The Resurrection as Reintroduction: Rowan Williams on Icons of the Resurrection of Christ

Fresco of the Anastasis ("resurrection"), Chora Church (14th c., Constantinople)

Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.

The classic icons of the Resurrection depict the Lord Jesus’ descent among the dead. In the icon, Christ stands astride the shattered gates of Sheol, surrounded by a mandorla that figures the depths of the divine life,   He grasps Adam and Eve by the hand, while other characters from the history of Israel—David and Solomon, Moses and Samuel—look on.  

In a rich meditation on the icons of the Resurrection, Rowan Williams suggests that they show “the effect of God’s action on human history up to that point, and, implicitly, the effect of God’s action on all history.” [1]  The icon dramatically depicts Christ’s liberation of human beings from the place of bondage and division into the peace of God.  “We are compulsive dividers, separators, and in these divisions we deny ourselves the life God is eager to give,” but Christ is “the one who bridged all these divisions.” [2]

The icons of the Resurrections, Williams suggests, fit with the theological vision of the great seventh-century Christian thinker, Maximus the Confessor, who “speaks of how every one of the great separations human beings have got used to is overcome in the person and the action and the suffering of Jesus”:

“The divide between man and woman, between paradise before the fall and the earth as we now know it, between heaven and earth, between the mind’s knowledge and the body’s experience, between creature and creator—all are overcome in the renewed humanity that Christ creates.” [3]  

So in the icons where we see Christ reaching out to both Adam and Eve, “it is as if he is reintroducing them to each other after the ages of alienation and bitterness that began with the recriminations of Genesis.  The resurrection is a moment in which human beings are reintroduced to each other across the gulf of mutual resentment and blame; a new human community becomes possible.” [4]  Christ stretches out his arms of love across all our divisions and gathers us into one new humanity, for “he is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). 

If the resurrection is “an introduction”, it is so “because the resurrection of Jesus brings us into friendship with the divine life itself”:

“It is because the uttermost of death and humiliation cannot break the bond between Jesus and the Father that what Jesus touches is touched by the Father too.  As he grasps Adam and Eve, so does the Father; as he draws together the immeasurable past with all its failures and injuries, it is the Father to whom he draws it.  Because of his relation with the Father , a new relation is made possible between ourselves and this final wellspring of divine life.  The Christ of this icon, standing on the bridge over darkness and emptiness, moving into the heart of human longing and incompletion, brings into that place the mystery out of which is life streams.” [5]

Thanks be to God, for “Christ’s love has gathered us into one,” congregavit nos in unum Christi amor. [6]

[1] Rowan Williams, The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ (Eerdmans, 2003), p. 24.

[2] Ibid., p. 30.

[3] Ibid., pp. 30-31.

[4] Ibid., p. 31.

[5] Ibid., p. 40, 41.

[6] From the antiphon “Ubi caritas."

Kirill and Mefodii

By Audra Yoder

Mural painting of Cyril & Methodius by Zahari Zograf (1810–1853)
[Troyan Monastery, Bulgaria]

I. A Tale of Four Empires

Central and southeastern Europe in the ninth century was a convoluted mess. (Actually, I have difficulty recalling a period when southeastern Europe wasn’t hopelessly confusing. To me, it still is.)

Anyway, the Byzantine Empire was in the middle of a resurgence under the Macedonian dynasty. Its emperors were able politicians for once, arts and culture were flourishing after the iconoclastic controversy had died down, and the empire was in the process of winning back lands it had lost to Muslim Arab incursions.

Meanwhile, north of Byzantium, and taking up rather more territory, the Khazar kaganate was at its zenith. The Khazars controlled the most powerful steppe empire of the period, and ran one of the most successful trading conglomerates in the medieval world. The Khazars were a Turkic people; interestingly, pretty much all their high leadership converted to Ashkenazy Judaism at the beginning of the ninth century, and following this, the kaganate became one of the earliest states to practice religious toleration: under their leadership, Christians, Muslims, and Jews all lived together in peace.

Meanwhile, further north still, an amorphous mass of East Slavic tribes was in the process of transforming itself into something that would ultimately become Russia. The semi-legendary Norse princeling Rurik settled in Novgorod in 862, and the Rurikid dynasty he founded would rule Rus′, and later Muscovy, until the early seventeenth century. [1] Rurik’s descendant prince Oleg would seize Kiev in 878, and open up the Black Sea for East Slavic trade.

