The Lenten fast can be a struggle and at times difficult to maintain.  Fortunately, the Church provides many opportunities to help us keep focused upon our spiritual duties.  From the Sunday preceding Lent, when we sincerely beg forgiveness of God and our neighbor, to Lazarus Saturday, where we glimpse a man being resurrected four days after his death, our perception of time seems to vanish and is replaced by a sense of timelessness.  St Gregory of Palamas reminds us of our need to bear down as we approach Holy Pascha, so that we may reap the benefits of our Lenten struggle.

The cleansing of our sins and the hope of the reintegration of own lives into the energy of Jesus Christ are sentiments we all share during the Lenten Cycle.  Holy Week intensifies the struggles of Great Lent.  Services (day and night), fasting, and often not eating or drinking until sunset, push us to our physical limits.  Mentally, we become fatigued and at times even impatient.  Like a woman going through the birthing of a child, we feel constrained, cramped, and in pain.  Yet, the hunger to know and experience the Resurrection of Christ grows in our soul.  As Christians, we yearn to hear the priest cry out, “Christ is Risen!”  And the responding cry, “In truth He is Risen!” whispers in our minds, as we anticipate it echoing throughout the Temple.  

At first, we feel it only in our souls, but suddenly as with a burst of lightening, our bodies respond as well.  Fatigue seems to vanish with the peeling of the bells, hunger is abated, and we find ourselves basking in the Divine Light of the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Repeatedly, and in many languages we hear: Christ is Risen!  Indeed, He is Risen!  Khristos voskrese; Voistinu voskrese! Christos Anesti; Alithos Anesti!  Christos a Inviat; Adevarat a Inviat!

For each person of the world who has ears to hear and a heart ready to proclaim, “Christ is Risen, In truth He is Risen!” the cry becomes a healing balm to body, soul and spirit.  For seven days, the doors of the Sanctuary remain open and the faithful are blessed to dwell in Paradise.  For seven days, we feast and celebrate Holy Pascha.  So formal and providential is this time, that the Priest fully vests for each service in the week, and the bells are rung in celebration.  This is the time when every Christian is blessed to bask in the radiance of the Resurrection.

            On Holy Pascha, one sermon is repeated year-after-year, in all Orthodox Churches throughout the world.  It was given by St John Chrysostom in the Fourth Century, and as a part of this sermon we are reminded of the freedom that Christ brings:  “If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward.  If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast.  If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings, because he shall in nowise be deprived thereof.  If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing.  If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him also be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord, who is jealous of His honor, will accept the last even as the first; He gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has wrought from the first hour.”

It is the Resurrection that matters most for the Christian, because God has shown us that He has conquered death, and that by His victory we too can triumph over death.  We read the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians, “O, death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  [I Cor 15: 55-57].
 
By Resurrecting from the death of the flesh, Jesus Christ has shown us that we have a part with Him in eternity.  We must regard this Pascha of 2008 as if it were our last in this world.  And every year henceforward we must do the same.  Let us look upon our brothers and sisters and rejoice that we have this opportunity to proclaim, once again, that Christ is Risen!