Η Ανάστασις - Resurrection

In a recent post I wrote about the importance of believing in the parousía (pah-roo-SEE-ya), the return of Christ, and how there is a correlation between such belief and our lifestyle. Those to whom the Second Coming is a distant or possibly symbolic event are less likely to conform their lives to the gospel, whereas those who do believe in it, regardless of whether it is sooner or later, usually attempt to live as the gospel and the apostles teach. You might say, “That’s not true! I know people who say they believe in Christ’s coming again, and they live more worldly and decadent lives than even unbelievers!” I agree, of course, but saying you believe, even preaching it, doesn’t qualify as real belief, that is, real faith. The world has seen enough of this pseudo-Christianity to last it a thousand more years of determined rejection of Christ—that is, if there were a thousand more years left. But that wasn’t what I was writing about. Real faith and real belief have consequences, as do false faith and merely formal belief. We have Christ’s word for it, “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16).

Today, driving home from work, I was thinking about a friend and co-worker of mine, a lovely and intelligent woman, mother of two wonderful kids, and wife of an industrious and responsible man. Her husband is a Roman Catholic, and for this reason perhaps the children have been baptised and attend religious services. I’m not exactly sure how much or how often, but they know who Christ is. The younger one, my special friend Jesse, proudly told me one day when he was visiting me at work, “I’m a Christian!” (I was explaining to him some of the photos and pictures I had hanging up on my wall at the time, and we were talking about languages as well, and names, and I showed him how to write his name in Hebrew, and in Chinese!) I don’t censor my conversation in terms of mentioning God or Christ, even with children, but neither do I have an agenda to push on others. When I talk to whomever, I am just myself, and the bible, and Jesus, and God, are just what’s inside of me. What’s inside just comes out.

But I was thinking about his mom, with whom I often work on marketing projects. She is one of the most intelligent women I’ve ever worked with, and possibly the most logical and dispassionate. We’ve talked about personal things sometimes, and I know that she is from a Christian family, mainstream small town Protestant, but that somewhere along the way her childhood faith escaped her. From our occasional talks, reading between the lines, it seems that she first gave up the idea of ‘church’ being a worthwhile pursuit, and later the whole premise of Christianity, that a man can be God in the way that Christians say Jesus was. “Well,” I asked myself, “how could she have done that?” And an idea similar in importance to the one I wrote about earlier impacted my thoughts.

It is not only important but indispensable to believe in the anástasis (ah-NAH-stah-sees), the resurrection of Christ, and there is a direct correlation between such belief and our world view. Those to whom the Resurrection is a religious and possibly symbolic event are less likely to conform their minds to the gospel, whereas those who do believe in it, regardless of whether they rationally understand it or not, usually attempt to think and reason from the gospel and the apostles, rather than into them. In other words, they are able to accept the bible as it is, to let it examine and direct them in their thoughts, rather than subjecting the bible to their thoughts, which will have quite different intellectual and practical results.

Thinking back to my friend, I know she is a person of good will, and honest and impartial in her deliberations, yet she can let her partial knowledge of human history in general and her personal experience of ‘church’ and ‘Christians’ dissuade her from faith in Jesus Christ. To her, He was just a man, a great teacher perhaps, but just a man. She doesn’t even consider whether He really rose from the dead, because to her that’s a scientific impossibility, and even if He had been resuscitated somehow, He would still have died as an ordinary mortal. He’s just a historical person at most, maybe interesting to some, but certainly not worth taking seriously or building your life around. She’s happy enough to just try to live a good life, even knowing her idea of good still derives from what she knows of Him, and if there is a God, she’s covered; if not, at least she lived well.

I don’t know for sure, to be honest, if this is her state of mind, and if it is not, I apologise should she read my words. I would be happy to be proved wrong, and glad to shut my mouth, if she in fact does believe in Jesus, but prefers to conceal her faith, as she may have reasons. The point I am trying to make is that real belief in the resurrection of Christ produces in the person who has it a firm and unshakable conviction, hope and faith, and in their actions an unremitting love for others, “love never gets tired” (Mother Gavrilía).

Real belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is what divides the Church right down the middle, separating ahead of the Day of Judgment the sheep from the goats. “My sheep recognize My voice” (John 10:27), says the Lord Jesus, “who is, who was and who is to come” (Revelation 1:8). Those who really believe in the Resurrection know for sure that Jesus is alive, alive as Man, alive as God, as one “who became dead, but is alive forever” (Revelation 1:18), and so they cannot speak of Him in the past tense, “Jesus was, Jesus said,” except when describing an action of His that He did once on earth, and yet even there, they draw the line very close. They may say, “He was crucified, suffered and was buried, and on the third day rose according to the scriptures” (Symbol of Nicaea), but in everything else they speak of Him as if He were with them, in their midst, even now, at this present moment, because He is—“Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be!”

For those who live in the knowledge of His real Presence with us, because of their belief in the Resurrection, to hear His voice, to receive His call, to follow Him today and to say and do what they hear Him saying and see Him doing in the scriptures and in the world, these are mystíria (miss-TEE-ree-ya) yet not mysterious. This knowledge and what flows from it is not esoteric (hidden) unless you want it to be, as holy apostle Paul writes, “There are no hidden meanings in our letters besides what you can read for yourselves and understand” (2 Corinthians 1:13 JB).

This is the foundation stone of Orthodox faith: that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and that He is with us now, and to the ages of ages, and where this Jesus is, there also His disciples are. For this reason, we speak not only of Christ in the present tense, “Jesus says,” but also of His holy apostles and beloved saints, His sheep, “Paul writes.”

Why is this?
Because in Jesus, all who believe in Him are alive, as He is.
This is the Communion of Saints, forever alive in the Living God.

Like the Jews who to this day cannot accept Y’shua ha-Mashiach as their Messiah, because they do not believe in His resurrection and for no other reason, “They hated Me for no reason” (Psalm 69:4, John 15:25), so also the Christians and non-Christians who cannot accept Jesus Christ and believe in Him for who He really is.

It’s not because of what He did or didn’t do, what He fulfilled prophetically or didn’t fulfill, what He taught or didn’t teach, “the sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27), but because they do not or will not believe that “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more” (Romans 6:9 KJV). To do so would immediately and irrevocably turn their world upside down. Hence, within the Church enclosure, religion, outside it, derision, is how the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is tamed for the safety of the world in place of its salvation.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
John 3:16-21 NIV

I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?
John 11:25 NIV