06/02/2026
You Need to Be Christ
Christian, the name, means little Christ. Those who have been baptized in Christ, who have received the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit are little Christs. You, O Orthodox Christian, are a little Christ. And you are given this role to do what Christ does. You are called upon to do what Christ does. You are called upon to make the world around you more and more like Paradise. You are a temple of the Spirit of the Most High God, and so with this, you have authority over demons. You may attack the power of death and sin. That font of living water which Christ told Photini, the Samaritan woman, that she would have welling up within herself, that, you have, this living water. That is, you have what you need in order to be who you need to be. And who do you need to be? You need to be Christ. It is not simply that what you have, the other people out there in the world need. It is that, but more so, who you are and who you are called upon to become the world out there needs.
And so, on this holy feast of Pentecost, beloved, I want each of you to have a renewed sense of your vocation, your ministry in which you are to be Christ’s presence in the world. If you are Christ’s presence in the world, certainly this means certain things. One of the things this means is that we cannot make peace with our brokenness. We cannot make peace with our sin. We must ever be vigilant, always seeking to fight, always seeking to grow. This means that we must be connected to God daily by prayer, frequently in the divine services. Our life will look like this. We will be a worshipping people, and likewise, when we go home, home will be better because we’re there. When we go to work, work will be better because we’re there. When we go out on the road with those Texas drivers, the road will be better because we are there.
So, let’s give thanks for the grace of God, dear ones that the salvation wrought in Christ Jesus is being worked out in us, and that we have called upon to be His presence in the world. To Him is due all glory, honor, and worship together with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages, Amen.
Photo: Fr. Rev. Bogdan Djurdjulov, who founded St. Sava Orthodox Church in 1988, visited us for Pentecost!
https://stsavaoca.org/2026/05/31/you-need-to-be-christ-fr-photius-avant/
