21 May, 2006
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen
As I go across the country from place to place, I tend to draw attention to the Paschal greeting : “Christ is risen. Indeed He is risen”. The farther we go into the Paschal season, the more uncertain it seems to sound. I generally say that we are too polite as Canadians to respond in a proper way, with some boldness, sense of enthusiasm, and assurance : “Indeed He is risen”. Sometimes when I say : “Christ is risen”, the response is very faint. Ultimately, I think that it is not merely Canadian politeness, shyness, and backwardness about such things that is the problem.
The main problem for us is remembering in our hearts what is the implication of the Resurrection for us. Why is it so important for us ? We are so burdened with cares and distractions every day. There is not any one of us who does not suffer from trials and tribulations in the course of our life. There is not one of us who does not have difficulty with other persons from time to time. There are people that some seem to be able to get along with, but others cannot. There is something about one person or another that does something in the heart – we do not know what it is. If we look into our heart long enough, and ask the Lord long enough, He will reveal what it is, and He will help us, correct, and heal us. However, as long as this sort of irritation or whatever other sort of negative feelings are going on between me and another person, and I do not do anything about it, but just let it be, it is simply going to keep festering, and that’s all there is to it.
We forget to ask the Lord : “What is the matter with me that I am reacting this way ?” “What is there in my heart that has not healed, that I am reacting to such-and-such a person in this way ?” We forget to ask Him. We just live with it. On top of all that, we very often do not even pray for the person that is so inexplicably an irritation for us. Therefore, there are all these factors involved, and many others, in the difficulties of our daily lives. So-and-so does not like me, and I do not know why. This is very common. So-and-so does not like me, and I feel that I am somehow worthless because so-and-so does not like me. What matters is not whether someone or other likes me or not ; it is whether I love that person in my heart that matters. If someone does not like me, that is the responsibility of the person who does not like me. Except for praying for that person, I cannot do anything about it if someone does not like me. I can guard my heart in the love of Jesus Christ, making sure that my heart does in fact respond warmly to the person who does not like me for whatever reason that may be.
We have to be ready to take responsibility, ourselves, for all these situations, and not be immaturely dependant on the approval of, or the liking by someone else. We have to grow up in Christ, and understand that His love for us is unconditional. We have to learn how to love other people with the same unconditional love, and allow the Saviour Himself to look after the deficiencies of inter-human relationships. Human beings are specialists at being deficient in inter-human relationships.
The Lord, the Healer of everyone, straightens everything out, as He does with the Samaritan Woman. In His short conversation with her, not only does He point out that she is living a misfocussed and deceiving life, but that she is off track in how she thinks she is so right in her worship. I have high regard for this woman, first, because she knows her Scriptures – the way she responds tells us that she knows her Scriptures ; second, because her heart is open enough to see immediately what sort of Person is sitting before her and talking with her. She immediately responds and says : “‘Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet’”. He immediately begins to ask her burning questions, and He straightens her out. Immediately, her heart responds with gladness, and she immediately shares her joy and amazement with everyone around her. She says : “‘Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did’”. She recognises Who He is : the One giving her living water that wells up unto life everlasting.
She shares immediately. Such is her sharing, and such is the power of the sojourn for two days of the Saviour and His disciples in Samaria, that a significant response comes from those inhabitants who say to her (as it were) : “Now we truly know. We have encountered Christ personally. Now we truly know Who He is. We do not depend only upon your witness. We know for ourselves”.
There is so much to say about all the words of this Gospel reading. Suffice it to say that Saint Photini allowed the Lord to turn her life about so much, that not only did she become a saint both by her manner of life and by her manner of death, but many of her family became saints too, and martyrs, and so forth. They were strong witnesses for the love of Jesus Christ. Having encountered Him, they embraced Him, and lived in Him.
We, ourselves, after 2,000 years, are still participating in the same sort of experience as Saint Photini and the people of Sychar in Samaria. If we grow up in a Christian family as children, we come to know Who is Jesus Christ from our parents because they speak of Him and live in a certain way. However, there comes a time in our life when our heart has its door opened, and the light goes on, as it were, in our personal encounter with Jesus Christ. We, ourselves, like those Samaritans, come to the point where we say to our parents and our friends, those people who bring us to Christ : “Now I know. It is not simply intellectual any more ; it is not simply a mental process that I understand in the mind that it is right what you say about Jesus Christ. In my heart I know. I have finally encountered Him personally in my heart. I know Him. I love Him myself, and my heart confirms everything you have ever said about Jesus Christ. My heart confirms how you yourself live in the love of Jesus Christ”. This is how we Christians grow up.
I consider Saint Seraphim of Sarov to be one of the most mature Christians of all time, precisely because of how far this response went in his life. He submitted himself to the love of Jesus Christ in everything, and allowed Jesus Christ to remake him, and make him whole. The Saviour is the Saviour. He is the salvation of all because He makes us healthy. If we learned Latin in school (as most people do not get to do any more, which is too bad because we have a deficient understanding of our English language because of that), we would understand that “salvation” comes from the word that means “health”. It does not just mean being rescued. It means “health”. Therefore, when we are in Christ, and we are speaking about salvation, we are speaking about being healthy, whole, one, undistorted, unbroken in His love, alive in His love.
Even though Saint Seraphim was battered and beaten up by events in life, and all bent over, nevertheless he was whole. He was healthy. He said at the end of his life, every day of the year, and to everyone who encountered him : “Christ is risen, my joy”. He could say : “Christ is risen, my joy” to everyone around him because his assurance of the reality was so strong ; his understanding of how important it is to remember the Resurrection every day of our life, was so intense. He understood how easy it is for every human being to get burdened down by everything, and to let the awareness of the importance that Christ is risen fall into the background of our perception of ourselves and of everyday life. By God’s Grace, he was able to say : “Christ is risen, my joy” everyday to everyone he encountered. He said : “my joy”, because by that time in his life, no matter how broken any person might have been that met him, that person was his joy in Jesus Christ. He could see, and with his whole heart understand that everyone that he met was a creature of Christ, and a reflection of Christ, even though the reflection might be dim.
That is why Saint Seraphim is so important for us. That is why it is necessary that we remember his example, and keep the Resurrection of Christ in the fore-front of our minds by God’s Grace and mercy. God grant that our hearts be so full of the Resurrection life and love of Jesus Christ, that we will ourselves be inclined to glorify Jesus Christ, saying : “Christ is risen” to people we meet at any time of the year. (If we say it too often, of course, people are likely going to say that we are putting on airs.) Still, we all need to be reminded through the course of the year that Christ is risen – that He is truly risen. If we become so lax in the way we respond after only a few weeks of celebrating the Resurrection, how much more important is it for us, later in the year, sometimes to hear from a brother or a sister that reassuring and strengthening greeting : “Christ is risen”.
Brothers and sisters, it is a serious matter to live the Christian life because nearly everything around us is aimed at drawing us away. Let us ask the Saviour to keep holding our hand, to keep holding onto our hearts, so that we will not be distracted and fall away, but be faithful, like Saint Photini (Svetlana) and all her relatives who are on our Church calendar. Along with many other holy families, of whom many now are on our calendar as holy examples, let us ask the Lord to keep the fire of our love for Him burning all the time. Then when someone will say to us : “Christ is risen”, our hearts will not hesitate, but instead instinctively and immediately, and with fire, will answer : “Indeed, truly He is risen”. Let us ask the Lord to give us the strength to be faithful to Him every minute of every hour of every day, and glorify Him in our whole life always, and everywhere, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.