The Joyful Widower

Pascha is the apex of Christian worship. It is the Queen of Feasts, the ultimate joy that we share. Orthodox christians around the world gather shortly before midnight Saturday night in order to begin the services as early in the day of Sunday as possible, and we sing and pray for 3 hours. And then we eat. People ask if we have a sunrise service. There have been many years where I’m getting home about sunrise…

Sunday afternoon, after everyone has slept for a few hours, we gather together for Agape Vespers of Pascha. It is a much shorter service, every bit as joyful as the night before, albeit a bit more subdued from the exhaustion. When the choir is on their A-game, when they’re too tired to push but tired enough to relax into the music and sing it lightly, the sound can be quite ethereal, and the hymns are a gentle reflection of all we contemplated the night before.

For me it is a particularly special service; Agape Vespers was the last time Melinda and I were together. We were chrismated and attended Pascha together in Columbia, SC, because we didn’t yet have a priest at St. Anne’s. After the service, something to eat, and chatting with new friends, she returned to Knoxville and I drove to Atlanta for a week of training. It was on Bright Wednesday of that week that I got the phone call about her accident.

Pascha is the greatest feast of the year. It’s the end (purpose), but it’s not the end (the last thing). Even as we are still exulting in the Resurrection of our Lord, the greatest miracle of all, this Gospel lesson is proclaimed:

¹⁹ Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

²⁰ And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.

²¹ Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

²² And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

²³ Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

²⁴ But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

²⁵ The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

(St. John 20:19-25, KJV)

Into the great joy of Pascha, this proclamation. The Holy Spirit of God, the very Spirit by whom (whom, not it; the Holy Spirit is a person, not a force or a thing) Christ was raised is promised to his disciples. Not only is Christ raised, but He desires to share that gift of life with all. The Spirit of Life is promised to all who follow Christ. The Life that raised Him is promised to “as many as have been baptized into Christ.” We are called to share by grace in that Life that is God’s by nature.

But you can’t jump straight to Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The way is made possible through Pascha. But you can’t just start with Pascha. You must go through Lent. Crucifixion is before resurrection; death is before being raised from the dead. To be filled with this new life, one must first be emptied of the old life, by denying one’s self, by picking up one’s cross, by dying to self. But by beginning with and following the way of the cross, it is nothing less than the way to sharing in and showing forth (as one of my theology professors said so often, we abbreviated it in our notes as SISF) the triune life of God.

Many of my readers, I’m sure, have read C. S. Lewis’ book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In it Lewis allegorizes the death and resurrection of Christ in the death and resurrection of Aslan, the great lion. But it was the third time I read the book that I realized Lewis did something more than a simple retelling of Easter; he includes Pentecost and the Gospel of John in his tale! After the Lion is raised to life, after a brief joyous celebration with Susan and Lucy, the young Pevensie girls, he takes them straight to the castle of the White Witch, the castle populated with so many souls turned to stone by her magic. He brings them to life by breathing on them, then leads them as an army to the battlefield where the Narnians loyal to Aslan are fighting the witch’s forces. After Aslan himself dispatches the witch, his followers have the task of finishing the fight, reclaiming the land for its rightful ruler.

Dear ones, even as we bask in our Lord’s resurrection and the joy of his defeat of death and hell, let us look forward to the feast of Pentecost to come and the proclamation of the pouring out of God’s Spirit on all humanity, His victory over evil shared with us, and the promise of Life that will not die.

CHRIST IS RISEN!