THOUGHTS OF A MONK

Pascha

April, 2007

We just heard our once-a-year mult-lingual proclamation of the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel. It is a dramatic illustration of the universality of its meaning, for this poetic hymn recapitulates the entire Good News. But, lest anyone find going from language to language distracting let us look closer at John’s text.

Like Genesis, John begins at the beginning to proclaim our new relationship with God, a relationship not proven but revealed by Christ’s resurrection. This polyglot proclamation joyfully professes our belief that this God who breathes the creative Word takes flesh among the poor, the powerless and the suffering to himself experience abandonment, suffering and rejection – his own did not receive him, -only to make known the Divine Reversal.  The Prologue declares:
In him was LIFE, and this life was the LIGHT of humankind,
and again,
The Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot overpower it.

I must confess a deep nostalgia for the past when we celebrated Pascha in the middle of the night, which lent a certain mystic imagery of gathering in the dark to welcome the light of Christ. Back in the 70’s, someone took a time-lapse photo of our candlelight procession circling the old church that produced a haunting ring of light. My first Orthodox Pascha was in St. John the Baptist Russian Church in Washington. I was thirteen and didn’t know a word of Church Slavonic but the experience in a quiet little neighborhood off 16th street NW, moving with a solid flow of believers carrying candles and chanting, with the slow peal of a bell, the excitement of the ???????? ???????? yelled into the still night communicated an unforgettable experience felt in the bones of the mystery of the true Light no darkness can suppress.

Nonetheless, today’s celebration retains a sensual profession of our faith that darkness does not have the last word. In part by our bodily movements ritualized in processions that serve as a dual sign.
First: as we see in the icon of the feast, we image the purposeful movement of Christ who strides into the place of death to seek out, as the Good shepherd, Adam and Eve, -you and me!
It is the stride of one who conquers death by death. We dramatize this sign not as historical reenactment like the Battle of Bennington, but by active participation in that eternal victory won for us, as for our forebears and for our children and their children into the future. As St. Paul reminds us: in Adam all die, in Christ all are made alive.

The second sign we act out is the hurried walk of the women bearing spices to the tomb “before dawn as the darkness drained”. To their profound astonishment the irreversible end to their beloved master now proved to be this Divine Reversal, by dying death is undone. Just as the stone tomb cannot seal off the Giver of Life, so stone hard hearts, egotism, narcissism, falsehood, individual or collective arrogance of power cannot force back Christ’s out stretched hands. Look at the icon, Jesus has Adam and Eve in his grip lifting them from the black pit below; he saves us from going down the drain of doubt, fear, resistance, rebellion, woundedness and sin and lifts us into the light to share in his glory.

The very candles we hold signify that the Light is our life to the degree that we live in imitation of Christ, with self-emptying love for others, for the flame gives light only by letting the wax be consumed. May what we hold in our hands be a token of hearts that no longer fear the darkness of not being in control, of need and of helplessness, of weakness and discouragement!

Finally let us not underestimate another Paschal ritual. Just as Lent began with an embrace of mutual forgiveness, now we sing out at the end of Matins:

Let everyone embrace in joy! Let us warmly greed those we meet and treat them all like brothers and sisters, even those who hated us.

Our triple kiss is the sign, the fruit of repentance, this is the realization of John’s words that the Glory of God restores in us the power [or right] to be children of God, to receive grace upon grace which comes thru Jesus Christ.

Pascha is a visceral celebration; it is erotic in intensity as implied by stichera verses about the bridegroom emerging from wedding chamber. Our Eucharistic feast will conclude with rich meal to satisfy fasting tummies. It is a Passover the earth itself echoes with the sound of running water, peepers, robins and cardinals, for all creation reveals his creative Word. For from death to life, from earth to heaven, Christ has led us, as we shout the victory hymn:

Christ is risen