In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today, beloved in Christ, is the third Sunday of Pascha, or Paschaltide. During these past two weeks, we’ve been reading the Gospel according to John. You have your Orthodox calendar hanging on your refrigerator at home, and that’s why refrigerators were invented; later on they found they were good for keeping food cold as well. [Laughter] You have your Orthodox calendar on your refrigerator; you know we’ve been reading John each day.

Now last week I mentioned the physical setting in which the gospel of John was introduced to us at Pascha night itself. It was the middle of the night, and our church was surrounded in darkness. And in this nave, this little enclave of light, we listened to the Evangelist John proclaim, “In him was life, and the life was the [light] of men. And the light shines in the darkness. The darkness did not comprehend it.” So the Light is proclaimed, the Word is proclaimed, surrounded by the darkness of incomprehension.

This image of the light surrounded by uncomprehending darkness is important in the imagery of the gospel of John. Go back to Jesus’ first discourse in the gospel of John, which begins, “There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night.” He walked in from the darkness into the presence of the Light: came to Jesus by night. The setting is private. He had a room apparently lit by a burning candle, on either side of which sit Jesus and Nicodemus. Now this was the mise-en-scène in which Jesus declares, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Compare that first discourse of Jesus to the last discourse of Jesus, the one which is our first gospel on Holy Thursday night, that long one. Jesus’ final discourse, as John describes it, also takes place at night, in an upper room in Jerusalem, surrounded by the darkness of night. This was the setting in which John writes, “Jesus knew that his hour had home that he should depart from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in this world, he loved them to the end.” And just as Nicodemus had come in from the night into the presence of Jesus, so in this last discourse someone leaves the presence of Jesus and walks out into the darkness. Here’s the way John describes it.

Jesus, having dipped the bread, gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. Now after the piece, Satan entered into him. Having received the piece of bread, he went out immediately and it was night.

These two discourses juxtapose at either end. The pervading Johannine contrast of darkness and light pertains to that cosmic divide of which St. John wrote, “Little children, do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” There’s the very dark side, the encasing in this circle of light: it’s the world. If anyone loves that darkness, the love of the Father is not in him.

It is also with this imagery of light and darkness that John inaugurates his account of the resurrection. I’ll quote again. “Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark.” Notice it doesn’t read that way in Matthew, Mark, and Luke; that’s the way it reads in John. “While it was still dark.” And here we are introduced to the ministry of our heroines, our mothers in the faith, the eight of them up there, who figure so significantly in the imagination of the Church, especially of poetry, her music, and her art.

Now, continuing last week’s theme, I propose to speak today once again of truth, of goodness, and of beauty, the three transcendental qualities that philosophy ascribes to being and the triadic construction which Christian theology, at least since the fourth century, has thought about the mystery of the Incarnation. It’s the manifestation of truth, of goodness, and of beauty. I take this tack on the persuasion that this triadic formula—truth, goodness, and beauty—has served the Church in a unique way in her consideration of God’s eternal Logos, which everything created was created in the Logos. Our approach to truth, goodness, and beauty is not that of Plato; it’s that of the Incarnation. So if any philosophy touches those three things, the Church rises up with a certain amount of alarm and some measure of agitation.

John tells us in this Logos all things were created. Outside of this Logos, nothing was made. Outside of this Logos, there is only darkness and non-being. So let us with Nicodemus today, brothers and sisters—let us walk in from the darkness to sit with Jesus, the Logos, who became flesh and dwells among us. We will not come in without companionship, and today we know who our companions are. They’re pictured right back there on the wall.

Let us consider the true. The true, which is being as knowable. Let us reflect once again: the truth is a quality of being before it is a quality of knowledge. It’s something that’s there. It’s not first of all a quality of knowledge; it’s a quality of being, of the real. It is the real as knowable.

