When, after a long and cold winter, early spring begins to dawn, the whole of nature and God’s creation rejoices in the sun—its warm rays and the life-giving energy that shines upon and warms all things and all people without distinction. At that time, all creation glorifies the Lord, the Giver of the sun and of spring.
In the same way, after the icy and dreadful winter of sin—especially following the murder of the God-man Jesus Christ on Great Friday at Golgotha—upon seeing the Risen Christ today, we exclaim with joy and sing together with the Church poet:
“Today is spring for our souls! Christ, the Sun of Life from the East, has risen from the tomb and shines forth! He has dispelled the dark storm of our sins! Let us magnify Him in song, for He is glorified!”
Among the many expressions used by Church hymnographers to glorify the Risen Christ, we encounter the term Spring. He is rightly called so, for the Lord Jesus Christ is the Spring of our new life. This is not a mere poetic metaphor. Here, “spring” does not refer to the season in a temporal sense, but to the deep theological meaning of spring as a beginning—the renewal of life in nature and in all that dwells therein.
Until the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—indeed, until His descent into Hades—we were imprisoned by sin and death, bound in the depths of hell. Death reigned over us. But descending into the tomb, He destroyed Hades, shattered the chains of sin and death, and liberated us. Explaining the God-manly mystery of the Saviour’s descent into the tomb, His dwelling therein, and His Resurrection, the Holy Apostle Paul triumphantly asks:
“O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?”
In the mystery of the Resurrection—indeed, in the mystery of the Risen Lord—is contained our own victory over sin, death, and the devil. It was necessary, therefore, for Christ to become Emmanuel, meaning “God with us”—to take upon Himself the fullness of our human nature and to unite it, indivisibly and unconfusedly, with the divine nature in His one and unique divine-human Person. Thus, as the God-man, He conquered Adam’s disobedience to God the Father and crushed the consequences of the ancestral sin.
It was not as God alone or as man alone, but as the God-man that Christ triumphed over Satan, sin, and death. He foreshadowed this victory even at the time of His temptation, after His baptism in the Jordan, when He said:
“Begone, Satan! For it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve” (Matt. 4:10).
On the day of the Resurrection, we are called to become true and essential partakers of new and eternal Life—of the new and eternal Spring—of the Lord Christ. As Saint John Chrysostom proclaims:
“Let no one today weep over sins and transgressions, for forgiveness has dawned from the tomb.”
Let no one fear death any longer, for the Saviour has delivered us from its dominion. By His death upon the Cross, He has extinguished death and freed those enslaved by it.
Today, we celebrate the Risen Christ. We celebrate the death of death. We celebrate the destruction of Hades. We celebrate the beginning of new life. We celebrate the Cause of all these things—the Only Blessed and Glorified unto the ages.
The fullness of God’s presence in His creation is revealed precisely in the mystery of Christ’s Resurrection, on this most holy day, as we chant:
“In the tomb with the body, in Hades with the soul as God, in Paradise with the thief, and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit—Thou wast, O Christ, filling all things, O Uncontainable One.”
It is evident that the Resurrection of Christ is revealed not only as a triumph over death and transience, but as the unveiling of the fullness of the divine providence for the world and for humanity. The deepest longing of the human heart is a yearning—a cry—for freedom and for immortal life. True human freedom is only that freedom which delivers us from the tyranny of transience and death; every other form of “freedom” is either a desire for it or a mere illusion.
The power of Christ’s Resurrection is the leaven of the one true freedom—a pledge of immortality and eternal life. Through that power and divine light, God and man are united; heaven and earth are illumined; angels and humankind, time and eternity, are brought together. By the light of the Risen Christ and the Love of God, all creation—our forebears and our descendants, every generation—is gathered into one in Christ the Risen, united in the Church, His divine-human Body.
By our love for one another, all shall know that we are His disciples (cf. John 13:35). The Feast of feasts calls us to suffer with those who suffer, to weep with those who weep, and to comfort them with the hope that is in the Lord. We are called not to serve God in a way that becomes a new form of Pharisaic external piety. Sacrifice for others and love are our imperative. Let us give to those who have nothing. Let us praise God with the humility of the publican, who was justified before the Lord.
For us Christians, all of life is a liturgical Paschal joy. Whoever lives in this joy will never see a stranger in another human being; in every person, they will recognise the image of our Lord, who desires that all should be saved.
Proclaiming the Good News—that Christ is truly risen—is our daily obligation, for the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, calls us not to shut ourselves inward but to lead others into that same joy, pointing them to the one path of salvation.
The Risen Christ calls us to be the light of the world, not a stumbling block. When we are ready to confess our sins and to correct ourselves in humility, we do not debase ourselves but show that the Spirit of God truly dwells in us.
We are called, wherever we may be and whatever we may be doing, to be peacemakers, thus bearing witness to the God who is our Peace and who bestows peace. Though we are all different, we must never forget that we are all created in the image of God and are all called to be one in Christ.
Therefore, to those who stumble, let us extend a hand, not push them deeper into ruin. Let us visit and care for the sick, and guide the lost back to the path of truth. In so doing, the Lord will be made manifest in our deeds—He who told us to be the light of the world.
And above all, we are called to make our life one continual act of thanksgiving to God—for all things and in all things! For what greater offering could we bring to the Risen Christ, who has led us from darkness into the light of knowledge, and from death into eternal life?
Therefore, together with the angels and all the saints in heaven, and united with our brothers and sisters on earth, let us sing the hymn of victory and, in the joy of the Feast, greet one another with the triumphant exclamation:
CHRIST IS RISEN!
WRITTEN BY: Catechist Branislav Ilić, Editor of the “Kinonia” Portal
