In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
I stand afar off from God. I suppose He abhors me, thinks me unclean and unworthy of Him. I stand afar off from God and call out to Him, but do not really want to hear His response, to be close to Him, to be changed by Him. I stand afar off from God, in reality, because I am too scared to come close to Him, because I want to remain in my current state, because I do not truly want to repent.
“Jesus, Master,” I cry out from a distance, “have mercy on me.” But this is a cry of one who on the Last Day will stand before the Judge and say, “Lord, I asked for your help but You did not give it to me.” This is an excuse, a self-justification, not a true prayer to the Creator of my being. But despite me, despite the distance I maintain between God and me, despite my unworthiness, Christ does reply to me, “Go and show yourself to the priests.” He does not call on me to perform some great ascetic feat, to stand in prayer until I see the Uncreated Light, to memorise the Bible, to perform a great miracle nor to preach the Gospel that ten thousand join the Church, rather He tells me, “Go and show yourself to the priests.”
And I could go. I could go and show myself to the priests by being present in the Church, by making the sign of the Cross, by kissing an icon, by feeding just one person, by reading just one verse of Scripture. And even in these tiny steps, I am cleansed, I am washed, I am made whole. God has placed me in a state where I can draw near to Him, to be more fully changed by Him, to be transformed and transfigured by Him. I have no excuses left. I had cried out to Him as a backup for the Last Day but He has called my bluff.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, God has heard our cry to Him and tells us, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And we have been healed, made whole. But something is required of us, we no longer have an excuse, a reason, a justification for remaining far from Him, we must be willing to come to Him and be transformed by Him,
that [we] put off, concerning [our] former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
and be renewed in the spirit of [our] mind[s],
and that [we] put on the New Man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
— Ephesians 4:22–24
Let us turn again, dear brothers and sisters, to the living God through His Church, let us repent, that we be not only Christians in name but Christians in deed and in Truth. Let us run to Him eagerly and with rejoicing put Him on (Galatians 3:27)—put on His death that we put on His resurrection—that we be worthy heirs of Him and inherit eternal Life.
To our incarnate, crucified and risen God and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who brings us to newness of soul and fulness of Life, be all glory, honour and worship, together with His unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-giving Spirit. Amen.
Brethren, when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. In these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the Image of its Creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.
— Colossians 3:4–11
At that time, as Jesus entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’s feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then said Jesus: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him: “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
— Luke 17:12–19