In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen.

As I go across the country from place to place, I tend to draw attention to the greeting with which we greet each other : “Christ is risen. Indeed He is risen”. The farther we go into the Paschal season, the more unsure it sounds. I generally say we are too polite as Canadians to respond in a proper way, with some boldness, sense of enthusiasm, and assurance: “Indeed He is risen”. Sometimes when I say: “Christ is risen”, the response is very faint. In the end, I think, it is not just Canadian politeness, shyness, and backwardness about such things that is the problem.

The main problem for us is remembering in our hearts what is the implication of the Resurrection for me. Why is it so important for me? Because we are so burdened with cares, and distractions every day, there isn’t anyone of us who doesn’t suffer from trials, and tribulations in the course of our life. There is not one of us who doesn’t have difficulty with other persons from time to time, because there are people that someone can get along with, but I can’t. There is something about one person or another that does something [in “the heart”] – we don’t know what it is. If we look in our hearts long enough, and ask the Lord long enough, He will reveal what it is, and He will help us, correct, and heal us. But as long as this sort of irritation or whatever other sort of negative feelings are going on between me, and another person, and I don’t do anything about it, but just let it be, it’s just going to be, and that’s all there is to it.

We forget to ask the Lord, also: What’s the matter with me that I am reacting this way? What is there in my heart that has not healed, that I am reacting to such-and-such a person in this way? We forget to ask Him. We just live with it. And on top of all that, we very often don’t even pray for the person that is so inexplicably an irritation for us. So there are all these factors involved, and many others, in the difficulties of our daily lives. So-and-so doesn’t like me, and I don’t know why. This is very common. So-and-so doesn’t like me, and I feel that I am somehow worthless because so-and-so doesn’t like me. What matters is not if someone or other likes me; it is whether I love that person in my heart. That’s what matters. If someone doesn’t like me, that is the responsibility of the person who doesn’t like me. I can’t do anything about it if someone doesn’t like me, except I can pray for that person. I can guard my heart in the love of Jesus Christ, making sure that my heart does in fact respond warmly to the person who doesn’t like me for whatever reason that may be.

We have to be ready to take responsibility, ourselves, for all these situations, and not be immaturely dependant on the approval of, or the liking by someone else. We have to grow up in Christ, and understand that His love for me is unconditional. I have to learn how to love other people with the same unconditional love, and allow the Saviour, Himself, to look after the deficiencies of inter-human relationships. Human beings are specialists at being deficient in inter-human relationships.

The Lord, who is the Healer of everyone, straightens everything out, as He does with the Samaritan woman. In His short conversation with her, not only does He point out that she is living a misfocussed, and deceiving life, but that she is off the track in how she thinks she is so right in her worship. I have high regard for this woman, first, because she knows her Scriptures—the way she responds tells us that she knows her Scriptures; second, because her heart is open enough to see immediately what sort of Person is sitting before her, and talking with her. She immediately responds; she immediately says: “Sir, I see that You are a prophet”. He immediately begins to ask her burning questions, and straightens her out. Immediately, her heart responds with gladness, and she immediately shares her joy, and amazement with everyone around her. She says: “Come, and see the Person who told me everything I ever did!” She recognises WHO HE IS, the One giving her living water that wells up unto life everlasting.

She shares immediately, and such is her sharing, and such is the power of the sojourn for two days of the Saviour, and His disciples, that a significant response comes from those inhabitants who say to her (as it were): Now we really know. We have encountered Christ personally. Now we really know WHO HE IS. We don’t just depend upon your witness. We know for ourselves.

There is so much to say about all the words of this Gospel reading. Suffice it to say that St Photini allowed the Lord to turn her life about so much, that not only did she become a saint, but all sorts of her family became saints too, and martyrs, and so forth—strong witnesses for the love of Jesus Christ. Having encountered Him, they embraced Him, and lived in Him.

