A Study of the Readings of the Coptic New Year

The Old Man – The New Nature – With the New Year

• The Readings of the Feast of El-Nayrouz:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
• Evening: Psalm 96:1-2; Matthew 12:44-53                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
• Morning: Psalm 98:1; Mark 2:18-22                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
•  Pauline: 2 Cor. 5:11-6:12                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
•  Catholic: 1 John 2:7-17                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
• Acts: Acts 17:16-24                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
• Liturgy: Psalm 65:11; 81:1; Luke 4:14-30

With the beginning of the New Year, each person, each family, and the whole Church should consider what the end of one year and the beginning of a New Year mean. Each one should look back on his life in the past year and evaluate what he has achieved and what remains to be achieved, then begin a new phase. Here, the church offers a set of readings from the chapters of the Bible as a guide throughout our lives to help us on earth, year after year. In these readings, we learn about: 1- The Old Man 2- The New Nature 3- The New Life THE OLD MAN – In the Liturgy Gospel of the first day of the New Year, St. Luke presents an event that took place at the beginning of Christ’s service.

After the Temptation, the Lord taught in the synagogues, and, “He came to Nazareth where He was brought up, and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day” (Luke 4:16). He looked before Him at the faces he used to see in the town, in the houses, and in the synagogue. What did He find? What He read in “the eyes of all who were fixed on Him” (Luke 4:20) was written in the book that was handed to Him to read. Isaiah spoke of the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed. This was how Jesus saw Man. But why would this be the condition of these people when they took care to regularly attend devotions at the synagogue, hear the chapters of the Scripture, and worship God? How can it be that diligence in religious observance did not change their lives? There are other people of whom today’s chapter of the Acts speaks to us, and although there is a great difference between the religion of the Athenians and that of the people of Nazareth, what Paul said about the former applies to the latter, to a very large extent. Paul saw that the people of Athens, “in all things…are very religious” (Acts 17:22) but that, in fact, they feared God without knowing Him. They worshipped an unknown God (Acts 17:23).

Man’s ignorance of his God and of himself makes him poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind, and oppressed. Often, we come to church, read the Bible, receive communion, and come very close to God; in fact, He is in our midst like He was in the synagogue in the town of Nazareth Yet we do not benefit from His presence, and, like the people of Nazareth, Jesus “…then passing through the midst of them…went His way (Luke 4:30).” A person often sits sad and dejected, just as is accurately described by Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians. He considers himself unknown, dying, chastened, killed, sorrowful, and poor, having nothing (2 Cor. 5:9-10). He does not know that the promise is close to him: that it is within him. He does not know that the One Who can save us “is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being…We are also his offspring” (Acts 17:28).

Does every Christian here, in this church, realize the depth of the power, joy, and triumph hidden in his heart? Each one here was immersed in Baptism, chrismated with the Holy Myron, received communion of the holy Body and precious Blood. He became a member of the Body of Christ: a child of God and brother of His Son. He died with Christ and rose. Yet we live the life of the poor, the brokenhearted, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed. Each lives unknown, dying, chastened, killed, sorrowful, and poor, having nothing and afflicted. Why is this? It is because of ignorance of the treasures hidden deep within him: treasures of rejoicing, riches, freedom, knowledge, joy, and honor.

Due to this ignorance, he lives “in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:11), as John the apostle said. The affliction and darkness increase and an evil and cruel force controls man’s spirit and it becomes full of idols (Acts 17:16,29), made and invented by man when he closes his eyes as he becomes ignorant of what is deep within him and of his true nature, his relationship with his Loving God, and of what God has done for him. The worship of the Unknown God (Acts 17:23) who is far yet near, awesome yet loving, kind and compassionate, makes man truly afflicted, brokenhearted, sad, poor, and oppressed.

THE NEW NATURE – 

How can Man overcome this situation? The Holy Bible shows where it began and what happened to Adam, the first Man, the head of the human race. Man’s nature and the actual conditions of his daily life confirm his status as poor, brokenhearted, miserable, and afflicted. A change is therefore imperative – in nature and in behavior. Thus God devised a plan to give Man a new beginning, a Head for the race of man, a Deputy, a Prototype, and a Way. The former head was the first Adam, and the Word Incarnate was the second Adam. The Son of God did not know the sin of Adam and his children, but God’s plan was that Christ should carry this sin and die that it may die with Him, and that the old human race should die with Him, so that when He rose, it would be a new beginning. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him…For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus, that if One died for all, then all died and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:21,14,15).

