Bishop Maximus - The Promises of God (Program)
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Every time you are well. We will meet with you in an episode of the program "The Promises of God." We will talk about the promises of God in the resurrection, and an example of that in the Old Testament. Belief in the resurrection existed, as mentioned in Psalm 3: "I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me." Psalm 3. It should be noted that the melody "Galghatha" is repeated during the burial of the Lord Jesus, to Him be glory. And in the church, at the end of the Good Friday prayer, the Book of Psalms is prayed in its entirety. The bishop prays the first psalms until this verse where we say: "I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me." Psalm 16 also says: "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
In the book of Isaiah, it is said: "Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the dead." And in the book of Ezekiel, the Lord says: "I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel." This means a large and powerful area filled with dry bones. Thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live."
So, they lived and stood on their feet as an exceedingly great army. This narrative is found in Ezekiel 37. This is the resurrection. And in Hosea, I say like this: "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?"
In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus says in the Gospel of John 11: "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die." He also mentions four times in John 6 that He will raise them up on the last day.
The truth is, I would like to talk today about an important matter that connects the resurrection of Christ to the resurrection of our beloved country, Egypt. I want to emphasize that all the forces of evil allied together to get rid of Christ, whether Jews or Romans. They were enemies who united for this purpose. They gathered to eliminate Christ, along with the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. All the forces of evil allied to eliminate Christ. However, the Living One did not die; death cannot touch Him. The evidence for this is the empty tomb and the light emanating from the tomb every year. Moreover, Christ, who is glorious, was allied against by all the forces of evil, but they were unable to get rid of Him. He rose victoriously.
Now we find that all the forces of evil are allied against our precious Egypt. The extremists on the right and the extremists on the left are joining forces today to humiliate Egypt. Both internally and externally, enemies have allied against Egypt. But we realize that Egypt did not die and will not die. Egypt will rise just as the Lord Jesus rose, triumphant over all the forces of evil. Egypt will remain standing, with its head held high. Egypt will not die as long as the heart is sound and the lungs are at peace.
The heart, which is the Egyptian army, is considered the school of nationalism. The Egyptian army, which is one of the top ten armies in the world, is not only strong because of its power, but also because it is a national school. It is not a tribal or racial army, but rather everyone joins it with a spirit of nationalism and belonging. As for the lungs, they are represented by Al-Azhar and the Church. Al-Azhar, which represents moderate Islam, accepts the other and deals with them with tolerance. The Coptic Church, the Egyptian national church, declares its national identity before its religious identity. Therefore, it is known as the Coptic Orthodox Church, meaning Egyptian. This is our church that declares its national identity before its Orthodox religious identity.
Our church is the school of nationalism, and as long as the church is in a good state, Egypt will be in a good state. No one can harm it. The Coptic Orthodox Church, during the days of Pope Peter VII, when the Russian consul offered protection to the Copts in Egypt. This conversation dates back to the time of Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century. In a serene and national atmosphere, Pope Peter asked the Russian envoy, saying, "I would like to ask you a question. Does the King of Russia die or remain alive?" The Russian replied, "Yes, we are in the protection of a king who does not die." And he expressed his gratitude to the Russian czar.
The Coptic Church was during the days of Pope Cyril V, and the English attempt to hinder the relationship between Egyptians and the protection of Copts in the early 20th century. Father Sergius used to preach and declare this to all Copts, and Egypt lived freely. In the days of Pope Tawadros, may the Lord bless him with good health and a long life, in times of burning our churches, His Holiness the Pope says from his heart, "We can live without churches, but we cannot live in churches without a homeland." And he said, "If they burn our churches, we will pray with our Muslim brothers in the mosques, and if they burn the mosques, we will pray with our Muslim brothers in the streets." He declared, "We offer our churches as incense for the sake of Egypt," so Egypt will remain strong and standing as long as the heart is sound and the lungs are at peace.
Also, in a promise in the Holy Scriptures of the Church, it is said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. This is also our blessed faith. The blessing of the Egyptian people is that the gates of hell will never prevail against Egypt. Where are the Hyksos? Where are the Tatars? Where are the Mongols and others? They have departed, and Egypt remains. Egypt is resistant to death and resistant to division. Since the days of King Menes, the unifier of the Two Lands, the Lord Christ who is risen does not die, and Egypt does not die. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, and Egypt too, the gates of hell have not prevailed against it. And yet,
The resurrection requires three things. Let us now take actions and not just words. In order to rise, whether on an individual or societal level, there are three essential things: decision, prayer, and action. Just as the young man said, "Now I rise." This is a decision, a conscious decision that we don't leave to circumstances or others. We make a decision that we want to uplift and enhance our country. That is the first decision. The second point is prayer. It is prayer that God said about it, "Without me, you can do nothing." We seek assistance from our Lord, and if the Lord is with us, He is the one who grants us strength. The third point, in order for Egypt to rise, is work, work. We must work, and the most important work we do here in Egypt is caring for the Egyptian people. The human being is the most precious asset in Egypt. The dearest investment in Egypt is the human being. Imagine if the socialist philosopher Karl Marx were to rise from his grave, he would be struck with astonishment by the realization of that capitalist idea.
