Today our Church celebrates the memory of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, held in Nicea in 787. This council proclaimed the goodness and the rightness of the holy icons, as they’re used and venerated in the Orthodox Church. It took place in response to the Iconoclast controversy, in which icons were called into question, and those defending the veneration of icons were persecuted.

St. John of Damascus eloquently expressed the Church’s teaching on the icons, and this council upheld his teaching. This teaching says, first of all, that icons are not idols. Rather, they are symbols, or representations, of those depicted, and, ultimately, an Orthodox icon always points to Christ and to His incarnation. While worship is for God alone, it is fitting and right to venerate, respect, and honor that which is of God, including all His Saints. Every icon points to the reality of the incarnation of Christ - His becoming man for our salvation. Because Christ takes on flesh and blood, and all that it is to be human except for sin, in other words, because He becomes material, a part of His own creation, icons become possible.

In the Old Testament, it was clear that God could not be seen, and therefore could not be depicted. Any depiction of Him tended towards idolatry. It would have come from misguided human imagination, and would have ended up being worshiped in place of Him. However, even in the Old Testament, certain images were allowed - and even ordered - by God, such as the cherubim over the “Mercy Seat” on the Ark of the Covenant. These were different from other “graven images,” in that they pointed to the reality of God’s invisible, awesome presence, rather than detracting from that reality.

With the Incarnation, though, everything changes. The impossible becomes possible - God is in the flesh, and so men can behold His face. As Christ says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” We behold the glory of God in Christ. If people had had cameras at the time of the Lord’s earthly ministry, they would have undoubtedly taken pictures of him, and every Christian who could get his hand on a photo of the Lord would have it hanging in his house. Well, they didn’t have cameras, but there were people who could paint. And from that time, the Lord has been depicted.

These depictions - these icons - are visual proclamations of the incarnation. They are trophies celebrating the incarnation. They constantly point us to the reality of the incarnation, which means the reality of God’s love for man. He pours out this love on us through becoming one of us, and by taking on matter He redeems matter. Matter itself - in the form of Holy Icons - now sings God’s praises, and man, cooperating in this praise through making and venerating the icons, receives all the benefactions that come from that incarnate love of God.

In the words of St. John of Damascus, “The icon is a song of triumph, and a revelation, and an enduring monument to the victory of the saints and the disgrace of the demons.”

The parable of the sower, which we hear today, speaks of the seed of the Gospel, which is the message of the Incarnation. This seed, which is scattered, is the same message that the Icons proclaim. Every passage of Scripture points to the reality of the Incarnation of Christ - His love for us made manifest, made tangible. Every act of worship that we have in the Church also points to this same reality; the Incarnation makes possible Baptism, Chrismation, the Liturgy, and all the rest.

It is this Word of the Incarnation of Christ that is the seed we need to grow and bear much fruit. It is the perfect awareness of His love and His presence that we need to get through everything we face in this life. This awareness, and the gratitude that it engenders, must go deep into the soil of our hearts.

The devil wants to steal that from us. He tries various means. He tries to make us forget about Christ. He tries to distract us with afflictions and temptations. He tries to distract us with comforts and riches. He even tries to use our brothers and sisters against us, turning us against one another. He tries to go inside the Church itself to destroy our faith.

In the Iconoclast controversy, there were Emperors and bishops on the side of iconoclasm, throwing out the icons. At its root, iconoclasm was something foreign to the life of the Church, but it entered into the Body for a while, like a virus. It had to be expelled by the Body, and eventually it was, after years of fever!

Iconoclasm is against the human person, it’s against the image of God. It’s an attack on the incarnate Christ, a denial of the power of the incarnation. The enemy is up to his same old tricks today. He’s attacking the image of God right and left. He’s looking for every possible means to confuse us about what we are as human beings, what it means to be a man or a woman, what it means to be a child of God. He’s creating gender confusion and sexual disorientation, and confusion about the value of human life.

But for us Orthodox Christians, the Incarnation of Christ is the center and the heart of everything. Is is the most important reality of our lives. It is what makes everything worthwhile, gives everything its meaning. And this is what orients us in the right direction. Christ is our orientation.

Christ and His Word are our whole life, and the seed that must grow within us for us to have life in abundance. Christ within us restores the image of God in us, and enables us to grow in the likeness to God.

As we embrace Christ and His life each day, as we partake of His Body and Blood, as we venerate the icons that hang on our walls, and the icons that are our brothers and sisters, as we let His word dwell richly within us, He will orient us rightly and enable us to grow. He will enable us to sing that song of triumph mentioned by St. John of Damascus, to be filled with his revelation, to join the victory of the Saints, and to behold the disgrace and the destruction of the demons in our own lives.

To Jesus Christ be all honor and glory, with His Father and the all-Holy Spirit. Amen.