Ordination to the Diaconate
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Dr. Leander S. Harding
on June 2, 2012, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Pittsburgh, PA
[Note: Please read the entire sermon, posted on Dr Harding’s blog.]
We are here today for the joyous occasion of the ordination of deacons. Beyond and underneath that we are here today because we have died and are risen with Jesus Christ the Lord. In him have we found a new life with God and each other, being reconciled to the Father in one body through the cross of Christ.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church there are vestments, epimanikion, which are elaborate cuffs which start at the wrist and run up the arms. The purpose of these cuffs is to show that the hands of the priest or bishop who performs the sacramental rite of the church are not the hands of that person but the hands of Christ. Very shortly the Bishop will be the hands of Christ acting in and through His body the church, as the Lord ordains these three men to be deacons in his one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. In this one body the Holy Spirit pours out gifts for ministry and for the building of the church upon us all. To some is given the calling and gift of ordination.
A sacrament consists of two things: the promise of God and an effectual sign of that promise. When the appropriate and appointed sign is brought together with the proclamation of God’s promise, the God who fulfills his promises is present and active in our midst. In the case of ordination the sign is a person set apart by prayer and the laying on of hands for ordained service in the church. The promise that is being kept is the promise of the Lord that he would not desert us but would be with us always even to the end of the age. (Matt 28:20) The vocation of the church is to be the body of Christ, Christ’s hands and feet and speech and touch in the world. The vocation of the clergy is to make Christ present to his people in such a way that the life of Christ is stirred up in them and that they constantly rediscover that they are alive only insofar as they live in Him and He lives in them.
[Again, please read the entire sermon, posted on Dr Harding’s blog.]