Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
“If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18)
This is a verse taken from the Gospel we read from St. John on Holy Thursday evening, where our Lord is speaking about “the world”. “The world” is a term constantly referred to in Holy Scripture, and also constantly spoken about by the Saints and theologians, and priests during their homilies. It doesn’t always refer to God’s glorious and beautiful creation like we hear in Genesis. In many places, like in the excerpt I just read, it refers to anything that is in rebellion against God.
Jesus often taught and spoke about how we are to be “not of the world”. All of us are called to be different. We are called to think different, to act different, and to be transformed from what “the world” would normally expect. Being different…living in the world but not “of the world”…this is the way of a true Christian.
There is a very wonderful quote from St. Philaret of Moscow who uses the example of a fish swimming up-river as an image of the struggles that Christians have in the midst of an increasingly sin filled world. He says:
“A fish that is alive, always swims against the flow of water…while one that is dead, floats in the water and is carried downstream. A true Christian is one that goes against the current of a sinful age. A false one, is one that is swept away by its swiftness.”
During the three years of our Lord’s public ministry in the midst of the “world”, how many times did He do or say things contrary to “worldly thinking”?...telling people to swim upstream against the world’s current? In a few weeks we remember St. Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well. The disciples will ask Jesus:
“Why are you talking to this samaritan woman who is a sinner?”
“Why Lord, are you letting the kids surround you?”
“Why do you eat with tax collectors and harlots?”
“Why do you forgive sins when only God can do that?
“Why are you washing our feet?”
“You mean I have to forgive those who hurt me?”
“Wait, you are going to Jerusalem to die? Are you crazy?”
“Why don’t you answer the charges put against you?”
Our Lord taught us through each of these examples, and so many more, how we are meant to live, think, and act differently than what is expected in “the world”.
What better example do we have than the women who are presented by the Church 2 weeks after Pascha, in the Holy Myrrhbearers. The Theotokos, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Cleopas, Joanna, Salome, Mary and Martha…these women could care less about “worldly thinking”. They had no fear whatsoever of what society might think of them. They followed and ministered to Jesus from the very beginning! They showed no fear to stand at the foot of the cross and show their love and devotion to Christ. They showed no fear of going in the dark to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus.
The Holy Myrrhbearers were different. They had an unwavering dedication to Christ…and they were rewarded for it. Did God bestow the greatest news the entire universe had ever known to the disciples first? No! They ran, scattered, and hid behind closed doors for fear of the Jews…for fear of “the World!”
Yet for those who fearlessly followed after Christ with all of their heart, upon them was bestowed the blessing to hear those three sweet words that will continue to strengthen us for the rest of our lives: “Christ is Risen”.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ…Be different. The winds of change in “the world”, even in our own country, are constantly howling. Right will become wrongs, and wrongs will be made right. St. Anthony the Great once said: “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying: ‘You are mad; you are not like us.”
Let those prophetic words of St. Anthony reign true in our own lives dear ones. Let the fallen world say: “You are not like us”…as we take our examples from the Myrrhbearers, From St. Joseph of Arimathea, from St. Nicodemus, and all of the Saints who came after them, and be different…living our lives not “of this world”…but rather in accordance with Christ, who has conquered “the world”