Written by: Catechist Branislav Ilić
Resurrection is the day, enlighten yourselves, people, Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha, from death to life Christ God has brought us, let us sing a song of victory. (Irmos of the first song of the Easter canon)
The senselessness of death until the Resurrection of Christ held the entire creation in chains, but the Lord Jesus Christ descends into the depths of Hades and death is destroyed, because it had no power to hold the Giver of Life. Hades is emptied, death is destroyed, and the Lord, as the Ruler of Life, leads the forefathers and the righteous into the light of new life. From that moment on, death is only a dream and no longer signifies the end, but the beginning of eternal life in Christ the Lord.
The Resurrection of Christ is a holiday of joy and light. After the Saviour’s suffering and death on the cross, by which humanity was freed from sins, the Son of God Jesus Christ conquered death in order to instill hope in eternal life. Thus, He showed us the path we should follow, the path that leads to salvation, to the future Kingdom of Heaven. For those who believe in eternal life, it is easier to accept death; faith gives them the strength to overcome the pain of losing their loved ones. On the other hand, Christ’s victory over death obliges them to constantly strive for spiritual perfection, which is the foundation of Christianity.
The Resurrection of the Lord Christ is the foundation on which His holy disciples build their faith and preaching. All the works of the Lord spring from the Resurrection. According to the words of Saint John Chrysostom, the Acts of the Apostles contain precisely the proof of the Resurrection: For him who believed in the Resurrection, it was easy to receive everything else. To testify and prove the Resurrection of Christ for the apostles meant to testify and prove that Jesus Christ is God and Lord, Redeemer and Saviour. By the words they speak and the miracles they perform in the name of the risen Christ, they constantly prove that the risen Lord speaks and does this through them with his life-giving and miraculous power. The apostles reduce their saving mission to the testimony of the resurrection of Christ, and therefore, to be an apostle means to bear witness to the resurrection of Christ. Without faith in the resurrection, faith in Christ as Saviour is impossible, there is no Christianity, it is impossible to be a Christian. Therefore, the apostle Paul decisively and clearly declares: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). “All is lost, all has perished if Christ has not been raised,” says Saint Chrysostom, explaining these apostolic words.
Christ, who with one word stilled the great storm on the raging sea, also stands at the door of our hearts and knocks in these days, ready to enter with his banner of victory into the hiding places of our inner man and calm the turbulent fear and every storm that has befallen us in this time of great trials. Saint Bishop Nicholas, speaking about the significance of the Resurrection of Christ for man and the world, says that God has wisely filled all the empty hands stretched out to heaven with His one gift (the Resurrection)! And truly, the Resurrection of Christ is the answer to all human sighs, to all outstretched hands to heaven, to all our suffering and afflictions, to all illnesses and deaths, to all the fears that surround us in this world.
The Resurrection of Christ is anastasis – a rising, a call for us to awaken from the sleep of sinful torpor. The Resurrection is a call to repentance and change of heart, a call to a new life in Christ. According to the words of the Venerable Justin of Ćelije, Christ, by His Resurrection, secured for us a double resurrection: the resurrection of the soul and the resurrection of the body. The resurrection of the soul refers to its liberation from sin, for sin is the death of the soul, the grave of the soul; and the resurrection of the body from the corruption that has taken possession of human nature through sin. For this reason, we should always have before us the undeniable fact that Christ was Risen so that we might be Risen while still alive, so that we might be participants in His victory, which became our victory in Him.
The Saviour did not keep His victory over death for Himself alone, but He made all the faithful of all times and generations worthy to be participants in His victory and sharers in the glory of His Resurrection. Our community is founded on this key event in the salvation of the human race. The community of the Church of God to which we belong was seen by the Holy Apostle Paul as a living and indivisible organism of which Christ is the head, and we Christians are his members and brothers among ourselves. The light of Christ’s Resurrection illuminated all human calvary and the path for all who suffer, endure and live for His Name. The rays of the Three-Sun Light show the way to every person, announcing the glory of the imperishable Kingdom of God. Christian victory, illuminated by the light that shone from the Tomb of the Lord, is proof of surpassing love whose meaning is in liberation, not in enslaving another. A Christian breathes the truth of faith, spreads hope in hopelessness, brings light into darkness. A person who is illuminated by the glory of Christ’s resurrection becomes a fearless witness of invincible love.The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is imprinted and manifested in the lives of the faithful. The path of resurrection is the path of joyful life, the path to a new paradise filled with divine glory, the path to a new life worthy of man. The Lord is still knocking on our sleeping hearts, awakening us from our sinful sleep and calling us to witness the joy of the Resurrection every day. We are called to offer prayers to the Risen Lord every day, both for our neighbors and for ourselves, so that the light of Christ’s resurrection may shine upon us, so that, united with Christ in the eternal Kingdom, we may cast off everything that drives us into the darkness of sin and distracts us from the Sun of righteousness. The power and joy of the Resurrection call us to unite in faith, goodness and love, so that we may joyfully exclaim: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and granting life to all in the tombs!