“You have never had it…tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear” (C. S. Lewis).
If there is one, distinct work in Eastertide, it is to meditate on joy. Lent was a desert. Christ went out into the desert, and we fasted in order to follow him. Now we have to leave the desert behind and join Him in the resurrection joy. Through these forty days of Pascha, we have work to do. We must learn to feast, not by gorging, not by overindulging, but by nurturing hearts of gratitude. Pascha is a season for cherishing God.
“Shine! Shine! O New Jerusalem! The glory of the Lord has shown upon you! Exult and be glad! It is the day of resurrection! Let us be illumined for the feast! Pascha! The Pascha of the Lord!”
There is no joy without Pascha, and there is no Pascha without joy. Christ has broken open the tomb. It was once a place of death. It is now a womb of light. The doors shut against the tomb were the doors shut against our souls. Now they are open as the gates of heaven are open. There is no sweeter joy than the joy of Pascha, and it pours out for us to take. If we let that joy in our heart, we will taste the resurrection in every drink and hear its music in every breeze. Pascha is a chalice of joy, and we must never stop drinking from it.
What did they see in the tomb? “An angel of the Lord…his countenance like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow” (Mat. 28:2-3). Artists travel the world to find the right kind of light and spend their lives in hope of capturing it. Imagine the light on that morning when the angel announced the news. Lightning is thrilling and sublime. Snow is pure and refreshing. This is the light of the resurrection. His words are no less profound: “Do not be afraid” (Mat. 28:5). There is no room for fear in the resurrection light. It is thick with Joy.
The angel’s countenance was like lightning, but what did that compare to the voice of Christ, whose first word was: “Rejoice!” It is not a trite greeting. He is announcing something new. In the beginning, God spoke and created the heavens and the earth. Today, God speaks, “Rejoice!” describing the quality of a new heaven and earth. When the prophet writes, “The Lord hath reigned, he is clothed in majesty” (Ps. 93:1), he is speaking of Pascha. Today, the world is lit in beauty; it is beauty permeated with the Paschal Light. Rejoice! It is Pascha! We may enter that New Jerusalem today and no longer turn back.
He spoke, “Rejoice!” and they knelt at his feet and worshiped. Wonder is not a strong enough word for what they felt. Adoration does not do it justice. “Into the region of awe, in deepest solitude there is a road right out of the self, a commerce with…the naked Other, imageless…unknown, undefined, desired” (C. S. Lewis). The mystics all grasp at words to explain their encounter with God. Everything falls short, yet the encounter is always at hand. You do not need to climb a mountain or retreat to a cave to find it. When the resurrected Christ first spoke, “Rejoice,” he offered us a new life. We can enter that joy now and any moment when we bring our heart to Pascha.
Christ’s first word, “Rejoice,” gives us a direction. We cannot call ourselves Christian if we are bitter and glum. There is no room for grumbling in paradise. If we spend our lives now with our eyes cast at our feet, then we will remain with our eyes at our feet for eternity. A grumbler will grumble even in heaven, so that heaven becomes hell. No, Christ invites us to a different life, and that is the life of Pascha.
The Pascha light has been lit and burns in our hearts. We must feed that flame day and night. This is our work in Pascha. “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure…think about such things” (Phil. 4:8). For forty days we fasted. Now, for forty days, we feast. Our labor through Lent was to detach from our pleasures, from food, drink, and celebration. Now, the Church tells us to return to our pleasures, but with a new mindset. With the same vigor that we fasted, we must now cherish the good in creation. What is the universe, but one banquet table laid out for our joy. Feast and give praise.
Jesus met the apostles saying, “‘Rejoice!’ So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped” (Mat. 28:9). Worship is the only attitude fit for the soul. Worship Christ when you savor your coffee and accomplish your daily routines. Worship Christ when you step outside and feel the sunlight or the shade of the clouds. Worship Christ when you meet your loved ones, coworkers, or enemies. It is the Day of Resurrection and there is no room for bitterness. It is Pascha, and there is not enough time to waste in hurt and sadness. Our God who says, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Ps. 81:10), offers us the chalice of Pascha joy. Open your hearts and He will pour.
A philosopher once insisted, “Fairy tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water” (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy). This is the Pascha theme. We should come through this season as changed men and women. We must spend our lives learning to see in the simple apple and common stream the light of Pascha. Everything is beautiful in Christ. Everything is transformed in the Paschal light. Christ is risen from the dead and we are risen with him.
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels” (Is. 61:10).
Are you tempted to be dour and depressed? Do you know what Pascha means? The tomb is empty and there is no longer death. St. Paul told us to be Pascha Christians when he wrote to the Corinthians: “The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly” (1 Cor. 15: 27-28). When we were dead, in the tomb, choked by sin and fear, we were made of dust. Christ saved us from that dour life when he resurrected from the dead. We need no longer turn back to the dust. Let the dust be dust. Let yesterday keep its hurts. Let yesterday keep its bitterness. Today is the day of Resurrection.
