The Church is beyond time and beyond this world

The Church is beyond time and beyond this world

The Holy Church teaches us that, we who live here on earth, should be preparing for eternity. And while we are yet living this temporal life, we are nevertheless in communion with eternal life. This preparation for eternal life was prepared in eternity, introduced into time, and today is revealed by God to us through the divine services. In the divine services, we leave the temporal and become united with the eternal. We leave all the things of this life and become united with that which has existed since the beginning of the age and which has been given through time and is still given again through our temporary existence. When you think about what is the main thing in life for a Christian, then, may be the correct answer to this is to be found in the words of the hymns that praise the saints of God, for they being in the world, lived "beyond time and beyond this world". The saints although in the world, were at the same time, on a higher level. The saints were in communion with eternity and with God, not just for a few minutes during the divine services but at every minute of life. Their lives could hardly be distinguished from those around them in their daily occupations and in their external relations with other people. When we speak of the divine services and take part in them, we forget that they have two dimensions. We think we have come to church, today, to remember some event from the Lord's life or from that of the Mother of God or the saints. But the Church says that our services, our feasts are not merely a commemoration, but are a real and genuine participation in those events - a participation that is only possible through these divine services. And not only do we take part in them, but these services have great significance for the whole world, indeed for the whole cosmos. When we approach prayer from these two dimensions, we participate in the divine services as part of the visible world. However we are not alone, but together with all of nature, we come into contact with the angelic world and the company of saints who celebrate the feasts with us. Those who believe, understand how bold the Church is and do not find it peculiar when it proclaims: "Let us remember how it was ? that Christ was born, how He was baptized, transfigured, crucified, betrayed and buried" Truly the Church proclaims: "Today, let us who are gathered together, remember this or that event" or "Today, we praise this or that saint". This is chanted in verses, canons and troparia. Today (not at some vague time), but at this actual moment, as the service is being celebrated. The Church has this boldness because it is of itself not temporal, but eternal. The Church is outside the world, higher and other worldly.

The Church is bold because we do not only celebrate the services but we, who are the pinnacle of the whole creation, believe and hope that the heavenly powers serve with us invisibly. We believe and hope that through the services, we in the 20(superscript: th) century have the possibility for coming into contact in prayerful illumination with the events of long ago, to come into contact and to participate in eternity. Thus this connecting between the higher and the visible world is what the services do.

This is the greatest significance of the services and not simply a commemoration, or our simple experience (which may be very good but is temporary and individual). Through the eternal dimension, the services unite each and all, the visible to the invisible world and here in the Church services, those people who did not live at the time of these past events can participate in them, now, in the present and can come into communion with them. It is in the services, in church, that we should train our senses of hearing, vision, sense of smell and touch, our tastes, our whole being to be in tune with "the world beyond and the time beyond". Adapted from a sermon by the Holy Hieromartyr Sergey Mechyev. 1927