By Fr. George Dorbarakis
“We unceasingly venerate Your life-giving Cross, O Christ God, and we glorify Your three-day Resurrection; for by it You renewed the corrupted nature of mankind, O Almighty, and showed us the ascent to the heavens, as the only good and lover of mankind” (Resurrectional Sticheron, Tone 4).
The Holy Hymnographer calls us to glorify the Resurrection of the Lord. For it was this that gave new life to human nature, which had been wounded and corrupted by sin and the wicked devil. The choice of sin by the first-formed humans was, unfortunately, a choice of death. Thinking that they were gaining eternal life, according to the deceitful suggestion of the devil-serpent, they saw with terror that they had turned against themselves, were irreparably wounded, and entered into the dark tunnel of corruption and hell. Their life thereafter was indeed pain and groaning; they fell into a valley of mourning and tears. Their only hope was the consoling voice of the Creator that in the future a descendant of the woman would crush the devil and restore them to their former state — and even more. And this, of course, came to pass with the appearance of the daughter of Nazareth, Mariam, who gave birth, from the Holy Spirit and through her own cooperation, to the Son of God as man. Christ now, the second Adam, assumed human nature and united it to His divinity; thus, in Christ, man was redeemed — he saw again the face of God. Whoever is now united with Christ, within His living Body, the Church, lives a new life, beyond the compulsive inclination toward sin; he already lives eternal life, that is, the life of Christ as love toward God, toward neighbor, toward all creation. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” as the Apostle says. “Behold, I make all things new,” according to the assurance of the Lord Himself. The believer in Christ is already on the path toward Heaven — better yet, he already lives Heaven from now, because he walks upon Heaven itself, the Way who is Christ.
The glorification of the Resurrection of the Lord, which changed the conditions of the world, however, the Holy Hymnographer emphasizes, operates in parallel with His Cross. The Resurrection would not have come if the Cross had not preceded it. And the Cross would not exist if the Resurrection were not to come. Cross and Resurrection are always contemplated together and are offered as a single, unified reality. Neither only sorrow, nor only joy. Sorrow within joy and joy within sorrow. And this means that whoever wants to emphasize the Cross of the Lord excessively, diminishing the Resurrection, moves — as has been noted — on the level of politics; and whoever wants to emphasize the Resurrection at the expense of the Cross, in reality moves on the level of utopia. That is why our Orthodox Church, which proclaims the Resurrection so strongly, is the very one that equally emphasizes the Cross. After all, her entire history is a doxological history, a history of triumph, precisely because it is a history of martyrdom. Just as the glory of the Lord is the Cross — “now is the Son of Man glorified,” as the Evangelist John notes concerning His Crucifixion — so also the glory of our Orthodox Church is the martyrdom of her saints, martyrdom both of blood and of conscience, as the struggle to keep the holy commandments of the Lord. This is the path that the Lord Himself set forth for all His faithful throughout the ages and for His disciples: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” The following of Christ always leads to the Resurrection, but only after the taking up of the cross has first occurred, as the denial of oneself — that is, as the living of true love. And in this course there are no intervals. “Unceasingly venerating the Cross,” the Hymnographer notes — that is, always, without stopping. Therefore, without stopping is also the experience of the Resurrection. The cross of the believer, in other words, is understood as participation in the Cross of Christ; and this cross of ours we thus venerate — we accept in faith and love whatever our “passions/sufferings” may be — not because we are “masochists,” but because it brings the power of the Resurrection as joy into our life and makes us live even now the Kingdom of God.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.