It is Bright Tuesday, the 3rd day of Pascha, and I greet you with all my heart:
Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!
And all of nature is glorified! Get out of yourself. Look outward. All is fresh, green, and peaceful. Daffodils are in full bloom. Tulip trees blossom. Nature sings a new song, and the earth is renewed. The Curtain of the Old Testament Temple is rent in two, the Sanctuary doors are open, the tomb is empty—
And death is vanquished! It lingers like a whisp of snow, soon to melt away—or like smoke vanishing. This is the revelation of Pascha, Easter. Christ is life. Heis resurrected life. He is The Final Word. We who have eyes to see know that life is deep down, not death.
Now look within! For the deeper we delve within our hearts, the clearer we see our own resurrection in Christ, and this is what we all long for. Trust your heart, for it has been made this way, made to long for life—made to long for Christ, who IS life. As Fr. Georges LeFebvre says,
We must let our heart go its own way, towards its own deepest desire, which it knows is different from all others. This desire is different from all others, not necessarily because it is more strongly felt, but because it comes from further off, from what is deepest in us. It is not simply an act of our free will, but something which is in our deepest being and which involves all that we are. It is something quite simple but inseparable fundamentally from our self-awareness and open to a limitless beyond. God reveals himself to us in this awareness that we are essentially a cry for him.
Our inner atmosphere is not made up only of what we are clearly conscious of and can be precisely expressed. It is also composed of all that is living in our inmost depths. This is what makes us realize what we fundamentally are. It is always there. Let everything within us speak of another and surrender itself to Him. It is a fundamental joy. If we doubt it, we need only ask if we would be prepared to exchange it for any other. We should simply believe in this joy which may be very secret but which we cannot doubt (bold stress mine) (Metropolitan Anthony Bloom and Georges LeFebvre, OSB, Courage to Pray, Part II, “Lord Stay With Us”, pp. 118-119).
Now that spring is in bloom and so very beautiful, look within yourself and see the beautiful longing there! See and worship the Resurrected Christ, Eternal Life, our heart’s inmost, deepest desire. For the Deep Secret is out in the open for all to see! The Day is Eternal. Nature, chronological time, and eternity meet in Christ. Through Christ in the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to live in this Day of great joy!
So live abundantly! Live eternally! And never fear death, for it is vanishing smoke.
Fr. Paul Martin
Annunciation & St. Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Church
New Buffalo, MI