Failure to Finish

Christ is Resurrected from the Dead – Blessed Is the Resurrection of Christ
Քրիստոս Յարեաւ ի Մեռելոց – Օրհնեալ է Յարութիւնն Քրիստոսի

In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Mara had a talent for beginnings. She enjoyed starting new endeavors—a new job, a new habit, a new version of herself—with a kind of electric hope that made people believe in her instantly. The problem was that she also had a talent to always fail. Somewhere between the excitement of starting and the satisfaction of finishing, things fell apart. Her first business idea collapsed in three months. She decided to go back to school to be better prepared, but she struggled to understand the subject matter and so she flunked out. She met the love of her life, got married and began getting ready to start a family. Yet, as quickly as she began, her marriage sadly ended in divorce. She again attempted to start anew. This time she worked harder, slept less, sacrificed more. When she failed again, it didn’t just feel like bad luck, she truly began to feel like failure. Though she tried to laugh it off, she began to tell herself, “You’re just not built for success. You will always fail.” She replayed it in her mind so much, it sounded like truth. Failure had taken a lot from her. One night, without announcing it to anyone, Mara started again. When things started going wrong, she didn’t spiral; she adjusted. When she felt the urge to quit, she waited. The difference wasn’t that she stopped failing; She failed constantly. Ideas didn’t land, people said no, progress stalled. There were moments, that that voice of her past crept back telling her to give up because she would fail. But while in the past doubt caused fear, now Mara saw failure as an opportunity and not a verdict. She wasn’t defined by doubt or questions or uncertainty. Then, one day, she noticed something strange! Things were working. Not perfectly, not effortlessly but they worked. When people asked her how she finally succeeded, Mara even failed to answer that because it wasn’t that she became more talented, or that she got lucky. The biggest difference was that she stopped treating failure like the end of the story. She had failed enough times to realize something important: Failure doesn’t mean you’re done. It just means you’re still in the middle. And the middle, as it turns out, is where almost everything important happens.

My dear brothers and sisters, no one likes to fail. No one starts a diet with thoughts of failing, no one dates or gets married with fear of divorce, no one studies with expectations of flunking out, no one starts with belief they’ll fail. Yet, so many of us listen to that voice of failure, we devalue ourselves, we define who we are focusing on the failures. We become disheartened and feel like giving up. This is especially true with our faith my dears. We try to remain faithful, we try to be forgiving, we try to be prayerful and yet, even with our faith we like a failure the moment we begin to struggle or doubt. And yet, Holy Scripture teaches us, Prov. 24:16 “for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.” The righteous fall seven time. Meaning those who try to remain faithful, prayerful, those who strive to succeed fail not once, not twice but multiple times. Yet, they rise again. They rise not through mere human efforts, nor strength, nor talent.

Remember Mara when asked how she succeeded admitted her talents, or smarts, or skills had not changed. What raises us my dears is our trust and love in our Lord; recognizing that our sin is not the end when through Christ Jesus we live. See how the proverbs says, the “wicked stumble when calamity strikes.” The wicked my dears are the arrogant, the prideful, those who look to blame others, and the world. The wicked are those who are unrepentant, who believe they are sinless. As we read in 1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” The truth is that failure does not define us; our darkness, our addiction, our mistakes, our brokenness, our sin does not define us; it is not the end!

Christ defines us; the love of God, who through grace and mercy forgives us of our sins through His death and resurrection raises us out of failure, renews us as righteous, lifts us out even out of our tombs. It is for this reason that St. Anthony of Padua teaches us that “Apart from the Cross, there is no other ladder.” A ladder to get back up, a ladder to lean on, a ladder to hold on to when our strength has failed. We need take hold of that ladder, take hold of the Cross and use it to get back up. Trust in not our strengths or weakness but in God. Yes, we might feel discouraged when we fail, yes, we can doubt and worry. Yet, “A drop of prayer is worth more than a sea of worry” – St. Nikolaj Velimirovic. In the face of our failures, we have an opportunity to renew our trust, confess, repent and start again, start with a simple prayer. The cross – in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

This is prayer; it is a symbol of us placing our trust in God; it is a shield that defends us against evil. It is victimhood transformed into victory. Pray my dears. Come to Church with a thirst and hunger to be filled with love, compassion, mercy. Failure is not the end; death is not the end; sin does not define us. Bring worry, doubt, fear and failure and lay it before the Holy Altar. Take hold of the Cross, and we know, that as Christ has been raised, we will be raised. We will be raised and renewed in love, hope and mercy to be an example for others to see and recognize that through God, even multiple failure, even the darkest of pains, has no power over the love and of our Lord. By the Grace of the Holy Spirit, see and hold on to the Cross and we will be lifted up to proclaim in word and in deed, Christ is Risen, Amen!