Christ is risen from the grave!
Response:  Indeed, He has risen from the grave!

These are the opening words spoken by a Deacon in the Eastern celebration of Easter, often called the Feast of Feasts, being the most important day on the Church Calendar.  For this occasion I have published a 13-minute Podcast homily on the AIC Web Site, in which I elaborate on the history of the Eastern celebration of Easter at Antioch, the meaning of Ranson and Propitiation, and, in modern life, the choice facing all Christians of being either Esau or Jacob.   Listen to the Podcast Homily.

In the Homily I refer to one of the most remarkable icons of the Eastern Church tradition, The Harrowing of Hades.  In this single icon are many theological messages of great importance to an understanding of traditional Christian teaching.  Since the Homily is sound-only, I have included for this Blog.

Jesus stands, surrounded by the blue aura, signifying the Glory of the Lord, with the golden disk behind His head in the traditional Eastern Church manner including the Greek equivalent letters for I AM  (Exodus 3:14, 15).  He stands upon the coffin lids symbolic of the gates of Hades, which by His Resurrection He has broken open.  With His right hand (left side of the icon) He lifts Adam, dressed in white, from Sheol (the Pit).  With His left hand (right side of the icon), He lifts Eve, dressed in Red.

In the Pit beneath the destroyed gates of Hades are the keys which are referred to in Revelation:  I hold the keys to Hades and Death.   Also in the Pit is a bound figure who is not raised from the dead, symbolic of those unrighteous who will not enjoy everlasting life in the Kingdom of the Father.

The figure at the left background (to the right of Jesus Christ) is John the Baptist, called the Last Prophet of the Old Testament, symbolizing the transition from the Old Testament to the New.

At my former parish of St. John Chrysostom, I always hung this icon on the front of the pulpit throughout Easter season, where the people could easily see it.  The same icon was held aloft in the Eastern Morning processional around the outside of St. Joseph’s Villa Chapel, Richmond, VA.  The full text of the Easter Morning service, based on a Syrian Orthodox Church model, is available in paperback and Kindle versions in the AIC Bookstore publication. Occasional Services for Anglican Worship at my author page at Amazon.com.   (www.Amazon.com/author/ronald-e-shibley).

My podcast homily for Fourth Sunday in Lent, focused on Galatians 4:21 to 5:1 and John 6:1-14, the Feeding of the 5,000 was uploaded to the AIC Podbean site and linked from the Podcast Homily page at the AIC Web Site.   Listen to Fourth Sunday in Lent

With the coming of a hint of Spring and my wife’s continuing recovery from her accident, I took down the temporary handicapped ramp I built in early January.  This presented the opportunity to do some landscape work, which I will continue doing this morning (at least until the predicted rainfall begins).  Episode 41 and part of Episode 42 in the New Testament series is complete but they will not be uploaded until some time this coming week.   I need to do so further editing of the scripts and, possibly, production of one more slide for Episode 41.

Today’s three illustrations are part of those used for the Bible Study series which touched upon the Feeding of the 5,000.   I cropped the center detail of a larger mosaic of Christ flanked by a Byzantine Emperor and Empress.  The Hagia Sophia is a true treasure house of Christian art from the early Church.  Later converted into a mosque and even later into a museum, the Moslems attempted to destroy many of the images so that most of what is left was too far off the ground for the vandals to reach them and pray them off or paint over them.

The second illustration is a 5th Century fresco of Andrew at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls at Rome.  Andrew was one of two disciples named in St. John’s account, each of whom had doubts about how Jesus could feed so many with so little.

The other disciple who was a skeptic was Philip.  He is represented in this blog post by a late 19th Century opaque watercolor over gray wove paper by the French artist, James Tissot, and which is part of the life of Christ series by Tissot at the Brooklyn Museum, which placed the works in the public domain.  Philip could not see how two hundred denari worth of bread could give even a little to over 5,000 people.   We should remember that in the 1st Century the counts of such crowds did not include women or children, therefore the number present was quite likely many more than 5,000.

I present the Feeding of the 5,000 in the context of the unique material found only in St. John’s version of the event and also the lirugical parallel between how Jesus prepared, presented and distributed the bread and fish to the traditional service of Holy Eucharist (from the Greek, meaning a thanksgiving).

Blessings and best wishes to all those who have followed and supported the Internet ministry of the Anglican Internet Church. I hope you will attend your local church/parish this Sunday for the Fourth Sunday in the penitential season of Lent.

Glory be to God for all things!  Amen!

Another week and another snow storm here in Richmond, leaving behind about 2 inches of sleet, snow and ice glaze on the ground.  I fervently hope this is the last one for the season!  I’ve got my garden suppliers catalogs on my desk and some plant material already ordered from BrentandBeckysBulbs in Gloucester County, VA.

