Homily 661 – 20 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
October 26, 2025
Epistle:  (331-ctr) Hebrews 12:6-13, 25-27 (Earthquake), (200) Galatians 1:11-19 (Resurrection), (292) 2 Timothy 2:1-10
Gospel:  (27) Matthew 8:23-27 (Earthquake), (83) Luke 16:19-31 (Resurrection), (52) John 15:17-16:25

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

I want to talk this morning about the importance of History.  As we have three gospel readings, that are seemingly quite unrelated, there is a common thread.

The readings themselves are for the Earthquake that struck Constantinople in 740 AD, the Resurrection for the 5^th Sunday of Luke, and for St. Demetrios the Myrrhgusher.

For the earthquake the story of Christ’s control over the environment.  For the fifth Sunday of Luke, the account of Lazarus and the rich man. And for the Saint, the Sermon of the Lord.

In each case, history is a common theme.  In the account of the wind, Christ evokes the memory of crossing the Red Sea.  In the account of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man is reminded that those who know history will see Moses and the prophets.  And for the Saint, we are reminded that history tells us how society treated Christ – and that we can expect to be treated the same.

All of these things force us to recall history.  If we don’t know history, we cannot understand these things.

What we learn from history is that God always prevails and that by prevailing, those who desire God, who want to be with God, will prevail with Him.  Sounds pretty innocent, but it is a very, very revolutionary statement in our world.

If all you want is to avoid being uncomfortable for eternity, to avoid the pit, or the place of the unquenchable flame, then you may be in trouble.  Avoiding pain is quite different than desiring God.

God reveals Himself to us through the Church, and particularly through Scripture.  We see the deliverance of the people of God from Egypt.  We see the deliverance of the exiled people of God from Babylon.  We see the deliverance from the Philistines.  We see the deliverance from the Seleucid Empire and Alexander the Great in the Maccabean Revolt, and the establishment of the Hasmonean kingdom.

Side note – the history tells us that the Hasmonean kingdom secured it’s security by an alliance with the Roman Republic.  In other words, the Romans were invited in, not that the people of Judea were conquered.

Greek became the common language of Judea, in addition to Hebrew and Aramaic.  The Septuagint Old Testament became normative in Judea, including Jerusalem and surrounding areas.

There is a lot more to this story, obviously.

But without learning history, we can’t know anything about Christ.  We can’t know anything about God.  We can’t know anything about ourselves.

How frequently have we learned family history and learned about ourselves in the process?  How frequently have we learned Church History and World History and things started to make more sense to us?

The modern study of history, though, isn’t necessarily what we are talking about here.  Ancient history wasn’t documented the way it is today.  There isn’t clear delineation between what actively happened and the effect of those things.  There isn’t a basis in observable fact that is required.

What does exist is oral tradition.  If you study history you may know that the Torah, the books of Moses and the Law of the people of God, was an oral history, passed down from generation to generation.  It was given to Moses on Mount Sinai – including Genesis, by the way, and the account of the creation.

It was given to us as what English majors know as epic poetry.  The series of verses that tell the whole history of a people, its leaders, and its God.  It is Beowulf.  It is the Iliad.  It is Gilgamesh.  It is the Odyssey.  It is the Divine Comedy.

In the Torah, the epic poem is designed to convey truth.  It is designed to convey God’s revelation.  It isn’t concerned with first person observation, since in the vast majority of cases no one was there to observe.

It is concerned with remembering.  It is concerned with teaching.

The written version we have handed down to us today came from the post-Babylonian Exile.  The Law was maintained in the Exile in Babylon not by scrolls or writings, but by repeating the texts orally, over and over.  Only when the exiles returned to Babylon were the texts reduced to writing.

There may have been texts prior to the exile, and certainly parts of the texts were uncovered after the exile from the Temple.  But by and large, the Old Testament text we have today is a reconstruction.

And yet – still true.  Still meaningful.  Still authoritative.  Still reveals God.

What we really need to recall is that every time we are confronted with something unfamiliar, every time we are confronted with something new or novel, we need to explore history.  We need to use history to guide us.

We can do this because God never changes.  History doesn’t tell us who God was, history tells us who God is.  And history tells us who God will be.

This is absolutely essential to our understanding of the revelation of God.  Even essential to the places where we can never hope to understand the revelation of God.

The history continues.  We have the Gospels.  We have the Acts of the Apostles.  We have the letters of St. Paul, St. John, St. Peter, St. Jude.  We have the apocalypse – a word which means revelation – of St. John.

Apocalypse isn’t important as a predictive tool or prophesy.  It is important to tell us about God.  The whole of scripture, and the writings of the Fathers, and the pronouncements of the ecumenical councils, all have the purpose of revealing God to us.  Of telling us about God.

That is what is important.  That is what we must focus on.  When we read that society hated Christ – that is, hated God – then we have to expect to be hated by society also.  And if we aren’t hated by society, then perhaps we should be rethinking our relationship to God as well.

Either way – our first steps to understanding God are of understanding and consuming history.  Without it, we will continue to be lost.  But with it, we will know the Truth.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ!