“I will stand on my watch, mounted upon the rock,” says the wondrous prophet Habakkuk, and I also will stand with you this today, by the authority and vision given me by the Holy Spirit, and I will look steadily and observe what will be seen and what will be spoken to me. I have stood and looked steadily, and behold a man mounted upon the clouds, and he was very exalted; and his appearance was like the appearance of an angel, and his raiment was like the brightness of lightning; and he was lifting up his hand toward the east and shouting in a great voice. His voice was like the voice of a trumpet; and those surrounding him were as a multitude of the heavenly hosts. And he said, “Today salvation has come to the world, to things visible and to things invisible. Christ is risen from the dead; rise with Him. Christ was returned to Himself; so return. Christ is freed from the tomb; be freed from the bonds of sin. The gates of Hades are opened, and death is destroyed, and the old man is put aside, and the new is fulfilled. If anyone in Christ is a new creation, be made new.”
Our Lord’s Easter, our Lord’s Passover, our Lord’s Pascha, is to us the feast of feasts and festival of festivals, as far exalted above all – not only those that are merely human and crawl on the ground but also those that are of Christ Himself and are celebrated for Him – as the sun is above the stars. Beautiful indeed last night were our splendid array and procession of light, in which we were united both privately and publicly, lighting up the night with plentiful fires. The spreading of light from the Paschal Candle to everyone’s personal candle is a symbol of the great light, both the heavenly light that makes signals from above, shining on the whole world in its own beauty, and equally the light above the heavens, in the angels (the first nature illumined after the First and springing from it) – and equally in the Trinity, by which every light has been produced, divided off from the undivided light and honoured. It is the great light that seeks to enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may always know that Christ is Risen.
Yet our Liturgy today is in a sense more beautiful, inasmuch as yesterday’s light was a forerunner of the great light’s rising, and as it were a kind of pre-festal gladness. Today we celebrate the Resurrection itself, not as still hoped for but as having already occurred and gathering the whole world to itself. Let different persons therefore bring forth different fruits for this occasion either small or great, of things spiritual and dear to God, as far as each has the power.
And if all one has is their heart, give your heart. If you are a Simon of Cyrene, take up the Cross and follow. If you are crucified with Christ as a thief, come to know God as kind-hearted; if He was counted among the lawless because of you and your sin, become law-abiding because of Him. Worship the one hanged for you even if you are hanging; gain something even from the evil, purchase salvation by death. Come into paradise with Jesus so as to learn from what you have fallen. Contemplate the beauties there. . . . And if you are Joseph of Arimathea, ask for the body from the crucifier; let that which cleanses the world become yours. And if you are Nicodemus, the nocturnal worshiper of God, bury Him with scented ointments. And if you are a certain Mary or another Mary or Salome and Joanna, weep at daybreak. Be first to see the stone removed, and perhaps the angels and Jesus Himself. Saying something, hear His voice. If you hear, “Do not touch me,” stand far off, have reverence for the Word, but do not be sorrowful. For He knows those by whom He was seen first. Keep the feast of the resurrection; help Eve, the first who fell, and Mary Magdalene who first greeted Christ and made Him known to the disciples. Become Peter or John: hasten to the tomb, running against each other, running together, competing in the good competition. And if you are beaten with speed, win in zeal, not just peeping into the tomb but going inside. And if you are like Thomas are left behind when the disciples have assembled to whom Christ manifests Himself, when you see do not disbelieve; and if you disbelieve, believe those who tell you. If you cannot believe then either, believe the prints of the nails. And if He descends into Hades, go down with Him. Know also the incomprehensible mysteries of Christ harrowing Hell.
And if He ascends into heaven, go up with Him. Join with the angels escorting Him or those receiving Him. Give orders that the gates be lifted up or become higher, that they may receive Him, lifted high from His Passion. To those in doubt because of the body and the identifying marks of the Passion, with which He did not descend but did ascend, who because of this inquire, “Who is this King of glory?” answer that He is “the Lord strong and mighty,” both in everything that He has done and is doing in the present battle and triumph of His humanity.
Many indeed are the wonders of this most glorious Day: God crucified, the sun darkened and again rekindled, for created things also had to suffer with the Creator; the veil split; blood and water pouring from His side, the first as human, and second as above the human; the earth shaken, rocks broken in piece for the sake of the Rock; dead people raised to bring faith in the completion of the general resurrection; the signs at the tomb and after the tomb. Who can adequately sing their praise? Yet none is like the wonder of our salvation, mine and yours: a few drops of blood recreate the whole world and become for all human being like a curdling agent for milk, binding and drawing us together into one: all of us in Christ, our life in Christ, through Whom all things are made and remade, and Who lives and reigns with the Father Almighty in the unity of the Holy Ghost; ever one God, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
This sermon is adapted from portions of Oration 45, “On Holy Pascha,” by S. Gregory Nazianzus
The Wonders of This Most Glorious Day