Thirty-First Sunday after Pentecost (Feast of St. John Chrysostom), January 27, 2013
The Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

A recording of this sermon is available via Ancient Faith Radio.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

Today is one of the feasts of St. John Chrysostom, the compiler and editor of the tradition of our primary Divine Liturgy. On this day, we celebrate the recovery of his relics, when his body was brought back to Constantinople from the place of exile where he had died. Because of his importance to the Church, our epistle reading today is not the normal one assigned for this Thirty-First Sunday after Pentecost but is rather the one appointed for the feast of Chrysostom.

The epistle meditates on the theme of the priesthood of Christ, which since the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is the only true priesthood that is at work among mankind. This theme is appointed for Chrysostom’s feast and subsequently for most feasts of sainted bishops, for whom Chrysostom’s feast in November provides a basic liturgical template. When we are celebrating a holy bishop, we naturally think about the priesthood, and therefore, because the priesthood of the bishop and of his presbyters is not their own, we consider the priesthood of Christ.

With that in mind, today I would like us to consider a particular aspect of the priesthood and how it works itself out in our worship. It is probably something that we don’t think too much about but I believe is worthy of our attention. And what is that? It is veiling.

If you think about it, there’s a lot of veiling going on in our services. One of the things people who first encounter an iconostasis may think is, “What’s going on back there?” The placing of a veil over something invites questions. It invites wonder. Just what is being covered? Why?

Before we think too deeply about the answers to those questions, let’s first draw our attention to some of the many places that veiling takes place in Orthodox Christian tradition. We have already mentioned the iconostasis, this wall of iconography which as it has developed is deliberately difficult to see through, and in some traditions has its doors closed quite often. But let’s think of some other veils in our architecture.

First, the fact that we have our church services in a building is itself a kind of veil. It is not only to protect us from the elements but rather to cover what is occurring inside here. There is also a veil separating the narthex from the nave, the place where you are now seated. In some ancient churches, that veil was literally a veil—that is, a curtain. Here, it is a wall with doors that are usually kept closed.

Now let’s think about some other kinds of veiling. The clergy and altar servers do not wear ordinary clothing to celebrate the divine services. Rather, they are veiled for this worship, drawing our attention away from their normal appearance and covering them up. And clergy and monastics are permanently veiled, not wearing ordinary clothing most of the time at all but veiled in black.

During the Divine Liturgy, the bread and the wine remain veiled for much of the service, beginning at the Proskomedia which the clergy celebrate privately (another kind of veiling!) to prepare the gifts before the Liturgy. They are also veiled when they are brought through the congregation at the Great Entrance, and then they remain veiled until the time of the Creed. And finally they are veiled again after we partake of Holy Communion.

There are also some other veilings that may occur to us. A newly-baptized Christian is veiled in a white robe immediately after baptism. Holy relics are placed in beautiful reliquaries, not just to protect them but also to veil them. The bodies of our departed in Christ are veiled in coffins and then finally in the ground, and a priest or bishop’s face is veiled in his coffin throughout his funeral and then in the burial itself. That same veil which covers the face of a deceased priest is the one that covers the Eucharistic bread and wine in the liturgy, and it is also placed over the head of a man who is about to be ordained as a deacon.

Other veilings that may not be as obvious as veils are the incense that we use in many of our services which veils the altar area or sometimes the whole nave, including those worshiping within it. The music sung by our choir and chanters also functions as a veil as when, for instance, they sing “We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee…” while the priest quietly prays the prayers of consecration over the bread and wine. And indeed, the quietness of many of the prayers said in the altar is itself a kind of veiling.

There are even other veilings that may perhaps be less obvious. The apostolic tradition of women covering the heads in prayer is certainly a kind of veiling, as is our general cultural feeling that women’s bodies are to be kept more covered than men’s. But of course all of us keep ourselves covered, so we are all veiled in one way or another.

And as we sang this morning in the apolytikion for the resurrection: “While the stone was sealed by the Jews and the soldiers were guarding Thy most pure body, Thou didst arise on the third day, O Savior, granting life to the world.” The tomb where the Resurrection happened was sealed and the very moment when Life Himself came back to life was veiled. No mortal eyes saw what took place there in that grave. There are probably more examples we could think of.

So what are we to make of all this? What’s the point of all this veiling, all this covering up, shrouding and keeping things hidden? And what does this have to do with the meaning of the priesthood?

One of the most basic meanings we have as human persons is that there is something special, something sacred about that which is hidden, that which is kept from public view. Of course this finds its fullest expression in our religious sensibilities, but it also finds its way into popular culture, as well—how many adventure films or video games or novels are there in which the main focus of the story is to find something that is hidden, something that is lost, something that is veiled in mystery and secrecy?

A veil therefore communicates to us that there is something special, something higher, something mysterious about what is being covered. It is sacred. It is precious. It is not proper that it should be subjected to the openness characteristic of what is common. Is that not an element of the priesthood? Our Lord Jesus came to point us to that which is hidden, to the great mystery of the universe, and those who participate in His priesthood, whether it is the ordained clergy or all who have been baptized into Christ, also participate in this veiling, in showing that there is something great and glorious that is hidden beneath a veil.

And what is it that is being veiled? We have already mentioned many things that are veiled, but the ultimate mystery, the mystery that gives all other precious things their own mystery, is nothing other than the presence of God Himself. Invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, ageless, mysterious, hidden from our eyes, inaccessible to our reason, hinted at by all our deepest desires and intuitions, yet still beyond the veil, beyond our sight. What is hidden beyond the veil? It is God.

And here is the astounding, astonishing thing: a veil has two functions. We have been discussing the first, that it keeps something hidden and therefore communicates to us its mystery and its power. But the veil communicates something else when it is taken away. When something is unveiled, what we see is revelation. Indeed, the very word in Greek for “revelation” is apokalypsis, from which we get our English word apocalypse, and its literal meaning is “unveiling.”

In the Christian’s experience of the Holy Trinity, God is for us both veiled and unveiled. His Essence—Who He is in Himself—remains eternally veiled for us, because we cannot comprehend the uncreated God, being created, finite, limited and mortal as we are. Yet His Energies—His active working in this world—are unveiled for us most especially by the coming of Christ but also in many resultant ways, particularly in the activity of His priesthood in this world.

So we therefore come to this holy place of veiling, and indeed, we see that which is precious and mysterious veiled in so many ways in our lives. And our Lord Jesus in His great high priesthood, also comes precisely to remove the veil, to reveal God to us. In the veil of His human flesh lies the great mystery of the Godhead. And when we receive Him, when we are baptized into Him, when we partake of His Body and His Blood, the God Who is veiled becomes known to us.

To our hidden and yet known God therefore be all glory, honor and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.