As I suspect I mentioned last week, the modern world has a great deal of trouble with truth. Teaching college philosophy during the ten years before I came to All Saints, I lost count of the number of 18-year-olds who solemnly announced to their professor, “Well, you have your truths; I have mine.” [Laughter] Until I learned, painfully, that there’s no reasoning with such people, I used to answer, “There can only be one truth.” “No,” such a person would assure me, “there are many truths. Each of us must pick the version he prefers.” I didn’t say it, but I’m thinking in my mind, “I don’t want that person installing my heating unit.” [Laughter] He may have his version of the truth.

But I wouldn’t say that. I would respond, “Would it be false to deny that, or would it just be ‘my truth’?” I also lost count of the number of times that students’ response to this inquiry was, “Hey, now you’re messing with my mind!” [Laughter] I used to get that a lot. “Hey, man, you’re messing with my mind!”

What should someone say to someone who declares that truth is relative and subjective? A stock answer usually appeals to the objectivity of truth. The desperate professor, the desperate, underpaid professor, because I was always adjunct faculty—the desperate professor, frustrated by the declaration that truth does not exist, that the long-suffering teacher, wearied by the assertion that the truth cannot be known, the patient pedagogue on the brink of despair, adhering that all knowledge is shaped and predetermined by social and the economic forces of the knower—such a one I say may simply throw up his hands and declare that truth is objective.

If he is a philosopher, however, he knows there’s a problem with saying this; there’s a distinct problem with saying this. How can we say that truth, whether created or uncreated, is objective? I mean, I’ve wanted a long discussion on that. You see, truth is not hard and cold. Truth is not lifeless and inert like a rock. And I fear, although I know somebody’s going to challenge me on this—and I will let them, because I’m still probing this matter myself—it appears to me that the scientific objectification of the truth is a component of the problem.

I know this sounds strange. Let me explain myself if I can. Be patient with me for a moment. Let us consider the Greek word translated by the English word “truth” in holy Scripture. Today I’m going to take the Greek word; next week we’re going to take the Hebrew word. The Greek word translated in English by “truth” is aletheia. Listen to that word, aletheia. In Greek culture, lots of girls are named Aletheia. Wonderful name. Beautiful name, isn’t it? First time I met a girl with that name, I met her in Greece. That was pre-Denise. [Laughter]

Like so many Greek words that begin with a-, the sense of the word is negative. This form is known as the alpha privative. The a- is simply a denial of what comes after, such as “asymmetric.” Thus we say that someone without God is an atheist; an agnostic is someone without knowledge, and so forth. The Greek word aletheia means without concealment. In other words, the very term for truth is apophatic: non-hiddenness. You see, my students used to say to me, “Now you’re messing with my mind!”

The verbal form is lanthano, which appears lots of times in the Bible. When it says, for example, Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that a man hides his field, lanthano. The whole business about the truth is that it does not hide. The truth discloses itself.

I have trouble saying that the truth is objective, because it is known only in an active revelation. Most of the world has no notion of this at all, because most of the world does not know about the Logos and does not realize that in the principle, in the arche of the Logos is a revelatory Person, and he reveals himself in mathematics, in biology, in form. This Word reveals himself. He enlightens every man that comes into the world.

The knowledge of the truth involves a revelation, literally: a pulling-back of the veil, a re-vel-ation. See, for the Christian, truth can never be a thing an Sich, a thing in itself. Truth is being revealed to the conscious knower. Our very concept of truth is meaningless apart—well, it’s not meaningless, but it has the wrong meaning—apart from the act of revelation. Truth lifts its own veil. Truth resists its own concealment. Truth discloses its own trustworthiness. Truth conveys its own certainty. Truth is the active light of being. The very notion of truth requires that all being should have a relationship to some self-consciousness. The very notion of truth is there be someone there to understand it. Truth is co-extensive, then, with revelation.

The Logos, St. John tells us, enlightens every man that comes into the world. To know the truth is to be in communion with the Truth. I say that to the musician, to the artist, to the scientist, to the person gazing at the stars, and the person examining DNA: to know the truth is to be in communion with the Truth.

