"Resurrection day!"

Today is the greatest holiday for us Christians! Today our Lord Jesus Christ “rose from the grave without breaking the seal”! Today the barrier between heaven and earth has been broken! Angels and humans rejoice together! The Church glorifies this night, singing: “As this saving night is truly sacred and all-celebratory, and the luminous, luminous day of the rising of beings is the herald, in it the flightless Light from the grave has risen carnally to all.” And not only St. the myrrh-bearing wife, not only St. the apostles were still unbelieving with joy and marveling (Luke 24:41), not only the whole St. The Church, but also the whole world, visible and invisible, is now rejoicing. “Today every creature rejoices and rejoices, for Christ is risen!” “Let the heavens rejoice with dignity, let the earth rejoice, let the world, visible and invisible, celebrate, for Christ has risen, eternal joy!” “Now everything is filled with light, heaven and earth and the underworld, so that all creation celebrates the rise of Christ, and in Him we are established.” And according to popular belief, the sun itself is playing merrily today, trembling and shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. And the hearts of believers today are filled with extraordinary light silence, purity and joy and mutual brotherly goodwill. Where does this joy come from? Where is its source? Its source is in the living feeling of the Resurrection of Christ. By the grace of the Spirit of God, we vividly feel this Resurrection in our hearts, and our hearts are full of bright rejoicing. In a feeling of jubilation, we exclaim with Rev. John of Damascus: “Oh, divine! Oh dear! O Thy sweetest voice! You truly promised to be with us until the end of the age, Christ!”... “Oh, great and most sacred Easter, Christ! Oh, Wisdom, and the Word of God, and Power! Give us more time to partake of You, in the unfading days of Your kingdom!” But not only because of the immediate perception of the resurrection, this event is joyful for us, but also because of its immeasurable significance for the world, for, in the words of the church song, we now “celebrate the mortification of death, the destruction of hell, the beginning of another eternal life, and playfully sing of the Guilty One, the only blessed and glorified Father of God!” With His resurrection, the Lord laid the foundation for our general resurrection and crushed the power of death. “He descended into the underworld of the earth and crushed the eternal faiths of hell that contained the bound,” laid the foundation for a new, eternal life, which we now only faintly sense. Pointing out this significance of the Resurrection of Christ, St. John Chrysostom, together with the prophet Isaiah and St. Apostle Paul, exclaims: “Where is your sting, O death! Where the hell is your victory! Christ is risen, and you are cast down. Christ is risen, and the demons have fallen. Christ is risen and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life lives. Christ is risen, and not one is dead in the tomb. For Christ, having risen from the dead, became the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” However, the joy of this day would not be complete and could not fully satisfy our hearts if it were not accompanied by the emergence in the hearts of believers of a feeling of mutual reconciliation, common forgiveness and sincere mutual brotherhood. We express this feeling with joyful mutual greetings and brotherly kisses. And may it not be just an external form for any of us, but may it be a manifestation of a sincere, heartfelt feeling that embraces us today! “Red Easter is a blessing for us. Easter! Let's embrace each other with joy. Oh Easter! deliverance from sorrow! “Resurrection day, and let us be enlightened by triumph, and embrace each other. Rtsem: brothers! and we will forgive all those who hate us through the resurrection, and thus we will cry out: Christ has risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and giving life to those in the tombs!” And we must ask ourselves about one more thing on this day: would there be in our hearts that bright feeling of inexplicable joy and mutual love, with which our hearts are now filled, if we did not have the opportunity to all gather together today for common prayer and common celebration in this holy church, if we did not all feel like members of the one Church of Christ, in which everyone, both living and dead, from the first centuries of Christianity to the present day, constitute one inseparable whole, bound by one faith in Christ the Savior, mutual love and all the grace-filled order of our Holy Church; What if each of us had to face the present day alone, or, even worse, if one of us voluntarily and deliberately walked away from the Church, namely from our Orthodox Church, where the joy of the present day is felt by everyone with such special strength and liveliness? One has only to pose this question in order to immediately feel what a great good and happiness lies for us in the fact that the Lord has vouchsafed us to be members and children of the one holy Church of Christ, and in It to unite with our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the entire countless host of believers, and with people dear and close to us, who have already passed on to another life, but on this day, joyfully celebrating with us “the mortification of death, another beginning of eternal life.” More alive than ever before, we feel today that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for with Him all are alive (Luke 20:38). And this feeling of ours is expressed in the fact that today we are involuntarily drawn to the graves of people dear to us, in order to more vividly experience with them the joy of the Resurrection that embraces us. To our God be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. You might be interested in: