Church of Christ the Saviour
Osborne Road
Winton
Bournemouth
Dorset
BH9 2JJ
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Raising of Incense 9:30 a.m
Divine Liturgy 10:15 a.m
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Father Simon Smyth
31 Sandyfield Crescent,
Cowplain, Waterlooville,
Hampshire, PO8 8SQ.
Telephone: 07979 420006
Email: MeninBlackk@aol.com
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Paschal Sermon 2008 (part 1)
“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work... And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work…”[i] Even as God rested from His work of creation on the seventh day, the Sabbath, so he rested from His work of redemption on what is sometimes referred to as the Last Sabbath. Perhaps you recall the words read from the Psalms at the climax of the Burial Service of our Lord, yesterday, Good Friday, as the altar curtain was drawn shut, the tomb closed: “I laid me down and slept…”[ii]
Saturday, “the ‘blessed Sabbath’ is not the pre-feast of the eve of the day of our salvation; it is the very day of our salvation”[iii] “The descent of the Lord into Hades is already resurrection, as expressed clearly in Orthodox iconography”[iv] Yes, look at the icon showing our blessed Saviour raising up Adam and Eve in Hades. Those who were still alive on this earth, in this life may not have experienced the resurrection of Christ until the Sunday but those in Hades had already begun that experience. “On Holy Saturday…the day between Holy Friday…and Easter Sunday, our holy Orthodox Church celebrates the descent of the Lord into Hades, a cosmic event of joy and salvation”[v]
Did I say Saturday? Even Friday is the day of our salvation – hear these words from the Byzantine Orthodox Lenten texts, in which Hades, personified, on seeing the cross of Christ erected on Golgotha declares “to his cohorts and to his powers: ‘O, my servants and my powers, who has plunged a nail into my heart? A wooden spear has pierced me suddenly and I am torn; my insides and my stomach and my senses are in pain…and I am forced to vomit Adam and the descendants of Adam…”[vi] Just before He died Jesus cried out in a loud voice,[vii] surely a cry of triumph: ”It is finished”.[viii] Yes, on the Friday did our Lord God and Saviour declare and proclaim His work finished. And then: “I laid me down and slept…” He rested on the seventh day…” His body lay in the tomb at rest, in the sleep of death.
His spirit, however, strode triumphantly into and throughout Hades proclaiming deliverance and liberty to the captives.[ix] “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”[x] “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”[xi] As we read yesterday in the Gospel Commentary for the Ninth Hour of Good Friday, “God the Word went to Hades with the soul He took from human nature made one with Himself. He freed the souls that were bound… When the wicked door-keepers and authorities abiding in the darkness saw Him, they fled and could not stand for they knew His power. He hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.”[xii] Even this, known in Western Christendom by the wonderful name the harrowing of hell, was not so much work as the proclamation of the work now finished.
Yes, that triumphant dying cry of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, “It is finished” really marks the moment when the work of redemption was accomplished. That was the moment when Death, this monstrous insatiable beast that had devoured generation after generation, yet without ever getting enough, without ever getting its fill, had just swallowed…well, Death discovered just what it had swallowed.
“Death took a body, and, lo, it discovered God; it took earth, and, behold, encountered Heaven; it took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see! Hades received an earthly body, covered with wounds, and met the boundless power of Heaven, the divine omnipotence. Hades received that which was seen externally as a familiar, common body of the earth and fell, defeated by the divine omnipotence that was invisible to its vision; defeated by the divine nature that was hidden in the human!”[xiii]
“By accepting the body of Christ Death made a great mistake. It thought it was an ordinary body; a sinful body and mortal just as the others held under its tyrannical authority. But as those who take food that cannot be digested by their stomach, will vomit not only the indigestible food, but whatever else they have eaten, so also with death. Death swallowed the all-pure and immortal body of the Lord, but immortal life was a bitter victual and indigestible for the gluttonous and insatiable Hades. It could not digest it and, therefore, vomited it! Together with the body of Christ Hades ejected also all the dead held in its stomach from the beginning. The only appropriate and digestible food for death is sin. The sinless body of the Lord was inappropriate food for Hades. It resembled a stone that not only cannot be digested but also, if it remains in the stomach, will destroy it and breach it. When death swallowed the corner-stone, the all-holy body of the Saviour, it was in pain and distress, and lost all of its strength. Thus, St. Peter said ‘But God raised Him up, having loosed the pangs of death’ (Acts 2:24) For no woman, giving birth, is in as much pain as death while holding the Lord’s body.”[xiv]
St Cyril of Jerusalem expounds the illustration of Jonah in the belly of the whale which subsequently vomited him forth in terms of death spewing forth our Lord along with all those it had swallowed.[xv] Death had taken into itself something or rather Someone it could not keep down, it could not contain.
Saint John Chrysostom goes yet further in his imagery of the destruction of death, referring us to the story of Bel and the Dragon.
“ And…there was a great dragon, which they of Babylon worshipped. And the king said unto Daniel, Wilt thou also say that this is of brass? lo, he liveth, he eateth and drinketh; thou canst not say that he is no living god: therefore worship him. Then said Daniel unto the king, I will worship the Lord my God: for he is the living God. But give me leave, O king, and I shall slay this dragon without sword or staff. The king said, I give thee leave. Then Daniel took pitch, and fat, and hair, and did seethe them together, and made [cakes] thereof: this he” fed the dragon and…the dragon burst” assunder[xvi]
The “same thing happened to death. For Christ did not come out of the mouth of death, but rather burst open the dragon’s stomach and went out with a great brightness…”[xvii]
It simply was not possible that the man Who is God could stay dead. His resurrection was inevitable. It had to be. Death could not hold Him. He was too much for death. The resurrection had to be. Our salvation is accomplished through the Death and Resurrection of Christ, as one united whole. The death and resurrection of Christ are one. The one must inevitably follow on from the other. They are bound up together. You can’t have one without the other. You can no more have the resurrection without (first) having the death than you can have the death without having the resurrection. They are as one, as one event.
[iii] Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis, trans. Fr Peter A. Chamberas, The Mystery of Death (Orthodox Brotherhood of Theologians, 1993) p. 187
[iv] Georges Florovsky, quoted in ibid, p 187
[vi] Oikos for the Third Sunday in Lent, quoted in ibid, p 179
[ix] 1Peter 3:19 & 4:6, Luke 4:18
[xii] English version by the author
[xiii] St John Chrysostom Paschal Homily in P. Vassiliadis, trans. Fr Peter A. Chamberas, The Mystery of Death (Orthodox Brotherhood of Theologians, 1993) p.179
[xiv] St John Chysostom On 1Corinthians Homily 24 in Ibid p.179
[xv] St Cyril of Jerusalem Catechesis to the Illumined in Ibid p.185
[xvii] St John Chysostom On 1Corinthians Homily 24 in Ibid p.179
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