Let me tell you now of a person who knows the truth. Her name is Joanna. As the wife of Chuza, the most important figure in Herod’s court, Joanna is easily the social superior among the myrrh-bearing women. You see, from a worldly perspective, Joanna had it all. She was socially high, politically well-placed, and financially comfortable. So what prompted Joanna to align herself with these other women with whom, in the eyes of the world, she had almost nothing in common?

I guess—I guess, and I suppose I should be challenged on this, but I guess—maybe Joanna was initially drawn to Jesus by an impulse of curiosity. I know that St. Bernard of Clairvaux says that curiosity is the first step toward damnation. [Laughter] I’m aware of that. I keep that in mind all the time. Joseph, you should keep that in mind, too! [Laughter] Keep that in mind all the time! But see, that can also be the first toward God; it could be the first step toward God, and I think often it is. Even vain Herod, we recall, her husband’s employer, had long entertained a desire to see Jesus, in order to see some miracle done by him—that’s curiosity that leads to damnation. And perhaps Joanna began that way as well. Curiosity simply got the better part of it. She was hearing rumors, and she looked into it. I suspect Joanna found out about Jesus from one of her maids.

But when she did see Jesus, something inside her changed. The eyes of her mind were stunned by the vision of the incarnate Truth. Everything else in her life was dramatically reduced by the revelation. So if questioned on the point, Joanna could declare, “What things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Indeed, I have counted all things lost for the excellency of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as garbage, that I may gain Christ.”

22 days ago, Joanna stood before a cave-tomb in Bethany and listened to the voice that summoned forth Lazarus from the realm of the dead. When the Lamb of God was nailed to the tree, Joanna fixed herself nearby. This high-placed woman stood there beneath the cross of a condemned criminal, to be blessed by his final breath. Today Joanna the Myrrh-bearer, the one who could actually afford to purchase more spices for the body of Jesus, comes early in the morning with her companions and encounters that marvelously inquisitive angel who asks them, “Wherefore, O women disciples, do you mingle sweet-smelling spices with your tears of pity?”

Second this morning, let us speak of the good, which is being as lovable. Truth is being as knowable; the good is being as lovable. Last week, I described goodness as the truth presented in an invitation. Goodness is the truth challenging man’s moral perspective, and in challenging man’s moral perspective, he doesn’t challenge simply his will—you might have gotten that from what I said last week—he challenges also his imagination. That’s why it’s appropriate to speak of the moral imagination, which finds its expression, for example, in literature and music and in art: the moral imagination.

Goodness is the perceived summons to conversion, the call to a radical moral re-alignment. Let me tell you about someone I know who felt the tug of that summons. Her name is Salome, the wife of Zebedee, and the mother of James and John. In the ordinary course of things, Joanna and Salome would never have met, because they come from very different strata of society. Unlike Joanna, Salome is not a wealthy woman of high social standing; she is the wife and mother of working men.

On the other hand, Salome, like many working-class mothers, wants her family to get ahead in this world. She sees Jesus as the opportunity! [Laughter] But as she first learns about Jesus, Salome begins to think big. This Messiah business could be just the family’s ticket to the top. She wants to make sure her two boys get in on the project on the ground floor. Driven by this ambition, Salome approaches Jesus with a bold request. “Grant that these two sons of mine”—doesn’t even bother to name them: “these two sons of mine”—“may sit, one at your right hand and the other on your left, in your kingdom.” In other words, Salome is driven by worldly ambition. She does not know her true spiritual state. Jesus does not reprimand her. Notice in Matthew 20, Jesus does not reprimand her; he reprimands the boys.

You see, Salome is in desperate need of conversion, and in fact she is converted. She forsakes the vanity of the world for the truth revealed as goodness. The very next time Matthew speaks of her, he says this: “And many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, were there looking on from afar, among whom was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.”

The first time Salome appears, she is portrayed as an enterprising and ambitious worldling who fails to grasp the message of the cross. In the last word holy Scripture says about her, we find Salome standing vigil as her Lord and Savior dies, now a model of the converted and enlightened Christian, to whom truth is revealed as an invitation to goodness.

