Excerpt from a Paschal Sermon

excerpts from a Paschal sermon by St. Justin Popovich 

Man sentenced God to death; by His Resurrection, He sentenced man to immortality. In return for a beating, he gave an embrace; for abuse, a blessing; for death, immortality. Man never showed so much hate for God as when he crucified Him; and God never showed more love for man than when He arose. Man even wanted to reduce God to a mortal, but God by His Resurrection made man immortal. The crucified God is Risen and has trampled death. Death is no more. Immortality has surrounded man and all the world.

…When man lives by faith in the Risen God-Man, he lives above death, out of its reach; it is a footstool for his feet: “O Death, where is Thy sting! O Hades, where is thy victory?” When a man belonging to Christ dies, he simply sets aside his body like clothing, in which he will again be vested on the day of dread Judgment.

Before the Resurrection of the God-Man, death was the second nature of man: life first, death second. Man grew accustomed to death as to something natural. But by His Resurrection, the Lord has changed everything: immortality has become the second nature of man, it has become natural for man; and death - unnatural. As before the Resurrection of Christ, it was natural for men to be mortal, so after the Resurrection of Christ, it has become natural for men to be immortal.

Conquering sin in himself through Christ, man overcomes death. If you have lived the day without vanquishing a single sin of yours, know that you have become deadened. Vanquish one, two or three of your sins, and behold, you have become younger than the youth which does not age, younger in immortality and eternity. Never forget that to believe in the Resurrection of the Lord Christ means to carry out a continuous fight with sins, with evil, with death.

If a man fights with sins and passions, this demonstrates that he indeed believes in the Risen Lord; if he fights with them, he fights for life eternal. If he does not fight, his faith is in vain. If a man’s faith is not a fight for immortality and eternity, then tell me, what is it? If faith in Christ does not bring us to resurrection and life eternal, then what use is it to us? If Christ is not risen, that means that neither sin nor death has been vanquished. If neither sin nor death has been vanquished, then why believe in Christ? For the one who by faith in the Risen Lord fights with each of his sins there will be affirmed in him gradually the feeling that Christ is indeed risen, has indeed vanquished the sting of sin, has indeed vanquished death on all the fronts of combat.

…If a man does not feel immortality in himself, know that he is in sins, in bad thoughts, in languid feelings. 

…In our human world, death is the greatest torment and inhumane horror. Freedom from this torment and horror is salvation. Such a salvation was given the race of man by the Vanquisher of death-the Risen God-Man. He related to us all the mystery of salvation by His Resurrection. To be saved means to assure our body and soul of immortality and life eternal. How do we attain this? By no other way than by a Theanthropic life, a new life, a life in the Risen Lord, in and by the Lord’s Resurrection.

For us Christians, our life on earth is a school in which we learn how to assure ourselves of resurrection and life eternal. For what use is this life if we cannot acquire by it life eternal? But, in order to be resurrected with the Lord Christ, man must first suffer with Him, and live His life as his own. If he does  that, then on Pascha he can say with St. Gregory the Theologian: “YESTERDAY I WAS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM, TODAY I LIVE WITH HIM; YESTERDAY I WAS BURIED WITH HIM, TODAY I RISE WITH HIM.”