The Tomb of our Heart
Hardly a day goes by but what I find those moments in which I think about Jesus Christ’s Crucifixion, His suffering and how much less I suffer for him in my spiritual and daily activities.
Often I get to the point where two prominent members of the Sanhedrin were quietly and subtly followers of Jesus Christ’s Life and Teachings.
Oh, you don’t know about them? Wasn’t the Sanhedrin the religious politicians of those times? The Sadducees and Pharisees comprised the make up of the Sanhedrin!
Yes, the Sanhedrin were the religious politicians of those times for they bed down with their conquerors, the Romans. Yet, in as much as the Sanhedrin were what Holy Writ describes as the cause for instigating the people against Jesus, so to were they, the Sanhedrin under sway of the Evil One. But there were two prominent figures who, as members, who vouchsafed our heritage in spiritual understanding.
Joseph, a respected member of the Sanhedrin, trampled down all the obstacles, vacillations and bewilderment that had beforehand constrained and worried him. He came to the cold hearted and cruel Pilate, asking for the body of Him Who had been executed by means of a very shameful death. After receiving the body of Jesus with reverence and honor, he buried it with that same august honor.
The Gospel Accounts rightly imparts to Joseph’s act the significance of a magnanimous, courageous action. A member of the Sanhedrin – before the face of the Sanhedrin which had committed deicide; before the face of Jerusalem, which had taken part in the deicide – took the body of the God-Man, Who had been murdered by men, down from the Cross and bore it away to the garden situated close to the city gates and walls.
In solitude and quiet, under a shade of trees, in a new tomb cut out of the solid rock face, with an abundant outpouring of fragrant spice and myrrh, he placed the body, by which the bodies and souls of all mankind have been redeemed, having wrapped it in the purest linens, the way a precious treasure is wrapped and concealed.
But there was another member of the Sanhedrin we often forget about and only recall in old fables and other stories about Glastonbury Tor in the British Isle. Yes! Nicodemus!
Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin, but like Joseph, was a secret follower of the Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ. He took part in the burial: coming to the Lord by night, as he had done before… having recognized Him as the One sent by God the Father.
Having leaned a great stone against the door of the sepulcher (in the Gospel the low opening into the case is called a door), Joseph left, as one who had completed his service satisfactorily.
The Sanhedrin were watching Joseph’s actions! After his departure though, the Sanhedrin took care to set a guard at the sepulcher and to affix a seal to the stone that blocked the entrance. The Lord’s burial was witnessed by His persecutors and enemies. Some members having, in a frenzy and rage, committed the greatest crime, had involuntarily performed the greatest sacrificial offering: by sacrificing the all-Holy Victim they had redeemed mankind and had put and end to the fruitless series of archetypal sacrifices, making those sacrifices and their statutes themselves superfluous.
Other members of the Sanhedrin, representatives of the Old Testament, in a God-pleasing way and spirit performed the burial of the Redeemer (Joseph and Nicodemus), and by their actions completed and sealed the pious work of the sons of the Old Testament. As a result, the commencement of the exclusive ministry of the New Testament began.
Those pious and holy women who were followers of the Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ, who followed Him throughout His ministry to the lost were no less courageous than Joseph and Nicodemus in their self-renunciation.
Having been present at the burial on Friday, they did not consider it permissible on the Sabbath, the day of rest (Saturday), to disturb the repose in which the Lord’s body sleep in the sacred darkness and reclusion of the cave-sepulcher, unknown at the time that He, His spirit, was doing battle against the dark forces in Hell as the Creed tells us. The women intended to pour out their zeal for the Lord by pouring myrrh on His body. Having returned form the burial on Friday, they straightway bought a sizable quantity of fragrantt mixtures of spices and awaited the day following the Sabbath which was, in our time, the first day of the week, Sunday.
On that day, at the rising of the sun, the pious women set out for the tomb. On the way they remembered that a large stone had been rolled in front of the tomb’s entrance. This caused them to worry, and the women began to speak among themselves. “Who shall roll us away the stone form the door of the sepulcher/” (Mark 16:3). The stone was very great.
When they arrived at the sepulcher, to their surprise they saw the stone already rolled away. It had been moved aside by the resplendent, powerful angel. After the Lord’s Resurrection the angel had descended from haven to the tomb that had held Him Whom the heavens could not contain. He had struck the guards with fear, and at the time had broken the seal and moved the heavy stone aside. He was sitting upon the stone awaiting the arrival of the women.