Just this week I had a client and his wife in for a review meeting and the topics of staying busy and having the time and the combination of physical-mental-technology to make it possible to continue producing videos, books and podcasts.  As my wife puts it, it keep me out of trouble.

This week I completed Episode 40 in the New Testament: Gospels and Epistles series.  I finish up the discussion of the theme of Light vs Darkness and take up several more Unique Themes in St. John’s Gospel:  Good vs. Evil, True vs. False, Life vs. Death, and Heaven vs. Earth.  After that is Part 1 (of how many I won’t know I’m finished with the topics) in a discussion of Unique Details which St. John provides, beginning with 4 topics:  Jesus’ Emotions; Numerology; Use of “Jews” and Prophecy.  Once again this week I have used a picture from the Rohan Hours volume I just acquired for the AIC Library, plus a half dozen other works from both the Eastern and Western Church traditions.   Episode 41 will be focused on two Unique Details: the Relationship Between Father and Son and St. John’s unique references to Places and People, beginning with Samaria and Cana.  Watch Episode 40

I also published a Podcast Homily for Third Sunday in Lent.  I was unable to find a good illlustration of the content of the Gospel reading from St. Luke on Jesus’ expelling of the evil spirit from the mute man.  If you know of something, please let me know so I can put it in the library of illustrations for use next year.  I did use a 12th Century mosaic in the Byzantine style at the Cathedral in Palermo, Sicily, depicting Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem riding the colt side-saddle in the Eastern and kingly manner.

I finished production a limited number of 2-CD sets with all twelve of the movies for Reflections on the Twelve Days of Christmas.  You can watch these on You Tube, but if you’d like your own set, pls send a check for $26.00, which includes shipping and handling via USPS Priority Mail.  Make checks payable to Anglican Internet Church and send them to 7162 Soft Wind Lane, Mechanicsville, VA.  Later I plan to set these up on our web site so that people can use PayPal to place orders (for this collection, for the new Paintings on Light video, and the Great “O” Antiphons series.

Today is Ash Wednesday and I took advantage of being snowed in to record the Podcast Homily for First Sunday in Lent.  Listen to the Podcast Homily

The Readings are another of St. Paul’s homilies on Christian Virtue (2 Corinthians 6:1-10), this one directed toward Apostles of his time and of ours and St. Matthew’s account of the Three Temptations of Christ (Matthew 4:1-11).  Of course, in the modern Church there are many reformist scholars who argue that no such events took place, that Matthew made them up to suit his narrative.  Those of us who recognize the philosophical duality on which Christian Spirituality is based (The Reality of Evil in the World | Christian Truth as the Only Antidote) have to problem accepting Matthew’s account.  It is only by accepting the duality that a Christian can be equipped to defend himself or herself against the “wiles and assaults of the devil” and the evil he cultivates in the world in the ongoing War on Christianity.  If you search the Web, you will find several of the art works shown below listed until the category of

For you Blog readers, I thought to provide three art works, each of which I used in the Bible Study episode on St. Luke’s version of the same events (Episode Sixteen), with more commentary about the work and the artist than was used there.    For the offering of bread to assuage Jesus’ hunger after his 40 days of fasting, I offer the dark, foreboding interpretation by Russian artist Vasily Surikov, which now hangs in a gallery at St. Petersburg, Russia.  Surikov, considered the greatest 19th century Russian painter of historical scenes, attended the Imperial Academy of Arts at St. Petersburg from 1869 to 1871.   He died at Moscow in 1916.

For St. Matthew’s version is this Scriptural quotation in NKJV text:  “And the Devil said to Him: ‘If you are the Son of God, command that these stones to become bread.’  But He answered him and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.””  The quotation is from Deuteronomy 8:3.

For Christians, we understand that the “daily bread” for which we petition in the Lord’s Prayer means those things which are essential for our survival, including access to the word of God (both literally, as Scripture, and spiritually, as St. John wrote, through faith in the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

The second Temptation finds Jesus taken by Satan to the roof of the Temple.  Satan offers a parody of Psalm 91:11, 12, the source of both Jewish and Christian belief in the Guardian Angel.  If, he says, Jesus will just throw Himself off the roof, He will be protected by angels:  “He shall give His angels charge over you…In their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”    Jesus replied, again citing a verse from Deuteronomy (6:16):  It is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”   Those who believe in the Guardian Angel understand that while we believe in his power to protect, we cannot and must not ever place ourselves in danger, effectively taunting God, through the Guardian Angel, to protect us from our own folly.

The third Temptation shows us clearly the strategy that has been followed by Satan (from the Hebrew ha-satan, meaning the Adversary or the Enemy).    In this second Temptation Jesus, on a mountain with a view of Jerusalem, symbolic of the whole world, is offered all He sees if He will but worship Satan instead of God the Father.  Jesus’ defiant answer, based on Deuteronomy 6:13, offers instruction in the doctrine that Satan/The Devil is a created being, made by God and subservient to His will and word:   “Away with you Satan!  For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.”

