Dear Friends
Among the best known works of the English romantic poet Percy Shelley (1792–1822) is Ozymandias, the name comes from the Greek version of Ramesses II, pharaoh of Egypt in the second millennium before Christ.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Despite the image, cast in stone, despite his prestige as pharaoh, despite his works all around, the inscription and the power to which it points, all has turned to dust: the great desert has taken all save two legs of stone, a shattered face and a pedestal with his words,
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Shelley’s portrayal, renown destined in a ruined greatness, echoes the Psalmist speaking of a similar reality.
As for man, his days are like grass,
Psalm 102:15–16 lxx
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes;
For the wind passes through it, and it shall not remain;
And it shall no longer know its place.
The tragedy of life in this world is that at its end we die: inescapable, irresistible, inevitable death consumes all.
But Christ does not leave us in this state. We can build monuments in stone to great people, to Ozymandias and the rest, yet without regular care and attention they will easily fall apart; we need only to look over the ruined monasteries, castles and other buildings which dot England to know that even mighty fortresses will break up without proper maintenance.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth but did not claim his teaching was contained in stone, rather in their hearts.
You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
Second Corinthians 3:2–3
clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
The image of Ozymandias lay, according to Shelley, broken and half-buried in the sand, but the message of Christ, the Gospel of Christ, was inscribed in tablets of flesh, on the human heart. But more so, humanity bears the image of God.
Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
Genesis 1:26–27
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
And whereas each of us is an image of God, in Christ we see the Image of God.
He is the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn over all creation.
Colossians 1:15–18
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
And He is the Head of the Body, the Church, Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
On Sunday we celebrate the Victory of Icons—we call the day the Sunday of Orthodoxy—since there were those who would have destroyed the icons and removed them from our worship. Yet we agree with the Apostle,
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Second Corinthians 4:6
Since it is implausible to think the Corinthian Church—unusually mostly converts from paganism at the time of St Paul rather than with a Jewish core—would have directly seen the face of Christ except through icons. And it is through the icons that we behold Christ and can communicate with Him like Moses, “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus 33:11)
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the images of royalty, of mighty men of renown, will fade upon the earth, the Image of God stands in a much more durable material than stone, He stands in flesh; transformed flesh and transfigured flesh. And we, if we participate in Him through our service towards others, if we participate in Him through baptism, if we participate in Him through cleansing ourselves of sin, then we too will be images of God—works in progress but moving towards union with our God and eternal Life.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Behold, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the season of the Fast has arrived. For forty days and forty nights did the Lord send down rain upon the face of the earth but preserved Noah and his family in the ark, for forty days Moses went into the cloud on the mountain (Exodus 24:18) where he neither ate bread nor drank, (Deuteronomy 9:18) for forty days did our Lord Himself fast before battling the Satan. (Matthew 4:2, Mark 1:13, Luke 4:2) Forty days represents for us a period of preparation that we may be purified, washed, brought to completion. Both David and Solomon reigned for forty years (Second Kingdoms 5:4, Third Kingdoms 11:38) to show that theirs is a preparation. For forty, or rather forty-two, is six sevens, and by its very nature points us towards a coming seventh seven, a period of fulfilment, of completion. We prepare, we wait, we anticipate until the Bridegroom bursts forth with Life.
We fast. We fast not that it makes us righteous, not that it makes us holy, but that we might be changed and transformed by Christ. If I become more judgemental, more critical, more condemnatory towards my family, my neighbours and the world then I have not fasted. If others know more about my food requirements than about my love and service for them then I have not fasted. If I turn to prayer so that I can ignore my sin, if I use Church to justify my laziness, if I claim the love of God for myself while denying it to just one other person then I have not fasted. We fast, but we fast in secret, we fast, but we fast to build our relationship with God, we fast, but it is about our love for our neighbours more than rules and regulations. “But when you fast,” says the Lord, to you and to me,
“anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
…
Read this Sermon, Let us fast.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 27th February
Discussion on the Book of Job, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 28th February
Baptism, 6.30 pm
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 1st March
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 am
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Online session is via Google Meet: please get in touch for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We meet at 3rd URC Scout HQ, Kings Rd, Chandlers Ford SO53 2EY. The Scout hall is behind and to the left of the URC Church. Come and See.
Can I help you?
I am here for you, you need only ask. Is there a way I can support your life of faith? Get in touch.
Can you help the parish?
Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.
Your prayers!
With love in Christ
Fr Alexander
webenquiry@orthodoxeastleigh.uk