The Second Restoration of Icons
Why do we have traditions? And why is Tradition with a capital ‘T’ so important in the Orthodox Church? On this Sunday of Orthodoxy it is appropriate to talk about Tradition in the Church, because we celebrate today the victory of one of the most important traditions of the Church, namely the presence and use of icons in our churches and in our homes. It was a long and hard fight to establish the correctness of icons in our lives, and this First Sunday of Lent is devoted to the victory of icons in the year 843 – a long time ago. So it is also called the Triumph of Orthodoxy. I’m hesitant in using words like Triumph, especially in the light of so much violence in the world motivated by religion or hatred of religion!
By chance I came upon a beautiful passage by Thomas Merton in his book New Seeds of Contemplation – chapter 20, Tradition and Revolution. Thomas Merton was a Catholic monk who became one of the most loved and widely read Christian writers of the 20th century, a spiritual giant.
THE biggest paradox about the Church is that she is at the same time essentially traditional and essentially revolutionary. But that is not as much of a paradox as it seems, because Christian tradition, unlike all others, is a living and perpetual revolution. Tradition is like the breath of a physical body. It renews life by repelling stagnation. It is a constant, quiet, peaceful revolution against death.
The whole truth of Christianity has been fully revealed: it has not yet been fully understood or fully lived. The life of the Church is the Truth of God Himself, breathed out into the Church by His Spirit, and there cannot be any other truth to supersede and replace it.
The key sentence is: The whole truth of Christianity has been fully revealed: it has not yet been fully understood or fully lived. Tradition is the living out of Christian truth. And Tradition is the way we adapt the truth to changing times. The church has unfortunately not been very good at adapting for the past thousand years.
Today we remember the restoration of icons, an important event in the church’s history. Icons have become such an important part of our Tradition that even people who are not Orthodox are studying iconography and exploring the mystical meaning of icons. My favorite part of the talks I give at our Festival is revealing some of the deeper meaning of our icons.
Wonderful! Icons have won. But can we go beyond the painted icons to deal with today’s great challenges? Do you know why the priest censes the congregation at every Liturgy? You know, right? It’s because each of you is an icon, an image of God. When I cense you I’m censing the image of God in you. That is the mission of the church today: To restore the icon that is in each human being! Each of those human beings gunned down by a hateful terrorist last Friday is an image of God. Were they Muslims? Do you think God divides us into religions? We heard two weeks ago how the Lord will divide us – and it won’t be according to religion! It’s because we have forgotten that we are all made in the image and likeness of God that hate continues to dominate human existence. That’s where the mission of the church is most needed. That’s where Tradition becomes Revolution, to use Merton’s terminology. That’s the revolution we need today. Let Tradition become creative again. Let our sacraments again become “for the life of the world,” to use the phrase of Father Alexander Schmemann. Let us breathe new life into our precious Tradition so it can restore the icon that is in each of us – even in that white supremacist terrorist who gunned down all those people in Christchurch, New Zealand, as he was filled by evil hatred of people not like him. By the way, isn’t that a beautiful name for a city? Christchurch? Shouldn’t every city be a ‘church’ of Christ?
We need a Second Restoration of Icons! A new project, the most important triumph of all: The restoration of the icon in each human being. That is the purpose of the gospel: to renew and restore the image of God in every human being. Let’s start with how we treat each other, how we see each other. So let me conclude on this St. Patrick’s Day, with a prayer that is attributed to Patrick:
Christ be with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
What Patrick is telling us is simple. Christ can only be in our lives if we see Christ in others and others se Christ in us. That’s where it begins, that’s where the good news of Christ restores the image, the icon of God in each human being. Then someday we’ll have a new tradition, another Sunday in Lent, when we can celebrate the Second Restoration of Icons!