“O Pascha! Ransom from sorrow”
Paschal Stichera
Incomprehensible is the Christian who knows that a relative of his, any relative (his wife, father, mother, brother, friend…) is saddened by him or by anything else, and turns his back on his sadness for a short while. We are human beings who are not all knowledgeable, that is, we might grieve people without our knowledge. However, he who knows of others’ grief, and leaves them in the bitterness of their grief without moving a finger, understands nothing of the religion of the Nazarene!
Is this a harsh conclusion? I would not be loving you if I passed this “vice” over without striking it with all my might!
Do not allow yourselves to consider these lines as being written for other people only. What is the meaning of a Christianity that does not speak to me personally? I am addressing myself. I am addressing you. There was a Russian Saint who, whenever he met someone, would greet them saying: “My joy, Christ is risen!”. The expression does not only mean that the Living Christ has granted us joy, through His glorious resurrection, or that He Himself is our Joy, but also that He has made all the others to be our joy.
How can others be my joy?
The answer lies in what Pascha, itself, has revealed. This other person with whom I live, who may be unbearably annoying, is my brother, whom Christ raised with Him. “Let us say, Brethren, even to them that hate us, let us forgive all things on the Resurrection”. In our relationship with others, Pascha has forbidden us from approaching them based on their own merit. It is only permissible to approach them in Him. In Him, that is, from the dignity bestowed by the Living Christ to the whole of humanity. Every human being is “an honored member”. This is the spread of the Paschal gifts in people.
Is there anyone who says that these words are idealistic? We do not truly experience them in anything other than the life of obedience. When you leave people grieving (because of you or anything else), you are committing the offense of isolating them from what Pascha has revealed. You had had the opportunity to resemble the angel that the women, the myrrh-bearers, saw at the empty tomb, or to resemble the women themselves. Then when you leave them grieving, without trying to do anything to alleviate their suffering, you are declaring, whether you intend to or not, that you are deserving of joy, or that you do not sin like they do, to grieve… This is a meager humanity that knows nothing of Pascha or its gifts.
I may have saddened you. I only want you to be happy. Believe it. There is something in us that is hindering us from growing in our awareness that we are humans created in the image of God, and it is our belief that we are different from Him. Have confidence that God does not accept that we be sorrowful except with the sorrow that “leads us to repentance”. We can consider things we are supposed to do, like forgiving and apologizing, like wiping the tears of grief from the eyes of our loved ones, to be hard, that is complicated, and we can consider them easy. How can they be easy? The answer is the same: if we are able to come from God’s victories! This culture, the culture of apologizing or the culture of forgiving or pardoning, when we are really aware that those in whom dwell the victories of God (or say: those who are His image or who like to emulate Him) are the ones who have mastered it, we will not let ourselves fall behind them. It does not belittle me to apologize. It does not detract from my masculinity or my femininity if I seek the joy of others. The opposite is true!
What did I want to say so far? I only wanted one thing: that we always keep in mind that joy is a ministry too. I am writing these lines during the Paschal period from which Saint Seraphim of Sarov, to whom I have referred, took his greeting. What I believe is that, by adding to this Paschal greeting the phrase: “Oh my joy”, he did not add anything to its meaning. Anyone of us who does not know that the greeting itself prompts its speaker to serve the joy of others, if he says it, he is not actually saying anything, but replacing one greeting with another, phrase for a phrase!
I am very happy that we have reminded most Christians in this country to console one another, when facing death, with the words of Pascha. This is what Christians have been doing since the beginning. We all know that death does not break only him whom it afflicts, but also those who love him, family, relatives and friends. By saying to a grieving brother: “Christ is risen!”, we are opening his eyes and his heart to the gift of the empty tomb, and at the same time we are calling him to rise from his sorrow to the joy of Pascha. We are not saying that it is shameful to grieve. The shame, for us, is to allow death to make us forget that our God has destroyed the tombs of history forever.
The only thing, I still care to say is that the ministry of joy, which is the gift of the empty tomb, remains to be the token of the disciple who rushed to meet the Living Christ, today and every day.
My joy, Christ is risen!