Thus, what is written in Isaiah was truly fulfilled. This is the joyful message defining His mission on earth: He became Man and His Father dealt with Him as such so that Man may, through Him, become capable of participating in the Divine nature and overstep his situation as poor, brokenhearted, and afflicted. He says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me, To preach the Gospel to the poor, He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18; cf. Isaiah 61:1, 2) First, how can He who gives the Spirit and anoints others with it become Himself anointed and say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me?” The answer, in the words of St. Athanasius, is as though the Lord is saying: “I, the Word of God, give Myself – having become Man – the Spirit, and, having become Man, I sanctify Myself in Humanity so that all may be sanctified in Me (St. Athanasius, Against the Arians (C.Ar) I, 45, NPNF 2, 4).

It is not the Word, in His capacity as Word and Wisdom, which is anointed in Him and by Him” (C.Ar I, 46). Thus, we were all in Him – in His Body and He, Jesus Christ, remains the same: yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) – with no change. At the same time, He gives and He takes: as the Word of God, He gives, and as a Man, He takes. It is not the Word, in His capacity as the Word God, Who advances because all things are His at all times, but men who, in Him and through Him, come to the beginning of their lives (C.Ar I, 47). Whatever the Father gives, He grants through the Son. It is truly wonderful and strange that the grace granted by the Son is from the Father and is also the grace which is said to have been obtained by the Son. Again, it is said that the glory which the Son gives is also from the Father and that the Son Himself was glorified by it; because, being the Son of God, He Himself became the Son of Man…As the Word, He gives from the Father and as the Son of Man, it is said of Him as of human beings that he obtains what is given to Him (C.Ar I,48).

Thus, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Man, through his affiliation to the Body of Christ and unity with Him, and he becomes anointed. “For when we say that He was anointed in human form, we are anointed in Him. The Savior clarifies this matter further when He says ‘And the glory which You gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one’” (C.Ar I, 48, John 17:22). Just as He created man – Adam – at the very beginning, in the image of the Word, mankind may be freed in Him, the Second Adam: “This is the mystery of the anointment which occurred to Him and the mystery of the presence of the Incarnate Word which the psalmist saw before and glorified, first, His divinity and His Sovereignty with the Father saying, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom’, He then proclaims His coming down to us: ‘Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions’” (C.Ar I, 49, Ps. 45:6).

So, in all these sayings, and when Christ says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me,” the reason is that He became flesh, that it may become clear to us from all these words: It is we who need the grace of the Spirit to sanctify us. So through whom should the Spirit be given, and by whom, except through the Son, Who, by Him, has the Spirit? We were only ready to accept the Spirit when the Word became Flesh. Our receiving of the Holy Spirit was confirmed when He said that He was anointed by the Spirit in the flesh, for the flesh was first sanctified in Him. When He said that, as Man, He obtained the Spirit on behalf of Man, He became the seal of the grace of the Spirit which we receive “…of His fullness” (John 1:6, C.Ar I, 50). Thus Jesus became the bodily beginning of the new human race – He became the “Second Adam,” and just as man went on with his life after Adam, in the image of the first Adam – poor, miserable, captive, and dejected – he begins a new phase with his connection to the Second Adam – in the image of the Second Adam: “For, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive…The first man Adam became a living being, The last Adam became a life-giving spirit…The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:22, 45,47).

We unite with this new Head of the human race by faith, love, and obedience. In fact, unity comes through physical participation also: through the sacraments – by communion of His Body and Blood. He becomes a special beginning for the personal life of every believer in Him. Hence, the words of the apostle: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of god dwells in you? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be My People’” (1 Cor. 3:16; 1 Cor. 6:15;2 Cor. 6:16). We can therefore understand the words of the apostle when he said: “And they glorified God in me” (Gal. 1:24) and the hymn sung by the church in Psalm 150: “Praise God in all His saints.” According to St Athanasius, the reason for all the preceding is our connection to His body (C.Ar I, 48), for we have obtained all the merits of the body of Christ Himself. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new…that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:17, 15).

This new creation is incorruptible because, through the Incarnation, it is associated with the Divine Nature which cannot be changed or altered. Thus, in Christ, the poor receive good tidings, the broken hearted healing, the captives liberty, the blind recover their sight, and the oppressed are set free. In Christ, man’s life becomes the acceptable year of the Lord. 1 Outwardly, the Christian may appear unknown, persecuted, and poor, but deep in his heart is knowledge, life, joy, and riches. True Christians live “as unknown and yet well knowing, as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 5:9- 10). A Christian knows his nature, i.e. where he comes from, whose child he is, who is his God, the riches and treasures hidden in him; he knows that he no longer worships an unknown God because all things are now known to him. With Paul, he says: “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:11).