This Is the Day of Resurrection

By Matushka Donna Farley

A writer of my acquaintance once called me up to say he was working on a novel about religion in the future, and for various reasons needed some information about Orthodoxy. Since his own Christian background was ancient history to him, he had a hard time knowing even where to begin asking questions. After a few stabs in the dark (Is there an intercessory tradition of saints? Is it true you can look at icons as "windows to heaven"?) he asked me to talk about something that was particularly meaningful to me in my Orthodox life.

I took a deep breath and was off and running before I knew it. "The liturgical year," I said. The cycle of feasts and fasts constantly reinforces and makes real the dogmas of the Church. The twelve major feasts help us relive our Lord's life. The waxing and waning seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Pascha, Pentecost, all train us in the life rhythms of the salvation history that transcends our mortal time and space.

Even each day of the week has its special dedication, I enthused to my colleague on the other end of the phone. Sunday, for example, celebrates the Resurrection, as can be seen from the Scripture readings and hymns in Matins. "We Orthodox never lose sight of the Resurrection," I said.

"And what does the Resurrection mean to you, then?" my friend asked.

That one was hard to answer, because the answer is so large. Orthodox Christianity is an historical religion; we do not live our lives based on myths, however powerful and beautiful. Or perhaps I should say we follow the True Myth, the Story that is bigger than our here and now, and yet has in fact invaded the here and now of human history. We believe that the man called Jesus was none other than God Incarnate, second Person of the Holy Trinity; and we believe He rose from the dead, physically and spiritually--He was not merely resuscitated, like a cardiac patient, nor did His soul or spirit appear like some sort of ghost, but His whole Person entered the reality of death, conquered it, and rose again in transfigured, divine power.

So what does that mean for us? It means we too are promised a resurrection. It means there is no need to fear death. Yet this is something it generally takes a lifetime to get our minds around. The martyrs, and those who suffer terminal illness at a young age, often seem to learn it quickly. It is precisely from their example of joy in the face of the last enemy that we too begin to learn what the Resurrection means.

We also learn from the faithful Fathers who gave us the liturgical celebrations. Have you noticed how the festal hymns often refer to historical events as present action? Even the Paschal greeting is "Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!" and not "Christ rose from the dead once upon a time, or about two thousand years ago." Every Sunday at Matins we sing, "Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the Holy Lord Jesus . . ." as if we ourselves had been present in the garden that first Easter, and as if indeed that day were today!

Is this all just mental gymnastics, or a rather elaborate role-playing game, with sessions held every Sunday and feast-day? A non-believer might well think so, and even a Christian who does not have the Orthodox understanding of what the world is like might agree.

But to the Orthodox, life is sacramental. It is never only what it appears on the surface to be, but much more. The liturgical worship of the Church, and especially the Eucharist, is sacrament par excellence; but that sacramental view also runs through the most everyday and even seemingly trivial details of our lives.

At the Paschal Liturgy we sing, "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ! Alleluia!" Baptism, traditionally performed at Pascha, is the entry into a new life, a new life won for us by the Resurrection. The image of putting on Christ as a garment tells us He is both the protection and the glory of the baptized. To walk through life with Christ as a garment is to know that nothing is ordinary, nothing inconsequential, and nothing too fearful or burdensome to face.

I only made a few of these remarks, brief and tentative, to my fellow writer, and afterward thought deeper and in more detail. But in the sea of the true depth and richness of Pascha these thoughts are mere grains of sand; the many wonderful writings of the Church Fathers, little more.

We read through the lectionary Sunday by Sunday, appropriating what little our human minds can begin to comprehend about the Resurrection, and celebrate the Paschal Feast with a joy that is but a faint echo of what we will know in the age to come. What does it mean? Everything, and the only thing, worth understanding; and like those disciples who accompanied Him on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), we have a sense of being let in on a secret so great we scarcely dare to speak of it, our hearts burning with anticipation.