And He rose again from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures.
Christ is risen from the dead! This is the main proclamation of the Christian faith. It forms the heart of the Church’s preaching, worship and spiritual life. “… if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14).
In the first sermon ever preached in the history of the Christian Church, the Apostle Peter began his proclamation:
Men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man attended to you by God with mighty works and signs and wonders which God did to him in your midst, as you yourself know—this Jesus delivered up according to a definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
But God raised him up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it (Acts 2:22-24).
Jesus had the power to lay down his life and the power to take it up again:
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it again; this charge I have received from my father (Jn 10:17-18).
According to Orthodox doctrine there is no competition of “lives” between God and Jesus, and no competition of “powers.” The power of God and the power of Jesus, the life of God and the life of Jesus, are one and the same power and life. To say that God has raised Christ, and that Christ has been raised by his own power is to say essentially the same thing. “For as the Father has life in himself,” says Christ, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26). “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30).
The Scriptural stress that God has raised up Jesus only emphasizes once more that Christ has given his life, that he has laid it down fully, that he has offered it whole and without reservation to God—who then gave it back in his resurrection from the dead.
The Orthodox Church believes in Christ’s real death and his actual resurrection. Resurrection, however, does not simply mean bodily resuscitation. Neither the Gospel nor the Church teaches that Jesus was lying dead and then was biologically revived and walked around in the same way that he did before he was killed. In a word, the Gospel does not say that the angel moved the stone from the tomb in order to let Jesus out. The angel moved the stone to reveal that Jesus was not there (Mk 16; Mt 28).
In his resurrection Jesus is in a new and glorious form. He appears in different places immediately. He is difficult to recognize (Lk 24:16; Jn 20:14). He eats and drinks to show that he is not a ghost (Lk 24:30, 39). He allows himself to be touched (Jn 20: 27, 21:9). And yet he appears in the midst of disciples, “the doors being shut” (Jn 20:19, 26). And he “vanishes out of their sight” (Lk 24:31). Christ indeed is risen, but his resurrected humanity is full of life and divinity. It is humanity in the new form of the eternal life of the Kingdom of God.
So it is with the resurrection of the dead: What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raked in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.
Thus, it is written, the first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam [i.e. Christ] became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man from heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have home the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven (1 Cor 15:42-50).
The resurrection of Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection of all humanity. It is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, “according to the Scriptures” where it is written, “For Thou doest not give me up unto Sheol [that is, the realm of death], or let Thy Godly one see corruption” (Ps 16:10; Acts 2:25-36). In Christ all expectations and hopes are filled: O Death, where is your sting? O Sheol, where is your victory? (Hos 13:14).
He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces… It will be said on that day, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isa 25:8-9).
Come, let us return to the Lord: For He has torn, that He may heal us; He has stricken, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him (Hos 6:1-2).
Thus says the Lord God: Behold I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people… And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live… (Ez 37:12-14).
On Death and Resurrection in Christ
Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him.
Yesterday I died with Him; today I am made alive with Him.
Yesterday I was buried with Him; today I am raised up with Him. Let us offer to Him Who suffered and rose again for us… ourselves, the possession most precious to God and most proper.
Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us.
Let us become Divine for His sake, since for us He became Man.
He assumed the worse that He might give us the better.
He became poor that by His poverty we might become rich.
He accepted the form of a servant that we might win back our freedom.
He came down that we might be lifted up.
He was tempted that through Him we might conquer.
He was dishonored that He might glorify us.
He died that He might save us.
He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who were thrown down through the fall of sin.
Let us give all, offer all, to Him who gave Himself a Ransom and Reconciliation for us.
We needed an incarnate God, a God put to death, that we might live.
We were put to death together with Him that we might be cleansed.
We rose again with Him because we were put to death with Him.
We were glorified with Him because we rose again with Him.
A few drops of Blood recreate the whole of creation!
St. Gregory the Theologian, Easter Orations