We, ourselves, after 2,000 years, are still participating in the same sort of experience as St Photini, and the people of Sychar in Samaria. When we are growing up as children, we come to know Who is Jesus Christ from our parents because they speak of Him, and live in a certain way. However, there comes a time in our life when our heart has its door opened, and the light goes on in our personal encounter with Jesus Christ. We, ourselves, like those Samaritans, come to the point where we say to our parents, and our friends, those people who bring us to Christ: Now I know. It’s not just intellectual any more; it’s not just a mental process that I understand in the mind that it is right what you say about Jesus Christ. In my heart I know. I have encountered Him, finally, in my heart, personally. I know Him. I love Him, myself, and my heart confirms everything you ever said about Jesus Christ. My heart confirms how you live, yourself, in the love of Jesus Christ. This is how we Christians grow up.

St Seraphim of Sarov, I consider to be one of the most mature Christians of all time, exactly because of how far this response went in his life. He submitted himself to the love of Jesus Christ in everything, and allowed Jesus Christ to remake him, and make him whole. The Saviour is the Saviour. He is the salvation of all because He makes us healthy. If you learned Latin in school (as most people don’t get to do any more, and it’s too bad because we have a deficient understanding of our English language because of that), if we had Latin in school, we would understand that “salvation” comes from the word that means “health”. It doesn’t just mean being rescued. It means “health”. So when we are in Christ, and we are talking about salvation, we are talking about being healthy, whole, one, undistorted, unbroken in His love, alive in His love.

Even though St Seraphim was battered, and beaten up by events in life, and all bent over, nevertheless he was whole. He was healthy. He said at the end of his life, every day of the year, and to everyone who encountered him: “Christ is risen, my joy”. He could say: “Christ is risen, my joy” to everyone around him because his assurance of the reality was so strong; his understanding of how important it is to remember the Resurrection every day of our life, was so intense. He understood how easy it is for every human being to get burdened down by everything, and to let the awareness of the importance that Christ is risen fall into the background of our perception of ourselves, and of everyday life. By God’s Grace, he was able to say: “Christ is risen, my joy” everyday to everyone he encountered. He said: “my joy”, because by that time in his life, no matter how broken every person might be that met him, that person was his joy in Jesus Christ. He could see, and with his whole heart understand that everyone that he met was a creature of Christ, and a reflection of Christ, even though the reflection might be dim.

That’s why St Seraphim is so important for us. That’s why it is important for us to remember his example, and to keep the Resurrection of Christ in the front of our minds, by God’s Grace, and mercy (not just for one day, and then we stop saying “Christ is risen” to each other afterward). God grant that our hearts be so full of the Resurrection life, and love of Jesus Christ, that we will, ourselves, be inclined to glorify Jesus Christ, saying: “Christ is risen” to people we meet at any time of the year. (If we say it too often, of course, they are likely going to say that we are putting on airs.) Still, we need to be reminded, all of us, through the course of the year, that Christ is risen – that He is truly risen. If we become so lax after only a few weeks of celebrating the Resurrection in the way we respond, how much more important is it for us, later in the year, sometimes to hear from a brother, or a sister, that reassuring, and strengthening greeting: “Christ is risen”.

Brothers, and sisters, it is a serious business to live the Christian life because everything around us is geared to drawing us away. Let us ask the Saviour to keep holding our hand, to keep holding onto our hearts, so that we will not be distracted, and fall away, but be faithful, like St Photini (Svetlana), and all her relatives, who are on our calendar. Along with many other holy families, of whom many ended up on our calendar as holy examples, let us ask the Lord to keep the fire of our love for Him burning all the time. Then when someone will say to us: “Christ is risen”, our hearts will not have to have some sort of pause of remembering, but instead instinctively, and immediately, and with fire, will answer: “Indeed, truly He is risen”. Let us ask the Lord to give us the strength to be faithful to Him every minute of every hour of every day, and glorify Him in our whole life always, and everywhere, together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America