In 1940, the priest, Fr. Gregory Petrov died in a Soviet prison camp. Among his torn possessions was found a poem, the Akathist of Thanksgiving. Behind those frozen walls, the saint wrote these piercing words:
Thou hast brought me into life as into an enchanted paradise. We have seen the sky like a chalice of deepest blue, where in the azure heights the birds are singing. We have listened to the soothing murmur of the forest and the melodious music of the streams. We have tasted fruit of fine flavor and the sweet-scented honey. We can live very well on Thine earth. It is a pleasure to be Thy guest…
Glory to Thee for the warmth and tenderness of the world of nature.
Glory to Thee for the numberless creatures around us.
Glory to Thee for the depths of Thy wisdom, the whole world a living sign of it.
Glory to Thee; on my knees, I kiss the traces of Thine unseen hand.
Glory to Thee, enlightening us with the clearness of eternal life.
Glory to Thee for the hope of the unutterable, imperishable beauty of immortality.
Glory to Thee, O God, from age to age.
How could a man write these words, tortured in a concentration camp? How else, but through the indelible joy of Pascha? We too must drink from that chalice. We must turn to the joy of Christ and let it take us.
Christ is Risen from the dead!
Christ is Risen! The light of Pascha shines in everything!
Christ is Risen! The hope he offers burns in our hearts!
Christ is Risen! There is no more death, all if beautiful!
All life is a preparation
for death. All of life is a journey to the tomb. All these palms, readings, and
rituals are meaninglessness if they do not wake us up to that truth. Palm
Sunday is a day for celebrating and for sobering. The crowd laid their cloaks
and branches on the road, shouting, “Hosanna!” We join them when we take up our
palms and process through the church. Yet, it remains to be seen if we will
follow him to the end. He leads us first to Jerusalem. He will then lead us to
the grave.
St. Efrem was an ascetic and a poet who lived in the deserts of Syria. Some 1,600 years ago, he fled into the wilderness and joined a monastery, where he spent his life laboring to purify his soul and see God. In one of his poems, St. Efrem marvels at the hiddenness of God:
“Here’s a little boy who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are these for so many?”
How much time do we spend stuck in the past? How much of our life is bogged down by yesterday? John Lennon said it best, “Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play. Now I need a place to hide away. Oh, I believe in yesterday.” Are we, indeed, “believers” in yesterday, worshippers of yesterday, so haunted by the past that we can hardly live in the present? “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts… encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘today” (Hb. 3:8,13). Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6). What can you and I possibly give to God? We can give him today.
“The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself” (Pr. 11:25).
As a young girl, St. Brigid was renown for generosity. Milk, butter, and meat flowed out of her home to every passing beggar. She gave with such enthusiasm, that it constantly irritated her father. Eventually, he had enough. It was time for her to marry. So he brought her to meet the King of Leinster. While the men negotiated, Brigid waited in the chariot, when along came a leper begging for alms. She could not help but give, but had no money or food on her. So, she took her father’s sword and scabbard, promising the leper that it would pay for many weeks of food. When the men returned, her father was furious. The king declared that such a woman would ruin his household. She got her wish, and was sent off to a monastery.
A stunning field of gravity holds the planets around the sun. Its magnetism is so colossal and irresistible that everything within eleven million miles is pulled into orbit. Jupiter, Venus, Earth, and even the smallest debris are brought into this cosmic dance with the sun in the center.
“Jesus was led up
by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Mat. 4:1).
Why into the
wilderness?
In central Greece
there is a place called Meteora, known for boulders that jut up into the air
like natural columns or skyscrapers. At the peak of these columns, built into
stone, are ancient Orthodox monasteries. One morning, after camping in the
Meteora valley, I started my ascent up towards the monasteries. The sun was
just beginning to rise when I heard a sound I will never forget. Nuns were
chanting, high overhead a hundred or two feet up. It was haunting, like the
voice of angels making their morning praise.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
The man was blind. A thick blackness engulfed everything. His life was an endless reach, feeling, grasping for some comprehension of a world otherwise dark and empty. Then he heard it, a whisper maybe, a murmur in the crowd that Jesus was coming. If anyone could save him it was this man. So he called out. Immediately, the crowd pushed around him.
“A new light…cocks were crowing, there was music of hounds, and horns; above all this ten thousand tongues of men and woodland angels and the wood itself sang. ‘It comes, it comes!’ they sang. ‘Sleepers awake! It comes, it comes, it comes.’ One dreadful glance over my shoulder I essayed – not long enough to see (or did I see?) the rim of the sunrise that shoots Time dead with golden arrows and puts to flight all phantasmal shapes. Screaming, I buried my face in the fold of my Teacher’s robe. ‘The morning! The morning!’ I cried, ‘I am caught by the morning and I am a ghost’.”
