Christ is Risen!

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

We are keeping today the Resurrection of Christ which is the victory of God over death but also over evil. But this victory is not won by God alone. When the Son of God became Man it is in His humanity by His Divine power that He overcame evil. And so let us rejoice not only in the love of God, in the mercy of God, in the greatness of God, in His generosity, but let us rejoice also in the fact that we, human beings are capable of uniting with God in such a way, in such a manner that in and through us evil may be destroyed. Not only our private sin, not only our weakness, but “the evil one”, the one that is a tempter, the one that tried in the wilderness to overcome the Divine through the human. Let us be grateful to God for His victory but let us rejoice in the depth and wastness and the infinite possibilities of our humanity.

But if this be true, let us remember that the victory won by Christ in our humanity is also a call for us because Christ is risen, but the risen Christ still wears on His body the marks of His Passion. His hands are still wounded with nails, His feet are still pierced with them, His side is still marked by the spear, His forehead is still wounded by the crown of thorns and they will never be healed until there is one sinner on earth, and this sinner may be me, it may be each of us. Let us then take the victory of God and the price to Him in earnest. Let us realise what it means that I am in a position to let Christ crucified, and worst than that – I may be among those who did crucify and are crucifying Him if I join the crowd of those who willfully sin against God. And I may be making heavier the cross upon which He is nailed because in baptism, through baptism we have become all of us living members of the body of Christ. And when we submit this body, this soul, this mind, this heart, this will to the power of Satan it is Christ Whom we make again a suffer on earth.

But there is more to it. Our vocation is to be on earth, because we are Christ’s own, what He has been in the days of His incarnation. We are sent into the world to win by His power, with Him the victory which He had already won, but which must be won day in day out over ourselves and over all evil that possesses those people whom He has come to save. We are sent like sheep among wolves, we are sent to live and to die if necessary, for other to live and to enter life eternal. Let us therefore take this Feast of the Resurrection as a sign of the victory that is really won, and as a call to us to enter into His Passion and together with Him to win ourselves and every person around us. Amen.