2026-09-20: 2nd Sunday of Thout - Revelation of God

Introduction

Today's Gospel from Luke 10 starts right after the disciples returned from their mission. The Lord sent the 70 to go into every city ahead of him, to heal the sick and preach the Kingdom of God. The disciples return very excited and very happy and say "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name." So the Lord tells them not to rejoice over this, but to rejoice that their names are written in heaven. And then, He rejoiced!

This is where our gospel reading today begins - The Lord Jesus, Himself, rejoiced in the Spirit! And this word that is used in the Greek for rejoice - it means to rejoice exceedingly, to jump for joy! And then He prays to the Father. And of course, this is a lesson for us that in our rejoicing, we praise and glorify and thank God. He says:

"I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." (Luke 10:21-22)

And here, we see this word "reveal" twice. That the Father has hidden some things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes. And then that no one knows the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

What does this mean? Is it possible that something could be understood by a baby or by a child, but not by a wise and prudent man?

God's Revelation

Consider these points:

1. God is Trinity: Three in One and One in Three
   
   • If you tell this to a child, and you explain to him with an analogy, he understands, he believes, he trusts
   • But if you try to tell it to an adult, who is "wise and prudent" and learned to trust in himself and in his mind, he will say "this is foolishness!"
     
     
2. Jesus Christ is God, the Son of God, the Logos of God, the Second Person of the Trinity
   
   • Tell this to a child... he understands, he believes, he trusts.
   • Tell it to a learned man - what do you mean God became man? What do you mean the eternal became temporal? What do you mean the One who fills all, was restricted to a body?
     
     
3. The Lord Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin
   
   
4. The Lord Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, and was crucified and killed of His own will
   
   
5. He rose on the third day.
   
   
6. Our sins are forgiven because of His Sacrifice
   
   
7. He gives us His Body and Blood on the altar every Sunday - we take bread and wine, and we pray on it and it becomes Body and Blood. And we eat.
   
   • What do you mean it becomes Body and Blood? How? When?
     

How Does God Reveal Himself?

How does God reveal Himself to us?

1. Holy Scripture
   
   • The Holy Scripture is the word of God, the breath of God
   • “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20–21)
   • "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
   • God reveals Himself to us through the Scripture
     • How do we know God created the world? Genesis 1
     • How do we know that the Son is begotten of the Father? John 3:16
     • How do we know that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father? John 15
     • How do we know that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ? John 6
   • The difficulty with the Holy Scripture, is that some things are hard to understand
     • "Our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures." (2 Peter 3:15-16)
       
       
2. Holy Tradition
   • So the Church gives us the Holy Tradition. This is why if you remove the Holy Tradition, you will fall into error like St Peter says.
     • Holy Tradition includes the Traditional Interpretation of the Scripture
       
     • Holy Tradition came even before the Scripture
     • "Orthodoxy is what Christ taught, the disciples preached, and the Fathers kept" - St Athanasius
   • “Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3)
     
   • “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
     
   • Actually, most of the time, the apostles PREFERRED to go and preach with their voice, rather than to write in a letter. St John in both epistles 2 and 3, he says this - he says "I do not wish to write to you with paper and ink." St Paul says in 1 Corinthians "The rest I will set in order when I come."
   • God reveals Himself to us through the Holy Tradition
     • Where do we get the word "Trinity" from? Holy Tradition
     • Where do we learn to sign the cross on ourselves? Holy Tradition
     • How do we understand the difficult verses in the Scriptures without falling into error like St Peter says? Holy Tradition!

Reason

• You might say, "what about reason?" God gave us a mind, God gave us logic and reason...
• Yes! Reason is very important, because our faith is not unreasonable.
  • But let me understand it for what it is - that the bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood is not a scientific question. It is not a question that can be reasoned about from scratch.
  • The existence of God is not something that can be empirically tested and proved or disproved in a lab.
• Revelation starts from a different point than science! 
  • In the scientific method, you ask a question, then you gather information, you propose a hypothesis - an educated guess or assumption, and try to prove or disprove the hypothesis, and make a conclusion.
  • In Revelation, the conclusion is given to you, and then you can use your reason to build on what you know by revelation, explore the implications, etc.
    
