‘To be restored to life we needed a God incarnate and put to death’ (St Gregory Nazianzen). In the face of all the accusations brought against God – or caricatures of God – by modern atheism, the only possible answer that Christians can give is the Innocent one, crucified by all the evil devised by human beings, who thus offers us resurrection. In the Risen Christ, in his glorified body, in the very opening of
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. John 11:25-26 (Gospel on the Saturday of Lazarus) A few years ago, an older parishioner passed away. She had lived a long life, and she was a person of great faith. The night before she passed away, I visited her in a
By Archpriest Alexander Schmemann The joy that permeates and enlightens the service of Lazarus Saturday stresses one major theme: the forthcoming victory of Christ over Hades. “Hades” is the Biblical term for Death and its universal power, for inescapable darkness that swallows all life and with its shadow poisons the whole world. But now — with Lazarus’ resurrection — “death begins to tremble.” A decisive duel between Life and Death begins giving us the key to
Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. For because He Himself has suffered and been tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted. Hebrews 2: 17-18 (Epistle on the Feast of the Annunciation-March 25) When mankind fell through the sin of Adam and
Paul uses the phrase en Christo, in Christ, around seventy times. He’s trying to describe this larger life in which we are participating. He speaks of belonging to Christ, of being possessed by Christ, captured by Christ, apprehended by Christ. He says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). Paul speaks of being clothed by Christ. He tells us to put on Christ. He says he suffers with Christ, he’s
It is true, as we have said, that the Church condemned Origenism, the certainty that all people, even the fallen angels, will ultimately be reconciled in a ‘universal restitution’, an apocatastasis of both nature and persons. Such a conviction actually conflicts with the stern warnings uttered by Christ in the first three Gospels, and belittles the irreducible mystery of our freedom; in asserting that evil will eventually die of exhaustion, because God alone is infinite,
But God is patient, with all the patience of love. The evil that he cannot prevent, because it is born of the freedom in which his omnipotence is at once fulfilled and limited, God will use to open us to his love. Thus death, ‘the wages of sin’, paradoxically becomes a remedy for sin. Precisely because it is against nature, it makes us aware, if we do not run away from it, of our true
‘Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death! And to those in the tombs he has given life’: this is the constant theme, in the Eastern Church, of the Easter celebration, the ‘feast of feasts’. ‘The day of Resurrection! The Passover, the Passover of the Lord! From death to life … Christ our God has brought us over… Now, all is filled with light, heaven and earth and the places under the
For every therapist distance from the problems of the patient is the prerequisite for being able to really help the other person. So Poimen first has to get some distance from his brother. Then he can freely decide whether he wants to help and intervene in the quarrel, or if he will release him and trust him to resolve the conflict responsibly on his own. Being dead vis-a -vis the other is even viewed by
Becoming like the dead doesn’t mean becoming insensible, but what happens in baptism: dying to the world, that is, human beings with their expectations and demands, their standards and judgments, have no more influence on us. We no longer identify with the world. We live beyond the threshold. We live in a spiritual reality, over which the world has no power. That makes us free. When we are constantly aiming to be praised, we will
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