We bow before Your sacred image, O gracious Lord, and beg forgiveness for our offenses, O Christ our God; for You, of Your own will, deigned to ascend the cross in Your human nature to deliver from bondage under the enemy, those whom You created. Therefore, we gratefully cry out to You:
“Through Your coming to save the world, O Savior, You have filled all with joy.”
One week of the Great Fast of 2014 has already been completed. On this first weekend of the Great Fast, our Church commemorates the fact that the 7th Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II, defined the legitimacy of the cult of images of Christ and the saints. The actions of the Council, after much struggle, restored the veneration of images, a practice that had been forbidden in Byzantium for more than a century and a half. To this very day the Eastern Church asserts the importance of using Sacred Images to assist the faithful in engaging in authentic prayer and worship.
The Eastern Church sees the veneration of icons as important for several reasons. Each sacred image (1) declares and asserts that the person(s) depicted not only lived in history but are alive, right now, in the spiritual realm; (2) reminds us of actual events in the life in Jesus, His Mother and others who followed Him; and (3) tells us that life is meant to be a journey of personal transformation, spiritual growth and change.
Think about it. While we recognize that the persons depicted in iconography are human, they are also very different. This difference in appearance is meant to convey the fact that those represented went through a process of personal transformation. They used the events and challenges of their lives to change their hearts and minds and become more and more like the person of Jesus, Who is the model of what people are intended to be like when God created humankind – of how God intended humans to live in order to reflect His image and likeness in the created universe. God did not create humankind without some idea of how humans should live. Think about it. There is a specific plan for all creatures and created things. All animals, plants and created things have a natural and well defined way of behaving. There appears to be a natural law that governs the behavior of all created things. Because God gave humans free will, however, He doesn’t force us to conform to a predetermined way of behaving. Instead, He came in the Person of Jesus to encourage us to live in a certain manner so that we might achieve the fullness of life and eventually be joined to Him for all eternity.