Paschal Meditation: Vicit agnus noster

Agnus Dei bas-relief, St. Euphrasius basilica, Croatia

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν,

θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας,

καὶ τοῖς ἐν τοῖς μνήμασι,

ζωὴν χαρισάμενος!

Christ is risen from the dead,

Trampling down death by death,

And upon those in the tombs

Bestowing life!

— Paschal troparion

“Death will be no more.”

— Rev. 21:4

Death will be no more, because our Lamb, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered” (Rev. 5:5).  He has “trampled down death by death,” and by his blood he has “redeemed for God, from every family, language, people and nation, a kingdom of priests to serve our God.”  Jesus, “the faithful and true witness (martyr),” has conquered by his obedience unto death, from which he was raised as “the firstborn of the dead” (3:14, 1:4).  “Do not be afraid,” he says, “I am the first and the last, and the living one.  I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (1:17b–18); “because I live, you also will live” (Jn. 14:19b).

Christ the Lamb has conquered death, but death has not yet been swallowed up forever (Isa. 25:7, 8; cf. 1 Cor. 15:54).  Death’s shadow is still spread over all the nations, and under it, tears stream down many faces; multitudes mourn and cry and suffer.  Thus it takes courage to wait for the salvation of the Lord (cf. Isa. 25:9), to maintain hope in the midst of devastation and violence.  Walking in the way of the Lord Jesus—who was hated by all who could not bear the blazing light of the truth—requires having the courage to become hated, and yet to love.  “In the world you face persecutions,” he told his disciples, “But take courage; I have conquered the world!” (Jn. 16:33).

Christ has conquered by emptying himself, by laying down his life for the world—in short, he has conquered by love.  Those who would follow him must follow him in love, must lay down their lives for the other.  For “we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” (1 Jn. 3:16).  

Such courageous love—the love of “patient endurance” (Rev. 1:9), love that conquers* hatred and fear and injustice, love that “overcomes evil with good” (Rom. 12:21)—is born of the gift of the conquering Lamb.  He himself pours this love “into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that was given to us,” so that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 5:5, 8:37).  Through the gift of the Spirit by which he conquered death, Christ the Lamb adorns his bride, the holy city (Rev. 21:2).  Adorned in love, she already sings to him from whom nothing can separate her, “I love you, O Lord, my strength.”†

* Cf. Rev. 21:7, 2:7, 11, 17, 26, 28, 3:5, 12, 21.

† Rom. 8:39, Ps. 18:1.  Cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei 14.28.

Paschal Meditation: Christ and Peter

Detail of miniature of Christ speaking to Peter,
"Arnstein Passional" (12th c.)

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.” — John 10:14–15

That bright morning by the Sea of Tiberias after the risen Lord had breakfasted with his disciples, he strengthened Simon son of John to be what he was called.  When Jesus had first looked at Simon son of John, he said to him, “‘You are to be called Cephas’ (Petros, Peter)” (Jn. 1:42).  He called him the rock (petra) who would prove unstable, who would be prostrated by denying “the stumbling stone” (Rom. 9:32).  Now again he calls Simon to come to him, the Living Stone, and to be built upon the Cornerstone, becoming, like him, a living stone (cf. 1 Pt. 2:4–5).  Jesus strengthened Simon son of John to become Peter.

That bright morning the Shepherd removed the shame of his sheep who had scattered; the one who was deserted comforted (com-fortis) the one who vainly promised never to desert him, “though all become deserters” (Mt. 26:33).  When Peter told Jesus, “I will lay down my life for you” (Jn. 13:37), he presumed to possess the strength of love necessary “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (15:13).  But his denials revealed the hollowness of his words, and he was deflated.  Now his Lord comes to build him up with love.  Three times Jesus gives Peter to declare his love for him, and three times he calls him to love “in truth and action” (1 Jn. 3:18) by feeding his flock.  In so doing, Jesus casts out the fear in which Peter had denied him, and leads him to the perfection of love.*  The Shepherd, who laid down his life for the sheep (10:15), strengthens Peter to follow him.

