Dead to Our Sins in Christ,
We Can Rise in Him to New Life
We Can Rise in Him to New Life
Pascha
The resurrection of Jesus doesn't mean anything to you unless you rise with Him. He didn't rise from the dead just to put on a show. The final cause of His resurrection is ours. It isn't as though we have to applaud at the momentous fact that Christ died and rose again from the dead.
That wasn't His purpose. The meaning of the resurrection is Christ rising from the dead, but the question is what does that word "rise” mean to us? You don't die physically or rise physically as He did. So what does His rising mean? As you can see from the services, death signifies the power of evil in us. That is how we're dead. We succumb in ourselves to the power of evil. Just as a corpse can't rise from the grave so we can't rise from our attachment to evil. So if you don't see your attachment to evil, the resurrection can’t mean anything to you because you have to be dead before you can rise. If your reaction to evil is that you’re going to fix it up by what you do then the resurrection is meaningless.
So the resurrection presupposes the conviction of your death, your hopelessness in your own evil, which God is showing you through your experience; and you rise when through faith you believe that even though you have this evil in you, you’re above it. You rise above it as you say with Paul, "The evil I would not, that I do” (Rm 7:15) because even though you continue to sin, it is not you who sin but the sin that is within you.
One thing is certain: after your resurrection today you’ll sin again! So the resurrection doesn't mean that you won't sin again. It means that sin has no power over you because in Jesus you're dead to the sin. So it is a matter of correcting your conscience in order to have the right attitude to yourself in the knowledge of your slavery to sin, which presupposes that you realize that you are a slave to sin. That is the first step; the second step is not to judge things by the evidence of your senses, especially when you keep on sinning: having bad thoughts, being uncharitable, etc. Because you can sin and still be dead to these sins; in the mystical sense, they’re not you. If you don't understand this, then the resurrection has no meaning for you.
You might ask, how can you say this is not you? You have these bad thoughts, desires, etc., yes, but in Jesus it isn't you. With Paul you say, "The good that I would, I do not; the evil I would not, that I do.” (Rm 7:15) You acknowledge that you do evil and you're sorry for it. Yet the reality of the evil that you do is not the you-in-Christ rising in his resurrection; it is the sin that is in you. In other words there is a right contempt for your sin as against a kind of servile groveling, thinking: if only I could overcome these sins, I could be loved.
So you have to see yourself as an object of faith instead of judging only by your senses. And you have to see the miracle of Christ rising physically from the dead as a sign of the power you have with Him to rise from your sins. That is, as I see it, the meaning of the resurrection and also the purpose of it. There are two wrong attitudes: one is to say of your sins that you have to overcome them and that you won't be loved by God until you do, or on the other hand to say there is no sin because you are weak. The right thing to do is to say, yes, I do that - the evil - but in Jesus it is not I that do it; it is the sin within me because I am now risen in Jesus and I am dead to myself.
The resurrection of Jesus can't mean anything to you except in your mystical identification with Jesus in the resurrection. There is your attachment to evil which can be compared to His physical death and there is a rising with Him, overcoming that evil, which can be compared to His resurrection. That is how you realize your holiness in Jesus!!! The meaning of the resurrection is that you're hopeless in yourself, the way a dead man is hopeless. And just as corpses can't rise, so you can't rise from your corruption. But the miracle is that with Jesus you can rise from the dead!
COMMENT: Paul said, "You are dead; your life is hidden now with Christ in God." (Col 3:3)
Your hiddenness consists in this: that you can't see your holiness because of the evidence of your attraction to evil. That objectivity about your evil is the precondition of your resurrection. You have to be dead before you can rise.
If you understand this, then the death and resurrection of Jesus will mean something to you: what they mean is your death and resurrection. Pascha is the consummation of your faith. The meaning of the fast in Great Lent is that as long as you're supported by the enjoyment of good food it is hard to see how hopeless you are. But when you experience your weakness and have the knowledge of your own hopelessness, yet rise in His power in you, that is the complete truth and that truth generates peace in you. Just as mystically when Jesus was born the whole Church was conceived, so in His death we all die, and in His resurrection we all rise.
COMMENT: In what sense did the Mother of God participate in the resurrection?
