Christ is Risen!
Only three words, but oh! how sweet, how meaningful, how triumphant! For forty days we will use this greeting when meeting with friends, acquaintances and communicants of the Orthodox Faith. In these words we find the whole meaning and basis of the Christian Faith, for if the Lord has not risen, as St. Paul states, our Faith is in vain!
Pascha, however, means so much more if one has prepared for this Triumph of Triumphs. Those who have fasted and prayed, those who have communed at the Presanctified Liturgies and on the Sundays of the Great Lent, those who have stood in rapturous vigil at the many special Lenten Services, will have understood the meaning of our Lord’s life, death and resurrection, for they have actualized these events at the liturgical services of the Church. Those who have been in the procession at Christ’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, those who witnessed His Passions of Holy Week, His Death and Lamentations on Good Friday, His entrance into Hades on Holy Saturday, now can truly proclaim that He is truly Risen, for they have traversed the road to Golgatha to this Feast of Feasts.
With His Death, we have died! But with His Resurrection, we also rise! May He who gives life to those in the tombs, come into your life and give you that Life that knows no evening, nor death, but eternal life; for this is the Triumph we celebrate.
Indeed, He is risen!
Very Reverend Boris Geeza
Dean, Holy Trinity Cathedral
Pascha 1978