On this Great and Holy Saturday, we are—each of us—in the same situation as those women who came to the tomb of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, looking at His grave. To their surprise, the tomb was empty; and according to the reading for today from the final chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, an angel said to those women; and I quote: “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where he was lying. Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”

Now, the angel is addressing those same words to us: “Do not be afraid,” because it is a very natural reaction that we are afraid. It is difficult to understand precisely how the crucified Jesus Christ relates to our lives now. Happily, the Bible and the Church Fathers have provided a clear answer about how the death of Jesus Christ can change how we choose to live our lives now. St. John Chrysostom explained, and I quote: “What the cross and burial were to Christ, baptism is to us, though not in all respects. For Christ died and was buried in the flesh, whereas we have died and been buried to sin.” St. Augustine had the same thought in even fewer words: “To be baptised into the death of Christ,” wrote St. Augustine, “is nothing else but to die to sin, just as [Christ] died in the flesh.” That is very important to understand: “To be baptised into the death of Christ, is nothing else but to die to sin.” Jesus Christ did not die as a substitute or an offering because of our earlier sins. Jesus Christ died to show us how to become one with God—how to become one with His Father, who is our Father.

In the third century, Origen explained what happens to us when we die to sin and become one with God, the Father. Origen wrote in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, and I quote: “If we have been buried together with Christ . . . because we have died to sin, it follows that just as Christ was raised from the dead we shall rise together with Him. Just as He ascended into heaven we shall also ascend with Him. . . . Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father,” wrote Origen, “and if we have died to sin and are buried together with Christ, and all who see our good works glorify our Father who is heaven, we shall rightly be said to have risen together with Christ by the glory of the Father so that we may walk in newness of life.”

Now, St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine and Origen—who is not a saint of the Church, but is a remarkable theologian—are all staying very close to the Epistle from Romans, Chapter 6, which reads: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” That’s an attractive idea isn’t it, “to walk [with Christ] in newness of life”—to be strengthened and renewed in our Christian faith this Pascha? But how do we do it? Origen explains very clearly how to “walk [with Christ] in newness of life.” Origen wrote, that when the author of the book of Romans urged, and I quote:  “‘that we too might walk in newness of life,’ it seems that he was revealing the spiritual principle, that as long as we are making progress we may be said to be walking. For it must not be thought,” wrote Origen, “that it is being said that they walk aimlessly. Rather, those who are making progress will eventually come to the place where they ought to be.” That’s us—we’re not saints; and it is unlikely that any of us will ever be declared by the Orthodox Church to be saints. However, we “are making progress;” and we can be confident that because of our competence as Christians, we will, as Origen so beautifully phrases our situation “eventually come to the place where [we] ought to be.”

That place where we “ought to be” is oneness with God the Father in three quite different places—in this life, as we die and after we die. St. John Chrysostom reflects that we should be aware of, and I quote, “the duty of a careful walk. In what way?” asks St. John Chrysostom. “Do you believe that Christ died and that He rose again? If so, then believe that the same will happen to you. . . . For if you have shared in the cross and burial, how much more will you share in His resurrection as well? For now that the greater is done away with (that is, sin), it is not right to go on doubting the lesser, which is, the doing away of death.

St. Cyril, a fifth century Patriarch of Alexandria, sums up the possible life we can share with Christ; and once again I quote: “As we have been buried, so we must rise with Christ in a spiritual sense. For if to be buried together with Christ means dying to sin, then it is clear that rising with Him means living in righteousness.” St. Paul defines the nature of that righteousness in the book of Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verses 23 and 24: “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” That “new self” that we “put on”—that “newness of life” in Christ—we put on slowly; and as we make progress, as Origen has reminded us, “we will eventually come to the place where [we each] ought to be.”

 

The angel told the women at the tomb that Christ had “risen from the dead; and behold, He [was] going ahead of [them] into Galilee, [where they would] see Him.” The angel was telling the women at the tomb and the apostles that Christ was “going ahead of” them to their homes in Galilee. And so it is today on the eve of Pascha: Christ is going ahead of us into our homes to be with us in His resurrection which is also our resurrection.

And so we ascribe as is justly due all might, majesty, dominion, power and praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen

Father Deacon Emmanuel Kahn