The illlustration is a very fine Eastern/Byzantine style painting done in egg tempera with gold leaf on a wooden panel.  Duccio is known as one of the finest painters of the Siena school.  He was trained by masters at Constantinople, the seat of the Byzantine Empire.  Duccio was among the last artists in the Western Church tradition to paint such scenes in the Eastern/Byzantine style.  The figure of Jesus wears the same red garment with blue robe that was used in Duccio’s painting of the Raising of Lazarus.  The craggy, grey mountains and the splayed feet of the figures are typical of the Byzantine style, prevalent before it was supplanted in the West by a more anatomically-correct representation of the human form.  The Eastern style still offers a sense of spirituality not present in the modern Western styles.

I hope that if you cannot attend an Ash Wednesday service, you take the opportunity to listen to the commentary on the Collect for Ash Wednesday found in the first minute of the Podcast Homily.  Here in Richmond, most Ash Wednesday services have been cancelled owing to the snowfall and the expectation of more to come this evening.

Thanks for your interest and your support for the Anglican Internet Church online ministry.

Greetings.  For the week before Quinquagesima Sunday, I have released both a Podcast Homily for Quinguagesima Sunday and another episode in the AIC Bible Study series New Testament:  Gospels and Epistles.

Quinquagesima Sunday is the third and final Sunday in the pre-Lenten season and it hardly seems possible that Ash Wednesday is next week!  The Podcast Homily is primarily focused on the Epistle and Gospel readings for the day, but I also mention the last verse of the reading for First Lesson for Morning Prayer, Deuteronomy 11:1 because it sheds light on St. Paul’s emphasis on Love as a primary virtue (Charity in the King James and Prayer Book readings, but Love (agape) in nearly all other translations.  The Gospel lesson includes Jesus’ prophecies of His own persecution, death and Resurrection as well as St. Luke’s account of the healing of the blind man (identified as Bartimaeus in St. Mark’s account).  I sought to add some context to Jesus’ reference to Prophets by including a lengthy reading from Isaiah and Psalm 22.   For admirers of the writings the great Anglican teacher and scholar, Lancelot Andrewes, I close with both the Collect for the Day and a long quotation from a Confession of Faith from the Private Writings of Lancelot Andrewes (using the late 19th Century translation now in the public domain),  I don’t think Anglicans today give enough credit to the contribution Andrewes made to our understanding of the teachings of the Eastern Church.   Listen to the Podcast Homily.

In Episode 38 of the Bible Study series the focus remains on the five unique “signs” in the Gospel of St. John.   I finish my discussion of the dialogue that follows the Healing of the Blind Man and close with a discussion of the last of the five, the

Raising of Lazarus.   I was lucky to find a 14th Century illustration of the event by Duccio Buoninsegna of Siena, Italy.  Duccio’s learned his art from a teaching in Constantinople and largely follows the Eastern style, depicting Lazurus arising from a cave and providing a background of stylized, craggy mountains, with the figures displayed with splayed feet.  Yet his choice of colors for the robes of Jesus are in a shade of red and blue that would become popular in the Western Church after the Renaissance.  His version is, I think, much more accurate than the far more familiar version by Peter Paul Rubens, which shows Lazarus rising from a grave in the ground (in the Western manner).

The Raising of Lazarus, while not the only example of the raising of one thought to be dead (ie, the son of the widow of Nain and the Daughter of Jairus) the event St. John reports is the only example of a revival of a person not only dead but actually buried for four days.  Take note that the man standing closest to the tomb appears to be holding his nose, indicating skepticism that there would be no stench of death.   Watch the video of Episode 38 via our You Tube channel.

I hope to complete the series on the Gospel of St. John during February and early March so that I can turn my attention to finishing the new series on the book of Revelation:  Revelation: an Idealist Interpretation, in which I discuss Revelation verse-by-verse.

The Anglican Internet Church is committed to producing Podcast Homilies for all the Sundays in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  This year, Easter is early and there will be no services for Epiphany 4, 5 & 6.  I think the readings for these three Sundays are too important to ignore and so have provided Podcast Homilies for all three.  Each offers traditional, theologically-sound and spiritual-minded explanations of the Epistle and Gospel readings anyway.   Visit the Podcast Homilies page

For the Fourth Sunday After Epiphany, the Epistle reading is Romans 13:1-7, which is a morality and responsibity homily by St. Paul, explaining the source of all governmental authority (God) and the responsibilities of both ruler and ruled to do good and shun evil.  The content of St. Paul’s homily influenced the Prayer for All in Civil Authority found in the Morning Prayer office in the 1928 B.C.P.   The Gospel reading for the day is St. Matthew’s account of the Healing of the Leper and the Healing of the Centurion’s servant.  I am very fond of the illustration of the healing of the leper that was included in Canon Farrar’s The Life of Christ, published in 1894.   In the homily I explore the Old Testament requirements for healing of lepers and why Jesus’ action upset the Pharisees and also quote from St. Cyril of Alexandria on the meaning of the text.   There are two closing prayers, one by St. Augustine of Hippo on the light coming into the world and the Collect for Epiphany 4.

