We Orthodox live Christ within the
Divine Liturgy, or rather Christ lives within us during the Divine
Liturgy. The Divine Liturgy is a work of God. We say: “Time is a
creation of the Lord”. Among other things it means now is the time for
God to act. Christ liturgises, we live with Christ. The Divine Liturgy
is the way we know God and the way God becomes known to us. Christ
celebrated the Divine Liturgy once and this passed into eternity. His
divinised human nature came to the Divine Liturgy. We know Christ
specifically in the Divine Liturgy. The Divine Liturgy we celebrate is
the same Divine Liturgy which was done by Christ on Great Thursday in
the Mystical Supper. The 14th through the 16th
chapters of the Gospel according to John is one Divine Liturgy. So in
the Divine Liturgy we understand Holy Scripture. The early Church lived
without a New Testament, but not without the Divine Liturgy.
The first
records, the written hymns, exist in the Divine Liturgy. In the Divine
Liturgy we live Christ and understand His word. As Christ cleansed His
Disciples with his word and said to them: “You are already clean because
of the word which I have spoken to you” (John 15:3) and He washed the
feet of His Disciples with water, during the Sacred Washing, so also in
the first section of the Divine Liturgy He cleanses us that we might
attend later His Table of love. The purpose of the Divine Liturgy is to
convey Christ to us. The Divine Liturgy teaches us an ethos, the ethos
of humility. As Christ sacrificed Himself, so also should we sacrifice
ourselves. The type of the Divine Liturgy is the type of impoverishment
for us. In the Divine Liturgy we try to be humbled, because we have the
sense that there is the humble God. Every Divine Liturgy is a Theophany.
The Body of Christ appears. Every member of the Church is an icon of
the Kingdom of God. After the Divine Liturgy we must continue to iconify
the Kingdom of God, keeping His commandments. The glory of Christ is to
bear fruit in every member His fruit. This explains His word: “Herein
is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit” (John 15:8).
Source: I
Knew A Man In Christ: The Life and Times of Elder Sophrony of Essex,
the Hesychast and Theologian (Οίδα άνθρωπον εν Χριστώ: Βίος και πολιτεία
του Γέροντος Σωφρονίου του ησυχαστού και θεολόγου) by Metropolitan
Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou. Translated from Greek.
http://www.orthodoxpath.org/catechisms-and-articles/before-the-new-testament-was-the-divine-liturgy/
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