He would be overwhelmed by the discovery of the theory of human capital, which he spent his entire life studying, that human capital begins to outweigh financial capital. Power and progress are manifested in human capital. Karl Marx would be amazed to learn that when Bill Gates, the owner of Microsoft, started building his massive empire, he didn't have financial capital, but what did he have? Human capital. Karl Marx would be astonished to find countries that have no oil, no natural gas, no tourism, no Suez Canal, no antiquities, and no mines, yet they have become economic powerhouses. And the reason is what? It is human capital.
Therefore, the required task in Egypt is to focus on the human being. There are three key points we care about in the Egyptian individual, and they all start with the letter "H": Head, Heart, and Hands. We care about the mind of the individual by focusing on education, as it is the train that will guide Egypt towards the future and combat backwardness, by emphasizing innovation rather than repetition. Our problem is that education in Egypt kills the child and their childhood, and suppresses their creativity. We suppress their lives, just look at the heavy school bag they carry, it suppresses their childhood. Today, the largest item in the budget of an Egyptian family is the cost of education and private lessons, and unfortunately, in the end, the outcome is very poor, I'm sorry.
Egypt will not rise unless it pays attention to the minds of its people and education, as other countries have done before us. Continue with education; it is the weapon of the era. We must pay attention to all elements of the educational process, especially the human element. We should care about three things starting with the letter "M": the laboratory, the library, and the playground. We deprive children of their games and hobbies. Today, every school that is built needs a laboratory and a playground in the backyard. Everyone needs a laboratory and a playground.
We must also continue to nurture the heart of the Egyptian individual, the heart that holds love and forgiveness. Our country, Egypt, needs more love and forgiveness. Life without them becomes hellish. True love and purity in the heart heal and purify. Similarly, a life without forgiveness or tolerance becomes filled with conflicts and wars. Let us love one another. If you love your neighbor as yourself, forgive, and you will be forgiven. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. We need to care for the mind, thinking, and creativity, and we need to care for the heart, love, and forgiveness.
Lastly, we must pay attention to hands and work, so that the hand works and builds, the mind thinks and creates, and the heart loves and forgives, and the hand works and participates. In Egypt, we need to focus on work, to dedicate all working time to actual work. Our problem lies in not caring about work and marginalizing it. There are statistics and studies indicating that the average working time for Egyptians is twenty-six minutes per day. These statistics are outdated, and recent studies indicate that work is even less than that. Once, I saw a very amusing cartoon that reflected the reality that we do not take work seriously. The cartoon depicted an ambulance carrying the "employee," and what was the crew doing? They were lazily lounging around. Why? Because they worked for thirty minutes a day. I do not generalize, and I apologize if there are exceptions who work diligently and honestly. However, our country will not progress unless we allocate sufficient time for actual work.
In Japan, the secret to their progress lies in their reverence for work. Japanese workers refuse to take paid vacations because they love work. According to the late writer Ahmed Bahgat, in his friendly suggestion, he proposes that we send a group of Egyptian employees to friendly Japan. They can sit with their Japanese counterparts and try to convince them that vacation is the norm in human existence, and work is the exception. This is, of course, a jest from Ahmed Bahgat, but it points to a serious matter. We need to care for the mind, care for the heart, and care for the hands. To progress, we must focus on work in three areas: agricultural production, industrial production, and informational production.
Regarding agricultural production, we must focus on food production to keep up with the alarming increase in population, so that we have cheap and accessible bread that is not subject to others' estimation. This applies at the individual level and the international level. This is how we revive a country that currently cares about cultivating one and a half million acres of wheat. We must bridge the gap between needs and what is already available.
The second point is that industrial production plays a crucial role in economic progress. In an open market, fierce competition occurs where the strongest, highest quality, and cheapest prevail as the winners. There is no room for the weak and lazy in this market. Additionally, informational production plays a vital role and holds an important position in the world as a whole. It encompasses the production of everything related to computers, programming, and communications. There are small villages in Japan that annually produce and export more informational content and software than Egypt exports in agricultural, animal, and industrial production.
I apologize; I don't want to give you a gloomy picture, but I'm sorry, my profound love for my country and my love for Egypt compel me to speak in this manner. We must focus on management; it is the secret to the success of any work. Even in the church, we can spend on an impactful project, but if we don't know how to manage it, it fails. Management, at the very least, means time management, energy management, and memory management. How can we harness these three capabilities of time, energy, and memory? We must utilize them for righteous matters.
I don't want to prolong it, but I want to tell you that our country needs us to care about timely work, to care about energy, and to care about people. But I assure you, Egypt is heading towards success and progress. Are you wondering about the reason? It is moving towards blessings. This is not mere futile optimism; it is a promise from God. Egypt is a blessed nation. Nevertheless, Egypt will rise through the efforts and work of its people. We ask God to bless you and bless our country. Christ is risen, truly He is risen. To Him be all glory and honor forever. Amen.
يسعدنا ان نقدم لكم كل ما يخص المحتوى القبطى باستمرار – كما نتمنى منكم دعمنا و تشجيعكم لنا من خلال مشاركتكم و تعليقاتكم على محتوى موقعنا – حتى نستطيع تقديم المزيد بشكل مستمر
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