For the Fifth Sunday After Epiphany, the Epistle reading is another selection from the canon of St. Paul, Colossians 3:12-17, a lesson on Christian virtues and the value of forgiveness.  I discuss St. Paul’s influence on the creation of the list of Christian Virtues according to the Eastern Church and Western Church understanding, using the work of St. John Climacus (Ladder of Divine Ascent) and the Gregorian Sacramentary from the Roman Catholic tradition, explaining the primary virtues, cardinal sins, and contrary virtures.   The Gospel reading is Matthew 13:24-30, the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.  Since the last three Sundays after Epiphany all focus on aspects of Jesus’ coming again to be our judge, the parable of the Wheat and the Tares offers a quite clear lesson on the fate of those who live by the law of God and those who live by the guidance of Satan.  The illustration is a circa 1900 photograph of harvesting in the Holy Land in which the workers are dealing with the wheat and tares.  Some will be gathered and burned.  Some will be taken into the master’s barn.

For the Sixth Sunday After Epiphany, the final Sunday of Epiphany season, the B.C.P. provides a lesson on love from the pens of St. John the Apostle, Evangelist and Theologian.  His epistle comforts the faithful in the knowledge that what they believe is the Truth and that all else is falsehood advocated by the forces of the Evil One, who does what he has done “from the beginning,”  (1 John 3:8a) that is, tempt and mislead the faithful into sin.  He assures them that those who live lives following the teachings of Christ will be judged “righteous” and those who live lives led by the Evil One are sinful:  “He who sins is of the devil”  (1 John 3:8a).   The Gospel readings is Matthew 24:23-31, Jesus prophecy of His own death and Resurrection and discussions of the signs of His Second Coming.  Traditional teaching is that one cannot know when this event will happen but must always be prepared for it, whether it is now, tomorrow or some other time.  The closing prayer is the Collect for the day, largely based on the work of Bishop John Cosin on the theme of reality of evil/the devil and the hope of all the faithful to be made like their Maker and allowed into His glorious kingdom.  The illustration is a Christ Pantokrator (roughly: Ruler of the Universe) from around the 11th Century in Milan.

Thanks and blessings to all who have supported the electronic ministry of The Anglican Internet Church.

The AIC Podcast Homily series for all the Sundays in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer continues this week with the posting of the homily for Sexagesima Sunday, the second of three homilies for “Gesima” Season.  Scripture includes 2 Corinthians 11:10-31, which is St. Paul’s advice, and personal history, on enduring adversity for the sake of the Christian Faith, and Luke 8:4-15, the Parable of the Sower.  Listen to the Podcast Homily.

The Parable of the Sower is quite similar to the parable of the Wheat and the Tares in St. Matthew’s Gospel.  For the Podcast Homily I have attempted to explain, in terms compatible with the practice of Christian Spirituality, each of the characters and situations, as Jesus Himself explained them to the Disciples.

I’ve included with this Blog posting a miniature of The Sower, one of the wonderful illustrations by French artist James Tissot that are now at the Brooklyn Museum.  The Brooklyn Museum has placed these works, over 500 of them, into the public domain.  Many of the pictures are not on display in 2015.  They are called the Life of Christ series and are accessible for viewing on the Museum’s web site.  The collection also includes several sets of sketches which Tissot prepared as work studies before completion of the final works.  Each is a watercolor, highlighted with charcoal, on grey wove paper.   Tissot’s collection was completed in the late 1880s.

This week I have also been working on Episode 38, the next installment of our on-going Bible Study series (New Testament: Gospels and Epistles) which is posted on the AIC’s You Tube channel.  Episode 38 is focused on the dialogue that followed the Healing of the Blind Man and also the final unique “sign” in St. John’s Gospel, the Raising of Lazarus.   Next week’s blog post will include a 14th Century egg tempera and gold leaf Byzantine-style depiction of the Raising of Lazarus, plus another version by Rembrandt in the Western style.

I want to thank the folks at Google/You Tube for giving us a new, shorter URL address for the Bible Study series.   If you haven’t already added your name to our Google + circle, you can do so at the site and get notification from Google (which owns You Tube) of each new posting.  http://www.YouTube.com/c/SaintJohnC