due for their error,” as Paul says,30 in the things they venerate. They do not honor through themselves the things they venerate as much as they are dishonored by them. They are abominable because of their error, more abominable because of the vileness of the things they worship and venerate, so that they are more lacking in perception than the very objects they honor, being more exceedingly foolish than the things they worship are vile.
St Gregory of Nazianzus, Festal Orations, ed. John Behr, trans. Nonna Verna Harrison, vol. 36, Popular Patristics Series (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008), 79–97.
Reading 1 – 1233 words
1 John 1:9.
2 John 8:12.
3 Ps 34:5.
4 John 1:9.
5 1 Cor 15:45.
6 John 1:5.
7 That is, Christ.
8 Rom 13:12.
9 John 3:21.
10 Eph 5:8.
11 Heb 9:13.
12 Gregory refers to stories of the birth and childhood of Zeus, whose father Kronos learned that one of his children would dethrone him and tried to eat them all. His wife Rhea saved Zeus by substituting a stone for the baby and taking him to Crete, where warriors named Curetes protected him. Worshipers re-enacted this story by dancing and shouting like the warriors so the child’s murderous father would not hear him cry and find him.
13 The Corybantes of Phrygia worshipped Rhea with ecstatic dancing and mutilated themselves with small knives.
14 In Greece the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose initiates guarded its secrets in silence, celebrated the renewal of vegetation and grain through the myth of Demeter and her daughter Kore, who was abducted and taken to the underworld. Demeter endures many wanderings and sufferings as she searches for her lost child.
15 Athena was born from the head of Zeus. Zeus fathered Dionysus by his lover Semele, and when she died during pregnancy enclosed the fetus in his thigh until it came to term.
16 Dionysus was thought to have both masculine and feminine qualities. His worship involved drunkenness and sexual license. It was thought that Zeus struck Semele with a thunderbolt.
17 Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of sexual desire, and she was worshipped by dancers carrying phallic symbols.
18 The playwright Euripides tells a story of strangers being killed and sacrificed to the goddess Artemis at a temple in Taurus.
19 The Spartans, also known as Lacedemonians, honored Artemis with an initiation ritual in which boys whipped each other until they bled.
20 A myth tells of how Tantalus prepared a feast for visiting gods by butchering, cooking, and serving them his son Pelops.
21 Here Gregory refers to several well known pagan oracles and forms of prophesy.
22 The magi—three of whom visited the infant Christ, as Matthew tells the story—were Zoroastrian priests, astronomers and astrologers, and also foretold the future by examining the entrails of sacrificed animals. The Chaldeans also practiced astronomy and astrology, which were studied together in the ancient world and only later became clearly separate disciplines.
23 The Greek word is threskeuein, hence the pun or supposed etymology linking it to Thrace.
24 Orpheus was a musician whose playing was thought to charm all of nature.
25 Mithras was a sun god from Persia worshipped throughout the Roman world, especially by soldiers. Initiation in his cult was expensive, strenuous and dangerous.
26 Osiris, according to Egyptian myth, was cut into pieces by his brother Typho. Isis, the wife of Osiris, had to search for all the pieces and reassemble them.
27 In Egypt, the people of Mendes worshipped a god in the form of a goat, and those in Memphis worshipped Apis in the form of a calf.
28 Egyptians considered the Nile almost a god, since its annual flooding made possible the agriculture on which the country depended for life and prosperity.
29 Rom 3:23.
30 Rom 1:27; 6:23.
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 that St. Gregory begins by speaking of the Lord’s Baptism as a mystery, and in this selection proceeds by contrasting it with the mysteries of the various pagan gods. This is notable, as the mysteries in those contexts were initiations, and then continued participations in the life of the gods. To speak of the Lord’s Baptism as a mystery is therefore somewhat surprising; we would expect him to speak of our own baptism as an initiation. What he is doing is something that is essential to the Christian Gospel, an inversion of a pattern that exists in the pagan world to make it correct. The false pattern is that we human beings do something which invokes the presence of the gods; the true pattern is that God acts first, and unites Himself with us, and calls us to meet and encounter Him. Thus St. Gregory spends the majority of this section in drawing the contrast, in mocking the foolishness, the frivolity, or the depravity of the heathen mysteries, and in setting them in comparison with the true mystery of God uniting Himself with His creation. Please note that we have italicized portions of the text, so that families don’t need to read EVERYTHING that is there; we have left the entire text for those with older children or households with only adults, with the footnotes at the bottom explaining what he is referring to.)
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)
Acts 22:30, 23:1-11 (Paul Before the Council)
Last time, we saw the St. Paul speak to the crowd after the tribune had rescued him from the mob, and tell his story up to the point at which God sent him to preach to the Gentiles. At that point, the crowd began to cry for his blood once again, and the tribune interrupted the proceedings (not knowing what had happened, as Paul had spoken in Hebrew/Aramaic), and ordered the soldiers to examine him by flogging, to find out why the crowd was so disturbed. Paul interrupted this proceeding in turn by informing the tribune that he was a Roman citizen, and had been born a citizen. This time, we will see the tribune’s next steps to determine why the crowd hates Paul.
Paul before the Council
30 Since he wanted to find out what Paul was being accused of by the Jews, the next day he released him and ordered the chief priests and the entire council to meet. He brought Paul down and had him stand before them.
23 While Paul was looking intently at the council he said, “Brothers, up to this day I have lived my life with a clear conscience before God.” 2 Then the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near him to strike him on the mouth. 3 At this Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting there to judge me according to the law, and yet in violation of the law you order me to be struck?” 4 Those standing nearby said, “Do you dare to insult God’s high priest?” 5 And Paul said, “I did not realize, brothers, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a leader of your people.’”
6 When Paul noticed that some were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he called out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” 7 When he said this, a dissension began between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8 (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three.)
9 Then a great clamor arose, and certain scribes of the Pharisees’ group stood up and contended, “We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” 10 When the dissension became violent, the tribune, fearing that they would tear Paul to pieces, ordered the soldiers to go down, take him by force, and bring him into the barracks.
11 That night the Lord stood near him and said, “Keep up your courage! For just as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also in Rome.”
Reading 42 – 351 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 well St. Paul knows his audience. On the one hand, he may not recognize the high priest (as Ananias had probably become high priest since Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem), but he certainly understands the essential positions and fault lines within the Sanhedrin. He first asserts that his conscience is clear, and this results in his confrontation with the high priest, who is automatically the leader of the Sadduccees. That opens up for him the opportunity to affirm that he is a Pharisee, and that he is on trial on account of his belief in the resurrection from the dead; this enlists every Pharisee as an ally, and the result has him back in the custody of the tribune, and on the verge of leaving Jerusalem for the last time.)
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?