Today is the Sunday of St. John Climacus. St. John was a monk of St. Catherine’s monastery on Mt. Sinai. He lived many years in a cave that he converted into a tiny cell, living a life of silence. During those years of silence, God inspired him with words of instruction and encouragement. The brethren of the monastery recognized his potential and chose him as their abbot. He’s famous for writing the book, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, which describes 30 steps in the spiritual life. We who are beginners might focus on the first 3 steps, which are: Renunciation, Detachment, and Pilgrimage.

These three steps, and the whole way of living the Gospel, are the antidotes to the despair that we may feel when we come face to face with sin and evil in the world.

We live in a world that could easily drive us to despair. We hear stories all the time about broken lives, and we see brokenness in our own lives. Everywhere we look, if we’re paying attention, there’s one kind of suffering or another. In some cases it’s physical suffering - people struggling to survive in 3rd World countries, fighting for their lives in the Middle East, or suffering from a debilitating disease right here in our midst. In other cases, it’s psychological or spiritual suffering - broken homes, broken families, alcoholism, drug abuse, and all kinds of abusive behaviors, which cause incredible hurt.

There are unhealthy and unhelpful ways to respond. One of these is to try shut out the world and pretend that all that suffering doesn’t exist. That may last a while, until the suffering refuses to be shut out and barges into our own lives. In any case, ignoring reality and trying to avoid thinking about suffering is always a false and deceptive solution. Another unhealthy and even self-destructive response would be precisely to despair; to believe that there must not be a loving God, or that He must be too weak to fix the world.

Either way, whether we go the route of avoidance, or become paralyzed by fear and a sense of hopelessness, a wedge is driven between us and the only hope we have. This is what the devil wants, of course. To paraphrase a famous quotation of C.S. Lewis, the devil tries to convince people either that he doesn’t exist or that he exists and has power that can’t be opposed.

The truth, of course, lies between these two false extremes. And the truth about human suffering is that it exists and that we can’t avoid facing it; and, at the same time, that we never have to face it alone. As we said last week in connection with the Cross, we have a God who is a co-sufferer with us. And that is the source of our only hope. So there is a good kind of despair, which gives up all hope outside of Christ, because there is no other hope than in Him; and this good despair is the remedy for the bad despair.

In the passage we read from Hebrews today, we hear that hope in Christ is the anchor of the soul. God has given us promises concerning His faithfulness, and we can be sure of those promises. And the surety of those promises provides a “strong consolation;” and we are in need of a strong consolation. This hope and consolation in Christ is “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus…” The “Presence behind the veil” refers to God’s Kingdom, which Christ is even now establishing for us. And we know that in the Kingdom there is no more suffering.

In this world, though, suffering remains; it’s an unavoidable reality. And suffering challenges our faith. It challenged the faith of the father in the Gospel whose son had what was described as a deaf and dumb spirit, and who suffered from his early childhood with seizures and convulsions and foaming at the mouth. The man had reached the limit of what he could endure, and cried out with tears for mercy. And even then, he clearly had trouble believing that it was possible for his son to be healed. He said to the Lord, “if you can do anything.” But the Lord lets him know that what’s needed is faith, and the man responds in those famous words, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

This is a good, humble prayer, a necessary prayer. The desert father Abba Paphnutius says that faith is a gift from God, and therefore we ought to pray like this man all the time, asking God to grant us stronger faith. And he describes this man as “seeing that his faith was being driven by the waves unbelief on the rocks which would cause a fearful shipwreck.” So he says that he is asking Christ for the necessary help he needs to have a deep faith.

So we’re given in today’s readings, the instruction that we need to avoid the shipwreck of our faith. And faith is what we need to face the brokenness and suffering of the world with love and courage, rather than falling into despair. So how do we avoid shipwreck?

1) We maintain Christ as our anchor. We hope in Him whenever the storms come. We turn to him, like this man in the Gospel, because we know that all other avenues will fail. This is related to the 1st Step in St. John Climacus’ book: Renunciation. Renunciation doesn’t mean not caring about the world, or forgetting about its suffering. Rather, it means giving up every other hope for salvation, peace and joy except for Christ.

2) We pray. If Christ is our anchor, then this will follow naturally. But we may find our faith and our prayer shaky, uncertain. The very best prayer in such times is what this man prayed: “I believe, help my unbelief.” Or, “Lord, help! I don’t even know what I need and my faith is weak, but give me what I need, strengthen my faith, and have mercy on me!” This relates to the 2nd step in the Ladder: Detachment. Detachment is about putting our hands to the plow and not looking back. St. John says to imitate Lot, and not Lot’s wife. Lot fled from sin; Lot’s wife turned around and looked back, and turned into a pillar of salt. As we put our hope in Christ, we keep that hope alive and exercise it by prayer. Our prayer and our faith may be far from perfect, but if we keep pressing towards the goal of genuine faith and prayer, and fighting distraction, then like this man in the gospel we will find deliverance in Christ.

3) We fast. The Lord tells his disciples that not just prayer, but prayer and fasting drive out “this kind.” “This kind,” - meaning the forces of darkness that lead us into despair in this world. Fasting is connected to the practice of what St. John Climacus describes as exile or pilgrimage, which is the 3rd step in the Ladder. In other words, we fast; we train ourselves to give up our own will. We discover the positive side to abstinence, to going without. We learn through this training that even suffering, when it is joined to Christ, can produce positive results, even joy. The pilgrimage may be difficult, but it leads us to a glorious destination.

So by hope in Christ, by fasting and prayer, our faith is strengthened, and we are delivered from the shipwreck of evil despair. And gradually, as hope leads to faith and faith leads to love, our hearts are opened and enlarged, and we become courageous co-workers with Christ on the spiritual battlefield of this world, resisting the powers of darkness and ministering those who have suffered wounds. May God grant this to us now and ever. Amen.