Because Jesus first loved him, Peter will lay down his life for him, glorifying God in his death.  As Augustine puts it, 

“Such was the end reached by that denier and lover (ille negator, et amator); elated by his presumption, prostrated by his denial, cleansed by his weeping, approved by his confession, crowned by his suffering, this was the end he reached, to die with a perfected love for the name of him with whom, by a perverted forwardness, he had promised to die. He would do, when strengthened by his resurrection, what in his weakness he promised prematurely. For the needful order was that Christ should first die for Peter’s salvation, and then that Peter should die for the preaching of Christ.”†

* 1 Jn. 4:18.  Cf. Augustine: “Let it be the office of love to feed the Lord’s flock, if it was the signal of fear to deny the Shepherd” (Io. ev. tr. 123.5).

† Augustine, Io. ev. tr. 123.4.

Detail of Apse Mosaic, Basilica San Clemente, Rome

Paschal Meditation: By the Sea of Tiberias

Detail of miniature, S. Netherlands, 15th c.

I

“Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach” (Jn. 21:4).  As the day dawns, “the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16, cf. 2 Pt. 1:19), the light who is not overcome by darkness, the risen Lord, stands on the shore.  He stood by the Sea of Tiberias, and they saw his glory, but they did not yet “see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2), as he will be revealed on that other shore of “the end of the age” (cf. Mt. 13:47–50).  It is not yet that Day when “there will be no more night,” but very early in the morning they glimpse the one who “will be their light” (Rev. 22:5).

II

By the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus says to the seven disciples, “Come and have breakfast” (Jn. 21:12).  They saw “a charcoal fire” with “fish on it, and bread,” provided by the Lord himself; to these he asks them to add some of the one hundred and fifty-three fish they had just caught at his word (21:9–10).  And as he did by the same sea before his resurrection (6:1–13), the risen Lord “took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish” (21:13).  He who said, “Whoever eats me will live because of me” (6:57), feeds the seven by the sea.  

III

The seven are fed by the risen Lord, “the Fish, which was raised from the deep to be the food” of the faithful.*  Jesus, “the bread that came down from heaven” (6:58), feeds them.  To what he himself provides, he adds the fish received as his gift.  He feeds them that they might “abide in him” and he in them (6:56).  As Augustine puts it, “The fish roasted is Christ having suffered; he himself also is the bread that comes down from heaven.  With him is incorporated the Church to participate in everlasting blessedness.”†  The breakfast on the beach is a foretaste of “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9).

* Augustine, Conf. 13.23.34.

† Augustine, Io. ev. tr. 123.2: “Piscis assus, Christus est passus. Ipse est et panis qui de coelo descendit. Huic incorporatur Ecclesia ad participandam beatitudinem sempiternam.”

On the Ustyug Annunciation

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, transferred from Holy Week.  To mark the day, here is a reflection on one of my favorite icons: the Ustyug Annunciation.

"Annunciation Ustyuzhskoe," Novgorod icon (12th c.), Tretyakov Gallery

“The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you’.” — Luke 1:26–28
Gabriel comes as the messenger of the one who says, “Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst” (Zech. 2:10).  Gabriel greets her within whose womb his Creator (and hers) comes to take on flesh.  In the icon, Gabriel’s hand is raised in blessing because he comes in “the fullness of time” to “a woman” (Gal. 4:4) who has “found favor with God” (Lk. 1:30), to the one who will become Mater mundi Salvatoris, Mother of the world’s Savior.*  Gabriel rejoices with all creation† in the one chosen in God’s “good pleasure” (Eph. 1:5, 9) to be the mother of the Son of God.

“Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word’.” — Luke 1:38
Like Abraham (Gen. 22:1), like David (Ps. 40:7), like her Son (Heb. 10:5–7), Mary’s response to the Lord is: “Here I am.”  She gives herself totally to the Lord.  In delighting to do the good pleasure of God’s will (Ps. 40:8; Eph. 1:5), she is made the mother of Christ, bearing him in her heart whom she will conceive in the flesh.‡  Thus, in the icon, she touches her heart, wherein dwells Christ, the King of Glory, who also makes her womb a throne.

