Embracing the Resurrection: Living a Life of Faith and Mercy

Sub Dn. Timothy Grace delivers an inspiring Pascha sermon on how to live a resurrectional life. He explores biblical patterns, the importance of church services, and the transformative power of God's love. Through engaging stories and reflections, Sub Dn. Timothy encourages believers to keep the flame of faith alive in their hearts.

Transcript

Christ is risen! I give that about a six out of 10. Christ is risen, truly! No, that's more like it. Get excited, people! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.

Every year I feel like I come to this point and I think the same thing: I wish we could just keep going with the services taking place every night. We've been on a roll with them, journeying with Christ from Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday, all throughout this week, Holy Week, and just when we get to the victory, to the resurrection, the services end, and I feel like I never want it to actually end. But the joyful reality and the good news is that the life in the resurrection shouldn't end.

So what I'd like to focus on tonight are three ways that we can live the resurrectional life, and I'd like to explore what that means. The first is by taking a look at a pattern that we see throughout the scriptures, and most notably the Old Testament. Throughout our reading of the Bible, we see a number of symbols that are present that all point to today, all point to the resurrection. Things like at the creation, we see God make days with the evening first, and then the evening gives way to the light. It's like death to life. At the flood with Noah, Noah and the ark pass through the waters of death to come to life. Jonah passes through a kind of death in the belly of the whale before having a sort of rebirth.

And we see some of these stories especially prominent in the services of Holy Week. We saw the Israelites crossing through the Red Sea to escape Pharaoh, and we see the recurring motif of the three holy children who pass through the fire to miraculously encounter a new life. Now, all of these are what we call types. They are foreshadowing the coming of Christ and what it means that he is risen from the dead. And this reality of death leading to life is just so obvious that it's replicated all throughout nature, and we sort of take it for granted, right? Things like seeds have to die for something to grow from them, or animals die and their bodies nourish new life in the earth.

So all these stories and these symbols present in nature point to this great day. The great event of the death and resurrection of Christ is embedded in our very cosmos. And in the gospel reading today, we see a deliberate replication of the story of Genesis, of the creation, and the gospel tells us that in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. So we are told that Christ is the fulfillment of all of these symbols. But here's the thing: they don't just point to the life of Christ and what he accomplished 2,000 years ago at Golgotha. They are ultimately fulfilled in you and me, in our hearts. They are fulfilled, and we take on this life of Christ into ourselves, which is what he desires.

And what is the place where all of these types reach their ultimate fulfillment? It is in the liturgies and the services of the church, in the sacramental services specifically. For example, baptism or what we're celebrating now, the Eucharist. The typology, all the symbols, all the foreshadowing of the scriptures are fulfilled here and now because it's in the liturgy where Christ actually meets us to give us his actual body and blood and make these realities present. It's in the liturgy, for example, of the baptism where we clothe ourselves with the divinized nature that Christ has allowed. It's like the point where we actually meet Christ.

In the epistle reading, moreover, from the book of Acts today, we see Christ promised the apostles that they will receive power from on high on the day of Pentecost, 50 days from today. And when this happens, they're not just idly sitting around; they're actually praying, they are worshiping. We believe that they were actually celebrating a liturgy, and the joy of resurrection becomes active in their hearts. Furthermore, every Sunday is actually a commemoration of the resurrection. So if you want to keep the hope and joy of Pascha alive, attend the services of the church to keep strong that flame of the spirit.

Another way that we can keep the resurrection alive in our hearts is to enter into the nonsensical logic of the love of God. And we just heard the sublime homily of St. John read just prior to the liturgy where he says things like this: he says, "Wherefore enter all of you into the joy of your Lord and receive your reward both the first and likewise the second. Rich and poor together hold high festival. You sober and you heedless honor the day. Rejoice today both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is full laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away."

So we see that today all are welcome, those who have fasted and those who haven't. And the references to the gospel parable where the employer pays all the workers the same no matter when they started working. It's also a reference to the prodigal son, right, who didn't get what he deserves when he came back to the father. The father welcomed him with a fatted calf. It also echoes Christ's words on the Sermon on the Mount where God sends the sun and the rain on the just and the unjust, treating all people the same. We even sang just a few minutes ago in the paschal verses, "Let us embrace each other, let us call brothers even those who hate us and forgive all by the resurrection." This doesn't follow the dictates of what is just or fair, but it is merciful and it is compassionate.

Now, this type of mad forgiveness and love we see in some of the characters this week of Holy Week, don't we? Like the wise thief who acknowledged Christ as he died and also the harlot who washed Jesus' feet with her hair. Both of them had led sinful lives; they did not deserve what they received from Christ, his mercy. But at the first sign of their repentance, Jesus forgave them. Now, in acting like this towards the harlot, and if we are to follow in Christ's footsteps, life is not going to be a bed of roses, right? It is at this point that Judas decided he would actually betray Christ, and it was such merciful actions that just enraged the religious leaders.