She is a figure of the Church so that whatever you can say about her you can say about the Church. And we speak of the Church as the spotless bride of Christ. Which means that you are spotless with Jesus in His Mother - who is also our Mother. In the Gospel, that was communicated to us when Jesus said, "Behold thy Mother." (Jn 19:27)
So you have to examine your conscience and see how much you still want to make yourself acceptable to God by what you do instead of by the power of the resurrection and by the realization that you're made acceptable by the resurrection. It is not that you shouldn't do anything - you have to hate sin - but the only way to do it is to die to sin with Jesus and to rise with Him. So it's the order that is important. Otherwise you would say, if I'm saved by the resurrection, I'm saved - that's all there is to it. If you think this way you believe you're saved but in such a way as to deny that you must become holy by what you do, but the truth is that what you do to become holy is the very effect of the resurrection. So your reaction when you see yourself sinning is not to allow yourself to lose your peace, as though the power of evil in you were greater than Jesus, but rather to see sin as something you're enslaved to and at the same time something that doesn't touch you because you're above it, and you can overcome it because you’re above it.
COMMENT: When you put up defenses, that shows you're really not acknowledging your sins.
You must acknowledge your sins with complete objectivity but at the same time with equanimity because they don't destroy your fundamental life in Jesus. That is why Paul could say, "When I am weak I am strong" (2Cor 12:l0) because in the knowledge of your resurrection you cleave more closely to Jesus. Otherwise you try to "buy" your holiness, paying for it by what you do to overcome your sins.
Remember that the joy of Pascha is your resurrection in Jesus and in His Mother. In the services we say that through the paschal mystery we have been buried with Christ in baptism, so that we may rise with Him to new life. Our baptism is in the Mother of God, as we are born to a new life of God and our resurrection is in her also.Remember Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again of water and. the Holy Spirit" (Jn 3:5) and also "What if I should speak to you of heavenly things?" (Ibid v12) Well, Jesus wasn't born of only water and the Holy Spirit; He was born of His Mother and the Holy Spirit and you can be sure that when He referred to “heavenly things” He meant that we are born of His Mother and the Holy Spirit in the same way. It was by the mystical co-mingling of the waters of the Virgin Mary's womb with Elizabeth's that John the Baptist was baptized. And it is in the mystical waters of Mary's womb that we also are reborn.
The resurrection of Jesus doesn't mean anything to you unless you rise with Him. He didn't rise from the dead just to put on a show. The final cause of His resurrection is ours. It isn't as though we have to applaud at the momentous fact that Christ died and rose again from the dead.
That wasn't His purpose. The meaning of the resurrection is Christ rising from the dead, but the question is what does that word "rise” mean to us? You don't die physically or rise physically as He did. So what does His rising mean? As you can see from the services, death signifies the power of evil in us. That is how we're dead. We succumb in ourselves to the power of evil. Just as a corpse can't rise from the grave so we can't rise from our attachment to evil. So if you don't see your attachment to evil, the resurrection can’t mean anything to you because you have to be dead before you can rise. If your reaction to evil is that you’re going to fix it up by what you do then the resurrection is meaningless.
So the resurrection presupposes the conviction of your death, your hopelessness in your own evil, which God is showing you through your experience; and you rise when through faith you believe that even though you have this evil in you, you’re above it. You rise above it as you say with Paul, "The evil I would not, that I do” (Rm 7:15) because even though you continue to sin, it is not you who sin but the sin that is within you.
One thing is certain: after your resurrection today you’ll sin again! So the resurrection doesn't mean that you won't sin again. It means that sin has no power over you because in Jesus you're dead to the sin. So it is a matter of correcting your conscience in order to have the right attitude to yourself in the knowledge of your slavery to sin, which presupposes that you realize that you are a slave to sin. That is the first step; the second step is not to judge things by the evidence of your senses, especially when you keep on sinning: having bad thoughts, being uncharitable, etc. Because you can sin and still be dead to these sins; in the mystical sense, they’re not you. If you don't understand this, then the resurrection has no meaning for you.
You might ask, how can you say this is not you? You have these bad thoughts, desires, etc., yes, but in Jesus it isn't you. With Paul you say, "The good that I would, I do not; the evil I would not, that I do.” (Rm 7:15) You acknowledge that you do evil and you're sorry for it. Yet the reality of the evil that you do is not the you-in-Christ rising in his resurrection; it is the sin that is in you. In other words there is a right contempt for your sin as against a kind of servile groveling, thinking: if only I could overcome these sins, I could be loved.