When the women came, the angel proclaimed to them the Lord’s Resurrection, commanding them to inform the Apostles. Thanks to their overzealousness towards the God-Man, thanks to their resolution to render honor to the all-holy body – guarded by sentries and vigilantly watched by the hatred of the Sanhedrin – the holy women were the first people to receive precise and reliable information about Christ’s Resurrection.
These women became the first and most powerful preachers and teachers of the Resurrection since they had heard the news form the very mouth of an angel. There is no partiality with the all-perfect God: all are equal before Him, and that man who strives toward God with great self-renunciation, is made worthy of the special gifts God, in exceptional abundance and with spiritual beauty.
“Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?” are words that should ring in our very ears daily. Why? Because those very words from those holy women have a very mystical meaning in spirit and in truth (spiritually and materially). It is so edifying that love for my neighbor and desire for his spiritual benefit do not permit me to be silent about it.
The Tomb Is Our Heart!
Our heart is supposed to be a temple! A temple of the All-Living God, of Jesus Christ. This has been converted by those following so many heresies in these last times with the “Body is the temple” only because they have not the spiritual eyes and spiritual ears to hear and see! Was it not Jesus Christ who said, “It is not what goes into the body and goes out through the affluent but that by every word which comes out of our mouth that we shall be judged!” ….. isn’t that what He said? YES! YES! YES! The temple is our heart! A hear that has become a tomb!
The heart has become a tomb of indifference, attraction to entertainments, lusts for other women and women for other men… Using lust as an argument to go against those who are on a path of spiritual struggle by holding up before their face things of the past as though they are criminals still, even when they have paid that price… The tomb of their hearts is cold and sealed from being opened by the very fallen angel, the Light Bearer, Lucifer, Satan, that old man the devil!
Christ enters the heart by means of true Orthodox Catholic Baptism, in order to dwell within us and act through us. Then the heart is consecrated ot God as a temple. We take form Christ the possibility of acting, and we revive our “old man,” when we continually act according to the inclinations of our fallen will and our reason, poisoned by falsehood.
Christ, Jesus, Who entered at Baptism, continues to abide in us, but He is as it were wounded and put to death by our behaviors, our very thoughts and selfish desires.
The temple of God, not made with hands, is turned into a very cramped and dark tomb within our very selves.
A stone, very great, is rolled against to the entrance.
The enemies of God set a watch before the tomb, and with a seal they make fast the opening that is shut up by the stone.
The enemies of God themselves keep watch to preserve this deadening!
They have deliberated and deliberately set up every kind of obstacle to warn them in advance of a resurrection – prevent it from making it impossible!
What is the Stone over the Tomb of the Heart?
The stone that is the infirmity of the soul by which all other infirmities are kept inviolable by the Evil Ones:
For our lusting desires for entertainments.
For our lusting after food, drugs, alcohol, clothing, embellishments of the body.
For our seeking such that take away our desire to pursue things of art, true music, reading books.
For our failure in teaching our children deductive reasoning.
For our failure in teaching our children logical thinking.
For our failure in teaching our children the ways to diminish their petulant urges involving the body.
For our failure in teaching ourselves how to control anger, to turn away from that which is destroying self and the very fabric of our humanity in both spirit and truth - - -
These are all those things which we have allowed civil authorities to encapsulate us from seeking things of both the heart, the mind, the soul and what is going on around us to protect not just ourselves, but each other and that which we should be holding near and dear.
What is this Stone?
The stone is the sin or pride, of lust, of selfishness which detracts us from true prayer, from true mediation, contemplation, going to confession and partaking of the balm of healing which rests in and with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist which He established for all time.
The Stone itself is INSENSIBILITY. It is explained further in “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” (Step 18) – See St. John Climacus
Many will say that they have never even heard of it.
According to the definition of the Fathers, “Insensibility” is the deadening of spiritual feelings. It is the invisible death of the human soul regarding matters and a total revitalization regarding material matters.
It happens that due to a long-term physical illness, all one’s strength is exhausted and all the body’s faculties wither. Then the sickness, not finding food for itself, ceases to torment the bodily frame. It leaves the sick one worn out – deadened, as it were – and incapable of activity because he has been wasted by sufferings, because of a terrible, mute sickness which is not expressed by any particular kind of suffering.
The same thing happens in a human soul as well!
