Jesus laughed or He did not. Who was there and has told us? We are speculating. What is important? The Fathers tell us to watch out for our souls. What does this mean? How do we apply this? There are many cannons, writings, and traditions of the Church. What are they for? They are not for us to argue or quarrel about, they are for us to use to help us become as much like God as we can. And there are differing rules for Monastics and the laity. We have to apply what we read in the lives of the Saints, the writings of the Fathers, the Holy Scripture, the Cannons of the Church, and Holy tradition as we can. Not to boast not to tell everyone they are wrong not to compare yourself to any one else.
It is not a matter of what you eat and drink, or when. It is a matter of whether you are being conformed to the image of Christ or not. What is this image? LOVE for all especially our enemies. Look at the humility of Christ, He is God, and yet because of His LOVE for us, He clothed Himself with our flesh. And this was not a “poof” here I am, He was carried in the womb of the most Holy Virgin Mary for 9 months, like we are carried in the womb for 9 months. He then did not say “Ok here I am, “poof” I am an adult now”, no He lived a childhood, He learned a trade, He helped His foster father, He supported His mother and was obedient to them. Then after He became 30 years old, then He started His ministry, though I suppose it can be argued that His ministry started in eternity. This is God we are talking about, the Creator of all that we see and do not see. The Creator becoming a creature!? This is the LOVE of God. Then when His own people rejected Him and had Him crucified He died, for us. He went to Hades, for us. He destroyed hades, for us. Then, as we had just celebrated, He rose from the dead for us. Then he ascended to the Heavens, with His body that we gave Him through the most Holy Theotokos. What has all this done? We miserable creatures that are continually disobedient to God have the opportunity to become ONE with God. And what do we do? We spend our time arguing about what is not important, if it was the Apostles would have told us.
Now because of God’s LOVE for us and the fact that He created us in His image, we are free to do what ever we want, anything, completely free. There are consequences, but we are free. We can choose to labour to be like God, to work at restoring His image in us. And you are right we can not do that, God does it, but not against our will. As we work out what is in our hearts, He does what we can not.
Let us work together to becaome like Christ rather than argue about what is not important.
