Dear Friends in Christ,
This month and next I am going to be commenting on the thoughts of a Greek Orthodox theologian in an attempt to delve deeply with you into the meaning of Easter. I want us to ask what the resurrection of Jesus as the Christ means for our lives in the world today. If we believe the spiritual message of Easter, this should have an effect on how we see ourselves today, how we understand our lives in the Spring of 2010. So read these words from theologian Gennadias Limouris:
Since God is the creator of all creation (cosmos), there is no sharp distinction
between the sacred and the profane, between the physical and the metaphysical.
Whatever was edifying was adopted. John of Damascus wrote, ‘Let us search
the wisdom of the profane. Perhaps we can find something useful from there,
and we may profit by finding therein something edifying for our souls.’ The
Fathers felt no need to divide history and art into secular and holy. According
to the historical Socrates [this is a different Socrates from the Greek philosopher],
‘The good, wherever it is, belongs to one Truth’ and this is confirmed by Basil
of Caesarea. The Fathers viewed history as a continuous linear process with
no disruption in the divine economy. They did not raise the question, ‘What has
Jerusalem to do with Athens?’ The God of history before Anno Domini is the same
as He of the Christian era. They emphasized the continuity of Christian culture
with the Greek past and the new culture. The epiphany of the Logos was simply
the apex of a long process in the plans and historical involvement of God who is
never absent from the world.
Limouris traces the importance of a creator-God for our understanding of the value of creation, earth, and history. Easter underscores this radical new idea of a God who is not apart from our bodily and historical lives, but the source and goal of them. If the First Article (the Creator-God) shows us our source, the Resurrection instructs us about our goal. God has made and destined us for resurrection. What is resurrected is not some spiritual aspect (the soul) in some never-never land of an afterlife. What is resurrected—brought back to real life—is our bodies. God made us for embodied life and Easter calls us to the perfection and completion of those lives. Easter forbids us to give up on history. Easter forbids us to see our bodily existence, even our finitude, as shameful or humiliating. We are created for these lives we have now. Easter asks us to cherish these lives and to bring them back to God in lives of love, hope, and faith.
Yours in Christ,
–Pastor Bastien
(We will continue with more insights into the meaning of Easter with Gemmadias Limouris next month.)
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