And third, beloved, let us speak of the beautiful, which is being as admirable, attractive, and desirable. The words holy Scripture uses for the beautiful are the Hebrew word kavod, which suggests something heavy and substantial—it appears, for example in connection with gold, which is heavy and substantial—and the Greek word doxa, which conveys the notion of something lighter, the light. We’re not— The air this morning is not full of gravitas; it’s full of lux, full of light. These expressions, kavod and doxa, appear everywhere in the Bible as descriptive of God and everything that God does. We translate both words as “glory,” and glory is another word for beauty.

Moreover, the Bible speaks very negatively of any attempt, any human attempt to mimic this beauty. All merely human expressions of art are particularly subject to the danger of idolatry, especially when they are centered on man, and that’s why one has to watch out for music and art and literature, because there you’re going to find a conflict. If the world produces it, you’re going to find a conflict with what God knows and with what God says. This is why the Bible is cautious with respect to the visual arts. The most memorable expression of that caution is, arguably, the story of the golden calf. They portrayed their concept of god. The sight of the golden calf, we recall, caused Moses to descend from the mountain in a somewhat agitated state.

Beauty is God’s truth and goodness as admirable, attractive, and desirable. As I argued last week, it could be regarded as the most neglected of the three transcendentals. It’s the transcendental about which there is the most heresy. And yet for some human beings, the beautiful may be the most important of the transcendentals. That is to say, what is beautiful may be able to reach some individuals to whom truth and goodness, as such, may be practically inaccessible. Some minds are so numb, some hearts are so cold, that truth and goodness may fail to gain access.

Such a one, let me suggest, is a lady named Mary Magdalene, the third of today’s myrrh-bearers. She is introduced in Scripture this way: “Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom came seven demons.” This is perhaps our earliest reference to what are known as the seven deadly sins, those seven Ps that are removed from Dante’s brow as he goes up the mountain of Purgatory. Dante lists them: lust, greed, gluttony, envy, anger, pride, and sloth. Or it may be just that the reference to the seven demons means an abundance or plenitude of demonic possession. Still not a healthy state.

In the context in which Luke and John use this expression, it is clear that Mary Magdalene was a woman possessed of demons. A woman possessed of demons. Her state was totally desperate. She was a hopeless case. Neither Joanna nor Salome, in the usual course of things, would have ever befriended that woman. Such a woman may have been without the intellectual or moral capacity to grasp the teachings of Jesus. Truth and goodness would mean nothing to her. What Mary Magdalene needed was a vision of glory. She had to become aware of the divine attraction, divine beauty.

And surely Mary Magdalene was among those of whom John says, “And we beheld his glory.” She watched the measure of bread increase in his hands. She saw him smear the mud on the eyes of the man born blind. Perhaps she walked with that man to the pool of Shiloam, where he washed his eyes and received his sight. We’ll be talking about that man pretty soon.

In this vision of beauty and truth and goodness, we have God’s incarnate Word, because in this vision of beauty, truth, and goodness unveil themselves to the enraptured mind of Mary Magdalene. She knew this was not an opinion. This was a full disclosure. This was a certainty. She beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Two weeks have passed since we stood here together to hear the Gospel according to John. From that hour—pardon me: for that hour, we prepared ourselves by praying and fasting for 40 days. One doesn’t just go and open the gospel of John. What prompted us to do that? What prompted us to do that was the message that we heard out on the front steps. We stood out there in the dark and listened to this story of the myrrh-bearing women. And we walked into church saying to one another, “Some women of our company amazed us! When they did not find his body, they came saying they had also seen a vision of angels who said he was alive!” There’s the first proclamation of the Gospel: “Some women of our company amazed us!”

It happens that we know the names of some of these women. In fact, they were listed this morning in matins. Three of them—I can’t preach an eight-point sermon, I just… Three of them were Joanna, the wife of Chuza; Salome, the wife of Zebedee; Mary who was called Magdalene. Today it is highly appropriate we remember these Mothers of our faith. To them was revealed the undying Truth, the unfading Goodness, and the eternal glory of the Word made flesh, in whom all things were created.