I read a fable once or a fairy tale about a family that gave birth to a child, and this child is like a monster. It has monstrous beastlike features, not even looking human. And so that the child does not feel any different, they actually take it to a place where all of the people are exactly like that, like animals basically. And one day a normal human being walks into their midst of where all these people are living, and they are all terrified, and they say, "Take him away." They cannot bear the sight of a normal human being. And when Christ came to our earth, people in their twisted sinfulness could not bear the sight of Christ, who is the true human being. He advocates for mercy and compassion, and to people who are filled with judgment and pride, this is ugly, and so they kill him without realizing that they are in fact the monsters.

So another way that we can live this resurrection life is to make our lives marked by this mercy, by this forgiveness that is happy, that rejoices to forgive other people. You know, it is said of St. Seraphim of Sarov that he used to greet all people who met him as "my joy." That's what he used to call them: sinners, righteous, Christian, not Christian, "my joy." That's what he used to call them. So in this day and age of polarization, you know, upcoming election coming up, let's not measure and calculate the worthiness of our neighbor or their political opinions, but scatter our love to all, and this is a way that we can also keep the flame of resurrection alive.

One more, a final way that we can make the resurrection of Christ present in our lives beyond today or tomorrow is to realize that there is only one thing that will cause us to lose the joy of Pascha, and that is our sins. We've been fasting, we've made all these attempts to be better, to do better, to repent, to turn back to Christ. But if we let gluttony back in, if we let our lusts back in, anger and pride welcome it back, care over materialistic things bring it back into our lives, worry and anxiety, wasting time on social media, bitterness and unforgiveness, we will drown and suffocate the spirit in our lives, and the flame of Pascha that we're all kind of caring for here in our hearts, it will be quenched.

You know, Orthodox all around the world are looking forward to the coming of the holy light, the holy fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. I mean, let's hope the Orthodox are actually allowed to enter, but that's another matter. Now, this flame is placed very carefully in special boxes and flown on special chartered flights to Orthodox cities around the world. It's a nice metaphor for how we should zealously and carefully guard the flame of purity that perhaps we have achieved in the days of Lent with care and attention. Don't let the wolves take what you have worked hard to achieve, to snatch any progress that you have made.

Let's consider the archetypal symbolism of the original Pascha, the Passover, right? The Israelites had to leave Egypt and make a clean break, cut themselves off from Egypt, which metaphorically represents a land of sin. And in the same way, we must continue to cut off our sins and to avoid the type of unhelpful thinking that often accompanies this time. You know, we think Lent, okay, fasting, prayer, almsgiving, focus on God, and then we think once Lent is done, right, no fasting, no prayer, no almsgiving, no focus on God, right, in our kind of simplistic thinking. Now, this is the wrong type of mindset, right? The only difference is that instead of fasting, we are feasting now, right? But this feasting should be in the context of a focus on God.

So let your enjoyment of all the good things that you have stayed away from in these eight weeks—I don't know, Korean barbecue, your happy meals, your flamin' hot Cheetos, I don't know—be an opportunity for gratitude, a sort of communion with God and others, not as it were an idol to replace God. Keep up your prayers. Look up a set of prayers that we pray during Bright Week called the Paschal Office, and this takes the place of our normal prayer rule throughout Bright Week, prayed morning and night, and then when Bright Week is done, we go back to our usual prayer rule. Keep up the reading of scripture. In the lectionary, we are reading, as we could see today, from the book of Acts and the gospel of John. That's something that you can do at home. And keep up your almsgiving. You know what you can do? You can invite people over and offer them hospitality by cooking the delicious foods in your tradition, and let your love of neighbor be evident in whatever you cook: the kulich, the surki, the mamul, I don't know, the haggis, you know, whatever it is that tickles your fancy—not singling out anyone, Douglas and Summer—and if you're looking for anyone on whom to bestow such hospitality, I'll give you my address a little bit later.

So to finish up then, in our world of genocides, in our world of hatred, in a world of vast inequalities, wars, uncertainty, anxiety over the future, doomscrolling, and hedonistic excess, there is just one thing that keeps us anchored, and that is that Christ is risen from the dead and has trampled down death by death. And from tomorrow, everything in this world will clamor to drown out this message. So let's keep the flame alive with attending the services of the church wherever possible, patterning our lives on the mercy of Christ, even if it means we cop a bit of flack, and also in keeping watch over ourselves and our passions to not lose Christ himself. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Christ is risen!

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