Sermons from St. Herman's

Icons and the Incarnation

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On the first Sunday of Great Lent, Fr. Matthew Howell talks about how icons are, for Orthodox Christians, gateways of relationship with the Incarnate God. This is the same God whom the prophets knew and suffered for as mentioned in the reading from Hebrews (11:24-26; 32-40) and in the Gospel account: "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote" (John 1:45). Fr. Matthew examines how Jesus Christ is the Image (icon) of the Father, how mankind is the image (icon) of Jesus Christ, and how icons give us an incarnational method to love God and the saints. Along the way, he quotes Scripture verses from Genesis, John, 1 John, James, and Colossians.

Toward the end of the homily, he reads the following two paragraphs by St. John of Damascus:

  1. Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honouring that matter which works my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God. How could God be born out of lifeless things? And if God's body is God by union, it is immutable. The nature of God remains the same as before, the flesh created in time is quickened by, a logical and reasoning soul.
  2. I honour all matter besides, and venerate it. Through it, filled, as it were, me. Was not the...thrice blessed wood of the Cross matter? Was not the sacred and holy mountain of Calvary matter? What of the life-giving rock, the Holy Sepulchre, the source of our resurrection: was it not matter? Is not the most holy book of the Gospels matter? Is not the blessed table matter which gives us the Bread of Life' Are not the gold and silver matter, out of which crosses and altar-plate and chalices are made? And before all these things, is not the body and blood of our Lord matter? Either do away with the veneration and worship due to all these things, or submit to the tradition of the Church in the worship of images, honouring God and His friends, and following in this the grace of the Holy Spirit.