By Father Andrew Lemeshonok
The Paschal
night allows us to see the Resurrection of Christ. Not with our eyes, of
course, but with our hearts. You remember what the Lord told Apostle Thomas:
“Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29). Metropolitan
Philaret Drozdov thinks that those words were addressed not to the faithful
people who did not see Christ but still believe, but to Saint John the Theologian,
who was heading to Christ’s tomb together with Apostle Peter. He came there
first and believed as soon as he approached the tomb without even entering. Peter came second, entered the tomb, saw that it was empty,
and then came out being filled with confusion. The thing is, John the Theologian was
the first one who believed although he did not see. Thus, to believe we have to
do so like Saint John the Theologian did: to see the empty tomb and still believe.
On the Paschal
night, we all have an opportunity to live through the sacrament of Christ’s
Resurrection. However, to live the night through, you have to go through Great Friday; you have to stand near the cross for long enough, to cry for long
enough, to listen to the readings of the Holy Gospel. Then, on Great Saturday, you
have to take part in the burial of Christ and so on. You have go the entire
way, to live through the entire Great and Holy Week. In this case, on Pascha, “flesh and
fur will hush to hear Spring, in the midnight hour, Predict that soon the skies
will clear, And over death, we’ll persevere With Resurrection’s power”. The
Resurrection is given to us as an experience for our hearts, as overcoming death,
as a doubtless fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is
what Pascha provides us with.
Except from
this, we have an opportunity to experience this every Sunday at the Divine
Service. How many times a year does the Church celebrate the Resurrection of
Christ? Fifty two times. As many times as there are Sundays in the year. This
is why we should approach this question in the following way: on Sunday, I
will not sleep in, I will get up and go to the church. Why? Because it is
Pascha. And why is it Pascha? Because the Paschal excerpts from the Gospel are read
at the morning service, because we sing: “Having beheld the Resurrection of
Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus”. I saw that with my heart, and I
should not forget about that. I only live with what I have seen.
We take the
Body and Blood of Christ. When the Royal Doors open and a priest or a bishop
come out with the Chalice – what is this then? It is the Resurrection of
Christ. Christ comes out of His tomb. The Doors and the veil open , and
Christ in the Chalice, taken by a priest, comes out of His tomb, just like the bridegroom comes out of the palace. He comes out of the tomb to let the faithful people
partake of the Holy Communion: “With the fear of God,
faith, and love, draw near.” And we come closer and just like the Myrrthbearers did, we fall at His feet.
The liturgy is
a Sacrament of Communion with the Resurrected Christ. This is why the Sunday
service and everything connected with the Sunday prayer is a straight way to the
union with the Church. It allows us to make everything that there is in the Church
to be ours, to understand and feel everything and to live with it. To do this
we need to love Sunday and live with its blessings.
April 23, 2017
St. Elisabeth Convent
CONVERSATION