The entire message, indeed the very essence of Christianity can be summed up in the Church’s triumphal cry on the night of Holy Pascha: “Christ is truly risen!” It is precisely in the light of Pascha that Jesus of Nazareth reveals Himself and offers Himself to the world. It is specifically to Christ’s death and resurrection that Christians bear witness by their faith, just as they experience His presence in worship and sacraments, in sharing with one another and in rendering service to those in need.
All of Christian theology, like all of the two-thousand-year old treasure of Holy Tradition, is nothing other than a ceaseless meditation of this “One Thing Needful” (Luke 10:42). This is true in every aspect of the Church’s life, whether it be the theology of the Holy Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils, biblical exegesis, liturgical theology, Christian hymnography, or the spiritual experience of the saints, which is the experience of the People of God as a whole. Everywhere and at all times the Mystery of Christ is the most fundamental Christian reality, in which every symbol of faith is grounded and from which all the richness of Church tradition flows forth.
Everything within the Church refers to Christ and is given meaning by Him: theological language, icons, and various forms of worship all possess a Christological foundation. Because the Word of God assumed the fullness of human nature, to renew it within Himself, human language can, from this point forward, address itself personally and directly to the Object of its concern. That is, persons renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit can now “speak” to God the Father, as they can to Christ, in and by the Spirit of Truth and Life.
At the heart of the mystery of Christ and of His historical work of salvation there lies the Paschal mystery itself. This is the unique mystery of the sacrificial love of the Holy Trinity, which reveals itself in the passion and glorification of Jesus, in the humiliation and exaltation of the Son of God, in the “passage” or Paschal movement from death to Resurrection. The paradox, the unbearable contradiction, contained in these two aspects of Jesus’ life – humility and exaltation, death and life – find their resolution in the victorious cross, the life-giving tomb, the triumphant descent into hell, and in the wounds of the Resurrected One.
Over and above theological and liturgical language, Christian life itself is ineffably marked by a fundamental union with the crucified and resurrected Christ, from the sacred acts of baptismal initiation through the entire sacramental life, whose most intense expression is found in Eucharistic communion. The Eucharistic memorial incorporates us into the very mystery of the Lord’s Pascha, into His death and resurrection together with His ascension to the right hand of the Father. It nourishes us and preserves us in the deepest communion with Christ, by bestowing on us the permanent gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thereby the Son and the Spirit lead us in a movement of deification, into the intimacy of the Heavenly Banquet, which is already inaugurated for us through our participation in Christ’s life-giving Body and Blood.
In the end, the mystery of death – which is the sacrament of the ultimate Pascha – introduces us once and for all into an eternal communion with the Resurrected Lord, when our mortal bodies will clothe themselves with light and immortality. Expectation of this “passage,” this sacred Pascha, gives meaning to the whole of our life, as we follow the narrow pathway that leads toward the heavenly Kingdom, there where praise to the Risen One will resound forever.
~The Very Reverend Boris Bobrinsky, Mystery of the Risen Christ (Le Bulletin de la Crypte), professor and dean emeritus of St Sergius Theological Institute, Paris, France. (Translation by Fr John Breck)
