VICTORY OVER DEATH
By Metropolitan
Philaret (Voznesensky) of New York (+1985).
words: I am the
resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live.
What righteous, what
boundless spiritual power and what infinite love fill these hallowed words! In
these words of the Lord men are promised freedom from fear of death and its
dominion, the triumph of life over death is promised. And behold! He Who gave these
promises has sealed their truth through His own Resurrection from the dead! If,
in promising men resurrection and life everlasting, He Himself had remained in
the grave, who would have believed His words? But He did arise, and thereby
showed that He indeed has within Himself resurrection and life, and
furthermore, as almighty Master and Lord, He has the power to bestow this
resurrection and life upon the human race which He fashioned.
The Resurrection of
Christ is the victory of life over death, the triumph of righteousness over
falsehood. And however weak, infirm and sinful a man may be, he cannot but
rejoice in this victory. Therein he sees the triumph of a higher justice, the
victory of the heavenly law of love over human vanity and error. Only the
person who has utterly given himself over to evil and falsehood, like the
devil—the father of lies, does not sense the joy of the radiant Resurrection of
Christ. And the soul, even if sinful and flawed, if it still has not
altogetherextinguished within itself good principles and impulses, joyfully
responds to the glorious news of the Resurrection, for it senses how the
highest expectations and Christian truths quicken within it...
How splendid, how
magnificent is the feast of the Resurrection of Christ. How joyously and
solemnly the Church celebrates it! Can any other celebration in the world
compare with the magnificence of the paschal service? His Beatitude,
Metropolitan Anthony, in agreement with the Holy Fathers and teachers of the
Church of old, points out that the special and particular joy of Pascha, which
the soul of the believer experiences on that radiant night, is, as it were, a
foretaste of that everlasting, unfading blessedness spoken of in the final
words of the Symbol of Faith: the life of the age to come... Would that all
children of the Orthodox Church might enter into that joy that everlasting
blessedness, of which the eternal and just Judge will say to His faithful:
Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world.
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