Memento Mori
Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:Contemplation for 22 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
- How by His Resurrection, He justified the faith and hope of mankind in immortality;
- How by His Resurrection, He destroyed the fear of death in the faithful.
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!
P
ERHAPS I SHOULD have saved yestreday's post for today's contemplation. It would seem equally useful today to be reminded again that "if Christ be not raised" then everything - our faith, our good works, our preaching - is in vain. One of my favorite writers and post-modern thinkers, Robert Anton Wilson, discusses the human brain in a number of his works. He general follows Dr Timothy Leary's models for understanding the human brain. Most all of Wilson's works have been somewhat of a revelation to me - not because they offered models that were more-right than what I had, but rather because they espoused agnosticism to the nth degree: given what we think we know about the human brain and it's ability to interpret it's environmental experiences, there's nothing - or nearly nothing - that we can say is exactly as we have experienced it. At best we can only say "I think I experienced such and such." Thus (nearly) everything comes with an unstated caveat: "In my experience this is so, your milage may vary, however."
Wilson's theories are, to be certain, a sort of post-modern psychology where nothing is true except the caveat that nothing is true. Still, Wilson lives an honest integrity in his agnosticism. Many moderns and post moderns scoff at the idea of the Resurrection of Jesus. Wilson's response, I think, would note that it's not part of his belief system but who knows? His agnosticism allows for oddities like Rising Rabbis and what he calls a Gaseous Vertebrate of Infinite Heft. (Which, truth be told, is the way most men conceive of God.)
Many who claim the name Christian fail, in our daily lives, to make that allowance.
St Nikolai reminds us that His Resurrection generally (to all people) "justified the faith and hope of mankind in immortality"; and also "destroyed the fear of death in the faithful" (specifically). Many people - Christians and otherwise - believe in immortality. But to us, the faithful, the Resurrection of Christ offers something else: a blatant biting of the thumb at death. Or, failing to communicate with the archaic body language, we may wish to use another finger.
Jesus tried to communicate to us over and over what life not-fearing death would look like: we could love our neighbours as we love ourselves. We could love God fully. We could not worry about bread. Not worry about clothing. We could not worry about evil done to us - but rather forgive. We could sell all we have and give to the poor. We could let the dead bury the dead. We could hunger and thirst after righteousness. We could be meek. We could resist not evil and turn the other cheek.
The Church Fathers, men who lived without the fear of death, show us the lived reality: speaking the Truth of Christ to emperors and guests, to strangers and the poorest of the poor; wildernesses dwelt in without food; water walked upon; passions destroyed and lives healed.
And I'm worried about inviting a coworker to Pascha liturgy?
There is a great gulf fixed between those who simply sing the paschal apolytikion and those who live it. The latter shall not die!
God save me from the fear of death!
