Your Navel Cord Was Not Cut

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Keraza Magazine issue 39-40 October 14, 2016

When the Lord wanted to reveal to Jerusalem her defilement, on the mouth of His prophet Ezekiel, He said: "As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut" (Ezekiel 16:4). We know that the navel cord connects the embryo to the mother in the womb, to transfer food and oxygen necessary for life and development. At birth, the cord must be cut for the baby to begin to rely on his own body systems for life.

From a spiritual perspective, for the navel cord to remain uncut means remaining of the Old Man’s ties, which hinder the growth of the New Man. "Your navel cord was not cut," applies to many people in the Holy Bible. The heart of Lot’s wife was attached to Sodom, keeping her from cutting the cord to Sodom, leading to her destruction, turning her into a pillar of salt. Although the Lord brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, yet their navel cord was not cut from the delights of the land of slavery, exemplified in the pots of meat, fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic, with the bitter result that the Lord struck those who craved, and so they died in the deserts. Also, Achan the son of Carmi, Gehazi the disciple of Elisha the prophet, the rich youth, the rich fool, Judas Iscariot, and Ananias and Sapphira all perished because their navel cord, attaching them to money and riches, was not cut. As for Samson and Solomon, their navel cord was stretched to become attached to strange women, resulting in the blindness and ridicule of the first by his enemies, and the kingdom of the second being torn from him and given to his servant. Many others, like the scribes and Pharisees, Demas, and Alexander the coppersmith, loved the praise of the present world and were bound by its ties.

Therefore, one of the most important works of grace in the lives of the children of God is the fulfillment of the divine promise: "I will break his yoke from your neck, and will burst your bonds" (Jeremiah 30:8); we remind Him of this promise every time we chant in the Sunday Psali: "Loosen for me all the bonds of sin." Cutting the navel cord attached to the world and its desires does not alone guarantee the life of the New Man. A branch broken off the wild olive tree will not live unless it is grafted into the rich olive tree of Christ, and remains firm in it through faith; negative struggle to be freed of sin, needs to be followed by positive struggle to gain virtues and grow in them, just as the lungs and stomach of the embryo begin to work once the navel cord is cut. Perhaps this is what St. Paul was referring to when he said, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (1 Corinthians 13:11). And also St. Isaac when he said, "The soul that loves God finds rest only in God. First loose yourself from all external bonds and then you may strive to bind your heart to God."¹

O, Holy Spirit of God, behold we bow our necks to the tender knife of Your grace to cut our cord from without, and the foreskins of our heart from within, so that the sign of the cutting becomes like the stamp of the children of God who are born again, not from a perishable seed, but from one that does not perish.

Bishop Youssef
Bishop, Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States

¹ Miller, Dana, trans. The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian. Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1984, 29.