• "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." (Romans 1:20)
  • The Natural Creation attests to God
  • Beauty
  • Order
  • Seemingly Infinitely small
  • Seemingly Infinitely large
    
• The Revelation is that God created the world, and so using my reason I can see that this must mean that God is a God of order. That God is infinite. That God is all-powerful. That God is beautiful and the source of all beauty!
  

Experience

• I can talk about God by referring to the Scripture, the Tradition, Reason, but eventually reach the point where I cannot say more. Because I didn't experience God. 
• This is what happened to Job, after God reveals to him His power over all creation, Job reflects on the last forty chapters and says "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."
• But then he says this: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You." (Job 42:5)
• When I see the work of God in my life, then I can witness to Him.
• When I see the work of God in the lives of those around me, then I can witness to Him.
• That's why when they went to choose someone to replace Judas in Acts 1, they were looking for someone who had witnessed everything from the beginning of the baptism of John until the day of the ascension. And they chose St. Matthias. Because how could he preach the gospel message - how could he DIE for the gospel message, unless he had personally experienced it.
• The Fathers of the Church have such rich interpretations of the Scripture, not because they were skilled in rhetoric or philosophy, but because they had a strong personal relation with God. So their theology was supported by a personal experience. That's why they could stand firmly against any false teaching.

• "Theology" means "study of God" - "Theo" + "ology." But it's not like Biology or Archaeology, where you can open a book and read it, and learn. Theology is a little bit different - because to know God, is more than just intellect.

• God is personal - Three Persons. So to know a person, I can't just read about them. Like if I gave you a book about my wife, and you read the book and you memorized it, will you know her like I know her? Of course not! Because she is a person. And persons are known through relationship.

• Evagrius Ponticus, one of the disciples of St Basil from the 4th Century says:

  The theologian is the one who prays, and the one who prays is a theologian.

What Should I Do?

1. Be simple, like the babes
   • Watching debates, learning words and arguments, etc. - if it's not your calling (given to you by your FoC), don't get sucked into them. You will drown.
   • "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;" (1 Peter 3:15)
     • Many times we are trying to prepare for the "be ready to give a defense" but we skip "sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" and we skip "the hope that is in you" and we skip "meekness and fear."
     • This is the danger of YouTube debates and videos and discussions and all of that
   • The more I lean on my own understanding, the more I lean on my own wisdom, the more will be hidden from me.
     
   • That's why the Lord said "Let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." and "Unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."
2. Develop my Relationship with God
   • God is personal - if I want to know Him, I need to know Him personally - in the prayer corner. In the room by myself. And He will reveal Himself to me.
     
     • I was just telling some of the catechumens this week that the most important part of catechism is not the classes or the theology or the arguments or the knowledge... those things are very important. But the most important is the spiritual canon. This is where I will succeed as a Christian.
       
   • God is also known and seen and met in His Church. I cannot know God without being in the Church. As St Augustine says, "No one can have God as his Father without having the Church as his Mother." And we had wonderful topics this past week during the Revival for St. Rebekah's Feast, about the role of the Church in my life.
     • The Church is my Mother
     • The Church is my Salvation
     • The Church is my Home and my Joy
       
       
3. Treasure and Value what has been entrusted to me
   • The Gospel ended today with the Lord turning to the disciples and saying, privately: "Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it." (Luke 10:23-24)
   • We repeat these words in every liturgy before the reading of the Holy Gospel and we take them as words for ourselves.
   • Blessed are your eyes, which have seen the salvation accomplished by God. Blessed are your ears that hear the word of God and His Gospel. Blessed are your feet that enter into His House, His dwelling place, His altar. Blessed is your mouth that partakes of His Body and His Blood.
   • Many prophets and kings - Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel: They all dreamed of seeing what we see. They all prophesied about the coming of the Messiah. They prophesied about salvation. About the Cross. About the Resurrection. About the Eucharist. But none of them got to see what we see or to hear what we hear or to eat from the Tree of Life that we eat from.
   • Blessed are you!
   • Do I take for granted these great gifts? Or do I treasure them?

Conclusion

May the Lord grant us to know Him, to get to know Him, and may He reveal Himself to us.

Glory be to our God. Forever. Amen.