The Liturgy is the meeting point where we can find God in a concrete, real, and transformative way. As we contemplate the Liturgy, it is not just rubrics and people making certain motions, but something much more significant; it is a mystery we enter into. As Fr. Zacharias says, “The Liturgy is the school whereby we are initiated into the mystery of eternity.”
Understanding that the Liturgy is a meeting place is essential to the Orthodox spiritual life. And indeed, as we come to the Lord, we need to remember that we are coming to a Person, not just some idea of God as some philosophical monotheist somewhere in the sky. The reality is that God is closer to us than our hearts. He hears our innermost thoughts, and ultimately, that dialog with God is most supremely exemplified to us in the Liturgy because it gives us the pattern of how to take this world and offer it back to God with thanksgiving; it’s a meeting place, a point of contact, a moment of connection with God, rather than a place of disunion, disharmony, or a point of separation. The Liturgy is the point where everything is brought together in this world, and it helps us encounter God through this world.
And that is precisely what the Incarnation does in the world, in the matter of this world, the concrete way we can encounter God. As Fr. Sophrony says, “In the Incarnation, we have both maximum concreteness together with the total inscrutability of God”; both in the same place in the Person of Jesus Christ. So, as we come to God, we must remember that we are coming to a Person that is not just some philosophical monad, but rather the Person of Jesus Christ; He who is both God and Man, He is the eternal God-Man. This is the hallmark or foundation of all Orthodox Christianity, the understanding that God took flesh. As it says in John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. …and the Word took flesh and dwelt among us.” Jn. 1:1, 14. The eternal and living God became flesh; through this same flesh, we know God; we touch, handle, and experience God. So the Liturgy is when the incarnational view of the Church plays out in a magnificent symphony of sight, sound, smell, and taste of encountering the incarnate God.
So, as we understand the Liturgy, it is a place of meeting, meeting the Person of Jesus Christ, who is perfect God and perfect Man, and it is the place where we can not only encounter God but also begin to share in God’s very life. And this is very important because this is salvation from an Orthodox standpoint. We are not juridically saved—where God says you are not guilty, you are fine, everything is okay, and please continue to go about your merry way. This is not the Orthodox understanding of salvation—salvation is union and salvation as union; salvation equals union. “And to you are given exceedingly great and precious promises: that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature,” Peter 2:1:4. So this union that God is calling us to is to share in His very life. And the place where that begins and ends is at the Liturgy. In the liturgical life, we have baptisms, chrismations, confession, unction, eucharist, marriage, ordination, and many other sacraments; these sacraments are means by which we encounter and experience God’s grace. Yet ultimately, all of these things are means to that union, which is our salvation or that which affects the process of our salvation; salvation is a process. It is not something we do once or just a couple of times a year; it is something we continually enter back into. And really, what we are entering into is the life of God Himself. It is essential to understand that when we come to the Liturgy, we are there to meet a Person and to encounter this Person in such a way that there can be an exchange of life.
As we offer our lives to God, He gives us His life. And to the extent that we offer Him our life, to that same extent, we will receive His life. So if we give one hundred percent, He will give one hundred percent back; it is crucial to realize that whatever I give, I will receive back. Christianity is quintessentially understood as ‘in giving, we receive.’ This same principle works itself out in our spiritual life, especially in the Liturgy. To the extent we give ourselves to God, to that same extent, there will be room inside of us to receive God’s own life concurrently; this is union, and ultimately, salvation.
Taken from Archimandrite Sergius
“The Lord knew that no one person can contain the fullness of his gifts, the fullness of his grace, so he perfected a body in history. No individual could contain all the wealth of his Spirit, so he perfected a body in history so that all the members of this body can contain all the wealth of his Spirit.”