By Archimandrite Kyrillos Kostopoulos,
Preacher of the Sacred Metropolis of Patras
Preacher of the Sacred Metropolis of Patras
It is historically confirmed that the Resurrection of the God-man Lord occurred during the spring season. This is not a random event and without a deeper semiotic meaning. Summer is the season that has good weather from all sides. In autumn, everything begins to decline and nature is heading towards a necrosis. In winter, everything hibernates. Spring, however, is the season in which the previously dead come back to life. Everything rejoices, everything blooms, everything is fragrant. For this reason, the God-man Lord chose this season to defeat death, opening the gates of eternal life.
With the Resurrection of Christ, the gates of Hades are opened and the first man and all “who received Him [the Risen Lord], to them He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). The hearts and minds of all the spiritual children of our Holy Church are also opened and filled with the joy and love of the Resurrection, expressing it to God our Creator and to our neighbor. In this way, the eyes are also opened, so that man may see the uncreated Light of the Resurrection, which will illuminate his innermost “being,” the one covered by the darkness of passions and sins.
The Resurrection, therefore, of the God-man Lord signals and enables man to experience two redemptive events.
The first is the passage of man from the realm of sin to the realm of repentance, the passage from corruption and death to the incorruption of eternal life and Resurrection. For this reason it is called “Pascha” which means “passage” in the Hebrew language. Man, after his fall from Paradise, entered corruption and death. He was separated from communion with God and His Creator, from Whom he derived life, freedom, joy, harmonious coexistence with nature and all which is good, and became a biological unit struggling for survival, enslaved to passions and the terrible dominion of death.
The victory that the Incarnate Word of God the Father brought about over death with His Resurrection opened the way for man to return to his pre-fallen state.
The faithful Christian who lives and struggles ontologically within the Crucified and Resurrected space of the Orthodox Church, the mystical Body of Christ, enters from this life into the space of spiritual incorruption and freedom. In this state, he no longer fears anything. He does not even fear this death, since it has become the entrance to blessed and eternal life. This truth is proven and interpreted by the fact of the army of Martyrs, who joyfully marched towards death, in order to unite with Self-Existent One, the God-man Lord.
The second event that the Resurrection of our Lord offers us as a possibility of experience is the opening of our heart and its expansion, so that it may accept the whole world. The Crucifixion and Resurrection of our God-man Lord are not only personal events of Jesus Christ, but are global, ecumenical, and catholic events. When Crucified Love, the incarnate Word of God the Father, ascended to the Cross, He stretched out His hands to show that He sacrifices Himself for all humanity and accepts the entire repentant world. Thus, His mystical Body, our Holy Orthodox Church, becomes ecumenical, catholic.
In order for a person to become a faithful and Crucifxional-Resurrectional member of the Church, he needs to step out of his egocentric space and accept the entire world, to become an ecumenical Orthodox Christian. Our society and humanity in general suffer from the lack of such people today. No matter how many United Nations councils are formed, no matter how many social or solidarity associations or social action groups are founded, a true community of people will not be created. This is because man is a divided individual, as he has distanced himself from his Creator God and the community of love that is our Holy Orthodox Church.
Only within the Church does man become unified as a personality and regain his lost ontological freedom and experience and spread true love everywhere around him. No philosophical, political or simply religious system can help man. Only his encounter with the eternal Person of the Resurrected God-man Lord, which takes place in the Crucifxional-Resurrectional space of the Orthodox Church, will open his mind to understand who He is, who created him and why, and where he is going. Only in this relationship is he filled with truth, freedom, justice and love and becomes a resurrected personality who has transcended corruption and death.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