A long standing negligent life amidst continual distractions, amidst continual voluntary sins, in forgetfulness of God and eternity, in forgetfulness of – or in the most superficial remembrance of – the Gospel commandments and teachings, removes one’s feelings for spiritual matters and deadens the soul to them. Though these spiritual matters exist, they cease to exist for him, because his life has ceased for them – all his strength is directed only that which is material (earthy and earthly), temporal, empty and sinful.
Anyone who examines the state of his soul dispassionately and thoroughly will see in it the infirmity of INSENSIBILITY. He will see the extent of it s influence, he will see its severity and importance, and he will admit that it is the manifestation and evidence of the deadening of his soul.
When we want to take up the reading of the world of God, what boredom attacks us! Everything we read seems to be of little importance, undeserving of attention, strange! How we wish to be quickly freed from this reading and get away to other pursuits. To what is this due? It is due to the fact that we have no feeling left in us for the Word of God. How therefore can it be re-implanted?
When we stand at prayer what dryness and coldness we feel How we rush to finish our superficial supplications, filled with distractions in our home during private prayer… Our dog sits near; the cat antagonizes the dog, and many other things. We allow other distractions to get in the way. When we are at Church, we also allow other distractions get in the way… It is too hot! Or it is too cold! Or someone we know makes a signal to us during Divine Liturgy which is distracting. We have become strangers to God: we believe in the existence of god with a dead faith. He does not exist for our feelings.
Why have we forgotten eternity? Is it possible that we will be excluded from the number of those who must enter its boundless domain? Is it possible that death does not stand before us face-to-face as it stands before other men? What is the reason for this?
It is because we have become so attached with all our soul to material things today, entertainments, the television, the radio, the crap-wrap, the Who’s Who of the Hollywood Jet Set! And so very many other things…
No longer do we think about eternity, and we never want to think about it – we have lost our precious presentiment of it and have acquired a false concern for our earthly sojourn to such an extent that we have fallen so very far from Him in spirit and Truth!
This false feeling makes our earthy life seem to be endless.
We are so deceived and captivated by this false feeling that we arrange all our acitons (and thoughts, it would seem) in accordance with what we are captivated by. We offer up the faculties of our soul and body in sacrifice to that which is corruptible, taking no care at all for the other world which awaits us even though we must without fail become eternal inhabitants of that world.
Why does idle talk, joking, judgment of our neighbors, and biting mockery of them pour forth from us as from a spring? Why is it that without feeling burdened we spend many hours at the most shallow entertainments without finding true and lasting satisfaction in them? We seem to expend more daily time going after one occupation and entertainment after another without finding any lasting, true satisfaction. We do not want to dedicate ourselves, even for the briefest of time, to the examination of our very soul, our sins, internally weeping over them… but only for things so shallow and empty do we go after... We seek things so shallow, for everything through which sin is introduced into us that we have forgotten or deadened ourselves against God and those beloved virtures which increases and preserves them in us.
INSENSIBILITY is inculcated in the soul by the world which is hostile toward God and by the fallen angels who are hostile toward God, and with the cooperation of our own will. It grows and is strengthened by a life that conforms to the principles of the world in which we are presently living.
It grows and is strengthened by following one’s own fallen reason and will, ceasing to serve God and serving God negligently in our homes and at Church with those things the Churches have allowed to enter in with, such as musical entertainments that are not truly a worship to God, but (unbeknownst to them who allow it, encourage and participate in it) by Evil Ones whose hearts are a façade of false hopes!
When INSENSIBILITY tarries in one’s soul and becomes its very nature, then the world and the rulers of the world affix their seal to the stone.
This seal consists in the human spirit’s contact with the fallen spirits, in the human spirit’s assimilation of the impressions produced on it by them, and in its subjugation to the forcible influences and predominance of the rejected spirits.
“Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?” becomes all them more meaningful when we apply it to our very self! This is a question filled with anxiety, sadness and bewilderment. This anxiety, sadness and bewilderment are felt by those souls who are making their way to the Lord, having ceased serving the world and sin.
Before their gaze is revealed, in all its terrible magnitude and significance, the infirmity of insensibility becomes all the more glaringly apparent.
Isn’t it time to take stock of who you are, what you are, where you are and why you are the way you are today? Isn’t it time to consider all these things and even more as regards what you are doing, have done or failed to do? How you can overcome and stop these things from further taking you down the path to perdition will be spoken of in other articles regarding INSENSIBILITY!
+Thaddeus The Unworthy One (July 2007)
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