In the icon, the Virgin Mary also holds scarlet thread in her hands.  The imagery comes from an apocryphal story in which Mary is chosen to spin scarlet and purple thread for the veil for the Temple.§  Apocryphal or not, it seems an appropriate symbol in the hands of her from whom “the Word became flesh and lived, tabernacled, among us” (Jn. 1:14).  Her flesh becomes “the temple of his body” (Jn. 2:21), and, in his face, shines forth with the glory of God (2 Cor 4:6).

Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, Alleluia. For the Lord has truly risen, Alleluia.    — Regina Coeli antiphon

* From Henryk Gorecki, Totus tuus Op. 60.
† From the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great:  “In you, O full of grace, all creation rejoices, the ranks of Angels and the human race: hallowed temple and spiritual Paradise, pride of virgins, from whom God was made flesh; and he, who is our God before the ages, became a little Child; for he made your womb a throne; and made it wider than the heavens. In you, O full of grace, all creation rejoices. Glory to you!”
‡ Augustine, De sancta virginitate 3.3
§ Protoevangelium of James 10.

Paschal Meditation: Mary and Thomas

"Do not hold on to me.” | “Reach out your hand and put it in my side." — John 20:17, 27

In the house, the risen Jesus came and stood among the disciples, spoke a word of peace, and told Thomas, “Reach out your hand and put it in my side” (Jn 20:27).  In the garden, Mary Magdalene saw the risen Jesus when she turned around, away from the tomb.  He spoke her name, drying her tears with his voice, and told her, “Do not hold on to me” (20:17).  Why does Jesus say, in effect, to Thomas, “Touch me,” but to Mary, “Touch me not”?

Noli me tangere, "The Queen Mary Psalter" (early 14th c.)

To Mary, Jesus explains, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”  He tells her not to cling to him, because he must be “taken away” (cf. 20:2, 13, 15) again.  (He had already been taken from her twice: once at his death, and again by being taken away from his tomb.)  She, who was standing near his cross and came weeping to his tomb, must not hold on to her Master, because he is going away.  He is going away, but she will hold on to him in faith.*  He is going away to prepare a place for her, and will come again and take her to himself, that where he is, there she may be also (14:2–3). 

But not her alone.  She will not take away for herself (20:15) “the faithful martyr” (Rev. 1:4), but she will be taken by him with all his own.  And not yet, not yet, because now Jesus sends her to bear witness to him (20:17).

Like her Lord, she is a faithful witness, telling the disciples what he told her (20:18). But they do not believe, until the Lord reveals himself to them (v. 20).  Likewise, Thomas, who still has not seen the risen Lord for himself, refuses to believe their testimony until he sees what they have seen—and going further—can even put his finger in the mark of the nails and his hand in the pierced side (v. 25).  (Is this a characteristic hyperbole from the disciple who brashly declared to the others, “Let us also go [with Jesus to Jerusalem], that we may die with him” (11:16), but was not with Jesus at his death?)

Doubting Thomas, Breviary, France (early 14th c.)

Jesus reveals himself to Thomas in the same way as to the other disciples: speaking peace (20:19, 26) and showing his wounds (vv. 20, 27).  The risen Lord even commands Thomas to do what he (Thomas) had demanded:  “Put your finger here...put [your hand] in my side” (v. 27).  And adds, “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”  Does the Lord, in humbly granting what Thomas asks, lead Thomas to the humility of faith?  For we do not read that Thomas put his hand in the Lord’s side; rather, amazed, he responds with a cry of faith, “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28)  Thomas’ answer is like that of Job after the Lord answered his demands out of the whirlwind (Job 40:60), and Job responded, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but not my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5–6).

“Touch me,” Jesus tells Thomas; “Touch me not,” he tells Mary.  But he speaks one word to both:  "You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit (Jn. 15:16).  Do what I command you (15:14).  Love one another as I have loved you (15:12).  Follow me (21:22)!"

* Cf. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 121.3.