Today is the day the Church remembers the holy Apostle Jude, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to the teaching of the Church. Jude was the youngest of the four sons born to St. Joseph, before the death of his first wife, and his betrothal to the Lady Theotokos and Virgin Mary. It is said that, at the time when St. Joseph was preparing for his death, and he sought to divide his estate among his sons, he desired to give the son of Mary, our Lord Jesus, an equal portion; but the other sons, except for James, objected, and so no portion was given for our Lord. Only James took a portion of his inheritance and gave it to his brother, Jesus. The holy Apostle Jude does not refer to himself as being the brother of the Lord, as does James. He only calls himself the brother of James; undoubtedly ashamed of both his behavior regarding the inheritance; and also his initial lack of faith in the Lord Jesus as Son of God and Savior.
But the good news is that, while the holy Apostle Jude did not believe prior to the Passion and Crucifixion of our Lord, he did become a believer after the Resurrection of his brother from the dead. He proclaimed the good news of our salvation in Christ, and taught the Orthodox faith throughout the Holy Land, and then into Mesopotamia and Armenia. He met his death, crucified, with arrows shot into his body, at the hands of pagans.
What must it have been like, do you think, to have been the brother or sister of our Lord Jesus Christ, as was the holy Apostle Jude? The question isn’t an idle one. After all, while we did not enter this life as members of the household of God, we have become so through being born again of water and the Spirit in being baptized and chrismated. We entered the household, the family, of God. We have a birthright, an inheritance – the kingdom of heaven. Of course, we can renounce this birthright; we do not have to claim it as our own. But if we desire to be the brothers and sisters of the Lord, we must remember that he said that all those who do the will of the Father Who sent Him are his mother and brothers and sisters. This instruction is joined by the direction given to us at the end of the reading today from the Gospel according to St. Matthew: to seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness. If we do so, the promise is that everything else we need will be given to us.
What is the will of God that we must do in order to be considered the family of Christ? How do we seek first the kingdom of God?
It is God’s will that we love Him with the fullness of our being; and that we love each other. Love is patient; love is kind; love does not envy; love is not proud. Love does not serve itself, but rather serves others. Those who love endure much, without thinking evil of those who do wrong, and without being provoked to take any form of revenge. Those who love delight in the truth, and do not live in sins, but struggle against them. In all these things, we see that our Lord Jesus Christ is the supreme example; and we see these qualities as well in the lives of the saints, as in the life of the holy Apostle Jude. To the extent that we do not see these qualities in ourselves – well, each of us has more work to do!
This work begins by embracing the Orthodox way of life. We must pray, so that we may draw closer to God, and spend time with Him, so that we can learn to be more and more like Him, in Whose image we are made, and Whose life we have received. We must fast, so that our flesh, the avenue for so many of our passions, is disciplined and strengthened for the fight against our sins. We must give from the time and talent and treasures entrusted to us by God, so that we may be set free from being attached to this world, and its pleasures and possessions; and we must struggle to overcome our passions and ride, and be more and more like our Lord Jesus, the lover of mankind.
Brothers and sisters, the way to the kingdom, to the household, to the family of God is available to us. Having sinned, let us repent; having sought to take our inheritance from heaven and waste it instead on earthly things, let us choose now to give a portion of what has been given to us for the service of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us love one another, as Christ loves us, and gave Himself for us – to the glory of God, and the salvation of our souls.
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