Pascha: Death And Life
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Pascha: Death And Life- by Fr. David Petras
The most proper name for the “feast of feasts” celebrating the salvation achieved for us by our Lord Jesus Christ is “Pascha.” Therefore, on this day we sing, Pascha so delightful, the Pascha of the Lord is the Pascha, most honored Pascha now dawned on us. It is the Pascha!” The Greek word, “Pascha” was a translation of the Hebrew word “pesach,” in English, the “passover.” The feast is popularly called “Easter,” perhaps from the pagan goddess “Eastre,” or as someone else suggested from an Old English word for “East,” the direction of the sunrise, for on this day Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, the true day without sunset, has shone upon us with the brightness of his resurrection. In Slavonic, it is called “voskresenije,” the “day of Resurrection.” However, the best name for this feast is “Pascha,” and the event that it celebrates has become the Paschal mystery, which is our salvation and glorification and deification and life.
The word “pascha” is best because it expresses the whole range of this feast. Pascha, indeed, is the celebration of all that Christ did for us, not only the Resurrection, but also the death on the Cross. Today we might question this - why celebrate death, especially the shameful death on the Cross? The Church, though, drops its sorrowful Lenten melodies on Holy Thursday, when the Pascha begins. The Cross is in no way considered a defeat by Christians, “since through the Cross, joy has come to all the world.” Pascha is the fulfillment of the paradox taught by Christ, “However humbles himself will be exalted,” and “whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will find it.”
The point of Pascha is this: the death of Christ was in reality a glorious triumph over the works of evil. Rather then face evil with evil, which is our natural human inclination, Jesus encountered the strength of evil with love to the end, forbidding the disciples to use violence to protect him. The Cross, then, nothing good in itself, becomes good because it is now the symbol of the greatest love, as Jesus told his disciples, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)” St. Paul eloquently pointed out this paradox in his letter to the Corinthians, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)” The meaning of the Paschal mystery can be understood only through the Cross and the Resurrection together. It is meaningless without either pole. The feast of Pascha, then, is the Cross on Good Friday, the grave on Saturday, and the Resurrection on the third day. We live now after the Resurrection of Christ and the Paschal mystery of our salvation has been completely revealed.. We remember this in every Divine Liturgy, as the priest prays, “remembering the cross, the tomb and the resurrection on the third day.”
The death of our Lord has brought us life. Jesus did not die on the Cross to bring more death into the world, but to encounter all the power of death and to destroy it. This is why on the feasy of Pascha, we sing, “by death he trampled upon death.” Our Lord revealed in his very acts what he meant that we must lose our life to find it, and so St. Paul in his Epistle to the Phillipians tells us, “Christ Jesus humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross,” and, therefore, “because of this God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. (Phillipians 2:8-9)” Epiphanius wrote, “The Word tasted death once on our behalf, the death of the cross. He went to his death so that by death he might put death to death. The Word, becoming human flesh, did not suffer in his divinity but suffered with humanity.”
The death of Christ brings life because he is God. At Paschal Matins, then, we begin by singing, “The Passover is the Lord’s Passover, since Christ, our God, has brought us from death to life and from earth to heaven.” Our own deaths are not life-bringing, but only when they are united with the death of Christ. This is the meaning of Communion. We receive the body and blood of Christ who died and is risen, and the priest says for each of us, “The servant of God receives the body and blood of Christ for life everlasting.” The death of Jesus was totally unselfish, he did not do it for himself, but for us, to bring us life. On Pascha, then, we sing, “I was buried yesterday with you, O Christ, but today I rise, resurrected with you.” When we were baptized, and when we live out our baptism, we also live unselfishly for others, and so experience the Resurrection of Christ.
The most terrible thing is for human being to bring death to one another. It seems that the world cannot avoid war, bringing death into human society. Even if theology admits that a war may be fought for just cause, this kind of death is not life-giving nor salvific. By saying this, I do not mean to devalue the heroic deaths of individual soldiers fighting in conscience for their countrymen or to protect or defend their comrades, only that human deaths resulting from deliberate violence to another and mutual hostility are not a part of God’s ultimate plan. His death alone on the Cross brings life, and we must deliberately choose a death in the unselfish love of Jesus, as St. Paul wrote, “to live is Christ, and death is gain. (Philippians 1:21)” On Pascha, we are informed again that death and life are two sides of the one mystery and that death in Christ is life. Likewise, St. Paul wrote, “may i never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)” The Cross of our Lord is the ultimate triumph of love, a love that floods the world with light and life. The Cross of our Lord is a death of which humankind is no longer ashamed. Therefore, on Pascha, we can sing, “Yesterday I crucified myself with you (that is, in baptism), O Savior. Now glorify me with you in your kingdom.”