So you have to see yourself as an object of faith instead of judging only by your senses. And you have to see the miracle of Christ rising physically from the dead as a sign of the power you have with Him to rise from your sins. That is, as I see it, the meaning of the resurrection and also the purpose of it. There are two wrong attitudes: one is to say of your sins that you have to overcome them and that you won't be loved by God until you do, or on the other hand to say there is no sin because you are weak. The right thing to do is to say, yes, I do that - the evil - but in Jesus it is not I that do it; it is the sin within me because I am now risen in Jesus and I am dead to myself.
The resurrection of Jesus can't mean anything to you except in your mystical identification with Jesus in the resurrection. There is your attachment to evil which can be compared to His physical death and there is a rising with Him, overcoming that evil, which can be compared to His resurrection. That is how you realize your holiness in Jesus!!! The meaning of the resurrection is that you're hopeless in yourself, the way a dead man is hopeless. And just as corpses can't rise, so you can't rise from your corruption. But the miracle is that with Jesus you can rise from the dead!
COMMENT: Paul said, "You are dead; your life is hidden now with Christ in God." (Col 3:3)
Your hiddenness consists in this: that you can't see your holiness because of the evidence of your attraction to evil. That objectivity about your evil is the precondition of your resurrection. You have to be dead before you can rise.
If you understand this, then the death and resurrection of Jesus will mean something to you: what they mean is your death and resurrection. Pascha is the consummation of your faith. The meaning of the fast in Great Lent is that as long as you're supported by the enjoyment of good food it is hard to see how hopeless you are. But when you experience your weakness and have the knowledge of your own hopelessness, yet rise in His power in you, that is the complete truth and that truth generates peace in you. Just as mystically when Jesus was born the whole Church was conceived, so in His death we all die, and in His resurrection we all rise.
COMMENT: In what sense did the Mother of God participate in the resurrection?
She is a figure of the Church so that whatever you can say about her you can say about the Church. And we speak of the Church as the spotless bride of Christ. Which means that you are spotless with Jesus in His Mother - who is also our Mother. In the Gospel, that was communicated to us when Jesus said, "Behold thy Mother." (Jn 19:27)
So you have to examine your conscience and see how much you still want to make yourself acceptable to God by what you do instead of by the power of the resurrection and by the realization that you're made acceptable by the resurrection. It is not that you shouldn't do anything - you have to hate sin - but the only way to do it is to die to sin with Jesus and to rise with Him. So it's the order that is important. Otherwise you would say, if I'm saved by the resurrection, I'm saved - that's all there is to it. If you think this way you believe you're saved but in such a way as to deny that you must become holy by what you do, but the truth is that what you do to become holy is the very effect of the resurrection. So your reaction when you see yourself sinning is not to allow yourself to lose your peace, as though the power of evil in you were greater than Jesus, but rather to see sin as something you're enslaved to and at the same time something that doesn't touch you because you're above it, and you can overcome it because you’re above it.
COMMENT: When you put up defenses, that shows you're really not acknowledging your sins.
You must acknowledge your sins with complete objectivity but at the same time with equanimity because they don't destroy your fundamental life in Jesus. That is why Paul could say, "When I am weak I am strong" (2Cor 12:l0) because in the knowledge of your resurrection you cleave more closely to Jesus. Otherwise you try to "buy" your holiness, paying for it by what you do to overcome your sins.
Remember that the joy of Pascha is your resurrection in Jesus and in His Mother. In the services we say that through the paschal mystery we have been buried with Christ in baptism, so that we may rise with Him to new life. Our baptism is in the Mother of God, as we are born to a new life of God and our resurrection is in her also.Remember Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again of water and. the Holy Spirit" (Jn 3:5) and also "What if I should speak to you of heavenly things?" (Ibid v12) Well, Jesus wasn't born of only water and the Holy Spirit; He was born of His Mother and the Holy Spirit and you can be sure that when He referred to “heavenly things” He meant that we are born of His Mother and the Holy Spirit in the same way. It was by the mystical co-mingling of the waters of the Virgin Mary's womb with Elizabeth's that John the Baptist was baptized. And it is in the mystical waters of Mary's womb that we also are reborn.