Our Life as a Process of
Continuous Renewal. On Great and Holy Saturday, the Orthodox Church chants
with a loud voice:
This is the day
of rest, whereon the Only-Begotten Son of God rested from all of His works.
Suffering death in accordance with the economy of salvation, He kept the
Sabbath in the flesh; and, returning again through the Resurrection to what He
was, He hath granted us life eternal, for He alone is good and loveth mankind.
[1]
Now, what are “all of the works”
from which our Lord rested in the body? They are all of His works that pertain
to our salvation: the Son of God, moved by exceeding love for sinful mankind,
became incarnate. Throughout His life, He acted with such great condescension
and humility that it seemed, in a certain way, that “He came out of Himself,
though remaining inseparable from Himself,” “[came] forth from the dignity of
His natural Divinity,” “and thus suffered, died, and was buried.” But when “He
arose, He returned again to Himself and was restored to the former dignity of
His Own Divinity.” [2]
After the Resurrection, the Body
of our Lord became “suitable” for the manifestation, through It and in It, of
the glory of His Divinity. It was, of course, Divinized from His very
Conception through the hypostatic union of His two natures; but, for the sake
of the economy of salvation, it was passible, corruptible, and without glory.
That is to say, after the
Resurrection of our Savior, His formerly passible Body became impassible; the
corruptible became incorruptible; the inglorious was made radiant, beautiful,
and glorious with the same glory of Divinity with which it was hypostatically
united from the beginning, without confusion or division. And it was when our
Lord’s humanity became impassible, incorruptible, glorious, radiant, and
beautiful, that our nature was glorified and “He granted us life eternal.” [1]
A new Creation was
therefore accomplished through the life- bearing Resurrection of Christ, since
what had previously been corrupted and degraded by the Fall was created anew.
The Incarnation of the Logos inaugurated a new Creation; the
Resurrection brought it to completion amid the uncreated Light of the Godhead.
It is noteworthy that this is
precisely the reason why, on the Great Sunday of Pascha, at the Divine Liturgy
of the Resurrection, we begin to read the Gospel according to St. John, in
which the Divinity of God the Logos is proclaimed most brilliantly.
The intensely theological preface
to this sacred Gospel introduces us immediately into the realm of Creation,
with the well-known phrase: “In the beginning was... [the Logos]” [3]
He Who brought about the first
Creation was the Logos·, and He Who renewed it, thereby inaugurating a new
Creation, is the Incarnate Logos.
Mankind now participates in the
new creation in Christ, in that through the Church it participates in the
resurrected and glorious Body of Christ.
It is blessed repentance, centered
on the Divine Eucharist, that renews us. And since repentance must
be continuous, our whole life is a process of continuous renewal.
‘Have you sinned
today?’ asks St. John Chrysostomos; ‘Have you made your soul decrepit? Do not
despair, and do not be disheartened, but renew it by repentance, tears, and
confession, and by doing good deeds. And never cease from doing this.’ [4]
Through repentance, we are
freed from the decrepitude of sin and the passions and we are perfected and
Deified through Divine Communion.
The Saints portray our Lord as
speaking to us and as saying, with a realism that is truly astonishing:
For your sake I
left My Father and came to you.... I united and joined you to Myself. ‘Eat Me,
drink Me....’ I am not simply mingled with you, but I am entwined with you,
masticated, and refined into smal l particles, so that the blending,
commixture, and union may be more complete.... I am interwoven with you.... It
is My will that we both be one. [5]
Let us live in unceasing
repentance, so that we might participate continuously in the new Creation and
that our life might thus be an unending Resurrection!
Notes
1. Orthros of Great Saturday, Doxastikon at the
Praises.
2. St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, Συμβουλευτικόν Εγχειρίδιου
[Handbook of Spiritual Counsel] (Volos: 1969), pp. 173-175.
3. St. John 1:1.
4. St. John Chrysostomos, “Homily 20 on Romans,” §2, Patrologia
Graeca, Vol. LX, col. 598.
5. Idem, “Homily 15 on I St. Timothy,” §4, Patrologia
Graeca, Vol. LXII, col. 586.
Greek original: Άγιος Κυπριανός, No. 307 (March-April
2002), pp. 122-123.
English source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XX (2003), No. 1,
pp. 33-34.
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