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EASTER MESSAGE 2019

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

The glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we have been blessed to celebrate once again this year, is the greatest gift of God to fallen humanity.

The resurrection of Christ took place so that all human beings might be resurrected; so that we might once again become immortal—as our Creator has created us to be—thus defeating death through our unity with the Source of Life.

In the worship of our Church, we chant: “Raise us, O Lord, from the sin into which we have fallen.”  We beseech our Lord to wake us up from the soul-destroying sleep of sin and to lift us up from our fallen state, so that we might “truly participate in His Resurrection” (Rom. 6:5).

The resurrection of Christ does not concern us only with regard to life after death, in which “we expect the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come” (Nicene Creed). If we do not begin the resurrection process by collaborating with God in this life, then we will not be resurrected in the life to come.

In reality, what does spiritual resurrection mean?

First, it means that “we have died to sin” (Rom. 6: 2) and that “we walk, that is, in newness of life.” (Rom. 6: 4)

It also means “the old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.  For he who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom. 6: 6-7). The sacred hymnographer takes into account the great Truth of our Church when he writes with an absolute conviction that, “Yesterday I was buried with You, O Christ! Today I rise with You in your Resurrection. Yesterday I was crucified with You: glorify me with You in Your kingdom”.  (Paschal Canon, Ode 3’)

The meaning of all that has been mentioned above is that, in order for our life to be a resurrected one, for “now and always and for ever and ever,”,  it is not enough to believe only theoretically in the Resurrection of Christ, but to live our lives as resurrected persons. In other words, the Resurrection of Christ is not an ideology, but a particular way of life, based on the Life of our resurrected Lord.

This means in practice that:

A resurrected person repents for his/her sins and struggles so as not to repeat them, for he/she knows that sin is death, and a life without repentance is a life leading to eternal death.

A resurrected person loves everyone and “forgives everything on the Resurrection” (Doxastikon, Paschal Hymn).

A resurrected person lives every moment of his/her life with praising God. That is “weather he eats or drinks, or whatever he does, he does all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor.  10:31)

A resurrected person carries within him/her “the joy of Christ in all its fullness” (John 17:13), and carries this divine joy to every person he/she connects with.

A resurrected person is a shining light through his/her actions, because after the resurrection of Christ “everything is filled with light, heaven and earth and the deepest abysses” (Paschal Canon, Ode 3′).

 

My beloved, along with His Eminence Metropolitan Soterios of Pisidia, our Clergy, and our collaborators in the Lord, we convey to you in a spirit of exuberant joy the sweetest of all greetings: Christ is Risen!           

May our life be a resurrected one so that the word of the Church regarding the Saints, “you taught through your deeds” may become true for us as well. This way, we will become undeniable witnesses and messengers of Christ’s Resurrection to the world.

 

With much love in the Risen Lord,

+ Metropolitan Ambrosios of Korea