The joyful message of Easter is that the sole purpose of the Death and Resurrection of Christ is our personal resurrection. That is, Christ was resurrected to raise us from the death of sin. Our destination is our entry into His Kingdom, “there is no pain, no sorrow, no sighing, but life is endless”, stressed Metropolitan Ambrosios of Korea in his Easter message.
The Metropolitan of Korea also said: “The Christian, no matter what evil happens to him in his earthly life, because he is oriented towards eternity, does not grieve, does not lose his hope, but continues with courage his struggle for the conquest of real life.”
Read below the message of Metropolitan Ambrosios of Korea:
The word that dominates the “feast of the feasts” and which includes the deeper meaning of the “feast of the feasts” is the word Resurrection! The pre-eminent, that is a Christian word. The word whose meaning before Christ was completely incomprehensible and provoked ironic comments, as was done e.g., during the preaching of the Apostle Paul at the Areopagus, which after Christ was fully understood. The word that on hearing it alone comes associatively to our minds and hearts the form of our resurrected Lord, the eternal Victor of death. Because He Himself told us that He is “the resurrection and the life”. (John 11:25) The word Resurrection scatters in us and around us His radiant light since His resurrection “enlightened the universe…”. The word resurrection gives birth to the sweet expectation of the eighth day, that is, of the Kingdom of God; it reminds us of the confession we make when we proclaim the Nicene Creed: “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.”
The eschatological dimension of the unique and unrepeatable event of the Resurrection of Christ, which the Orthodox Church celebrates every Sunday of the ecclesiastical year, during the weekly, the small, so-called Easter, but also in a very intense way forty days after the annual feast. Easter is what every person longs for, believer or unbeliever indiscriminately. Because man was created immortal and justifiably hates decay and death because it contradicts his original beauty. Because the transient man became mortal because of sin, the Godman came and with His crucifixion died again and granted him the possibility of immortality. That is why the apostle Paul boasts about the death of the Lord on the cross. And the hymn writer also places in the mouth of every believer the boast of the Death and the Resurrection of the Lord, saying: “… I boast of your resurrection, for your death is my life. Almighty and loving God, glory to you”.
The joyful message of Easter is that the sole purpose of the Death and Resurrection of Christ is our personal resurrection. That is, Christ was resurrected to raise us from the death of sin. Our destination is our entry into His Kingdom, “there is no pain, no sorrow, no sighing, but life is endless.”
Thus, the Christian, no matter what evil happens to him in his earthly life, because he is oriented towards eternity, does not grieve, does not lose his hope, but continues with courage his struggle for the conquest of real life.
Sickness, epidemic, sorrow, pain, poverty, death are annihilated by the expectation of our personal resurrection through Jesus Christ. Because after the Resurrection of Christ “death perished; victory is complete! Death, where is the sting of your power? Hades, where is your victory?… Let us thank God who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”.
We celebrate this great event with so much splendor in the biggest celebration of our Orthodox Church, Easter. And the resurrection greeting “Christ has Risen – He has truly Risen”, wants to be chanted to the ends of the universe.
On behalf of the Metropolitan of Pisidia, our clergy, and all our associates in the Lord, I wish you health and rapid relief from the pandemic.
+ Metropolitan Ambrosios of Korea