Meanwhile, in Central Europe, the West Slavic state of Great Moravia was in full swing. Under rulers Rastislav and Svatopulk I, Moravia achieved its greatest geographic size in the ninth century, controlling Bohemian, Hungarian, Polish, and Czech territories. This little empire was busily trying to disentangle itself from the more powerful Germanic and Frankish kings to its west.

Back in Byzantium, or more specifically, in the Greek city of Thessalonica, two brothers, Constantine and Michael, lost their father when Constantine was only fourteen. The boys came under the protection of a powerful Byzantine official, who provided them with a first-rate education.

Constantine, who would take the name Cyril upon becoming a monk, was ordained to the priesthood after he completed his education, and because of his knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic, was sent over to debate the concept of the Trinity with Muslim theologians. He became the unofficial head of Byzantine interfaith relations, engaging in fierce polemics with the Jewish aristocracy of the Khazar kaganate. Cyril even traveled to Khazaria in an attempt to stop the spread of Judaism there, but his mission failed, and the kagan subsequently imposed that religion on the entire population.

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On the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple

Miniature of the Presentation, "Menologion of Basil II" (Constantinople, 10th-11th c.) [Vatican Library, MS Vat.gr. 1613]

"When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons'." —Luke 2:22–24

I

Today is the feast commemorating the presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple and the purification of his mother, described in Luke 2:22–39 as taking place forty days after his birth in accordance with the Law (cf. Lev. 12:1–4).  Known in the west as either the Presentation of the Lord or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the feast is one of the oldest in the church, observed locally in Jerusalem from early in the fourth century.  Originally observed on February 14, the feast is now universally kept on February 2.  In the west, the feast has been commonly known as “Candlemas” owing to the distinctive western rite of a procession with blessed and lighted candles into the church, a tradition which likely dates to the pontificate of Pope Sergius (687–701).  In the east, the feast is one of the Twelve Great Feasts and is called “The Meeting” (hypapante) because it commemorates our Lord’s meeting with Simeon “the God-Receiver” (Theodochos) and the prophetess Anna.

II

“[Christ’s] wish was to save us all completely and for our sake he bowed the heavens and came down.  When by his deeds, words and sufferings he had pointed out the ways of salvation, he went up to heaven again, drawing after him those who trusted in him.  His aim was to grant perfect redemption not just to the nature which he had assumed from us in inseparable union, but to each one of those who believed in him.  This he has done and continues to do, reconciling each of us through himself to the Father, bringing each one back to obedience and thoroughly healing our disobedience.

Detail of icon of the Presentation (Novgorod, 15th c.)

     “[…] Christ renewed the human nature he took from us and by what he did and suffered in his person united with our nature, he revealed it as sanctified, justified and completely obedient to the Father.  Among the things he did and suffered are the events we celebrate today, when he went up, or was taken up, to the ancient Temple for purification, was met by the God-bearing Simeon, and was proclaimed by Anna, who spent her whole life attending to the Temple.

     “After the Savior was born of the Virgin and circumcised on the eighth day according to the law, then, as Luke the evangelist says, ‘when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord’ (Luke 2:22).  He is circumcised according to the law, brought to Jerusalem according to the law, presented to the Lord as it is written in the law and a sacrifice is offered as the law demands.

     “Notice that the Creator and Lord of the law is completely obedient to the law. What does he achieve by this?  He makes our nature obedient in all things to the Father, he completely heals us of its disobedience and transforms the curse on it into a blessing.  As all human nature was in Adam, so it is in Christ.  All who received their being from the earthly Adam have returned to the earth and been brought down, alas, to Hades.  But, according to the Apostle, through the heavenly Adam we have all been called up to heaven and made worthy of its glory and grace. Secretly for the present, for it says ‘your life is hid with Christ in God.’  But, ‘when Christ shall appear,’ at his second manifestation and coming, 'then shall ye all appear with him in glory' (Col. 3:3). What does it mean by ‘all’? All those who have received the adoption of sons in Christ by the Spirit, and have proved by their deeds that they are his spiritual children.”

— St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), from a homily given on the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, between 1347 and 1359, in Thessalonica.*

* English translation: Homily 5.2–5 in Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies, ed. Christopher Veniamin (Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009).

Setting the Lord's Table: Reflections on Altar Guild Ministry

Detail of miniature of the Marriage of the Lamb, "Dyson Perrins Apocalypse"
(England, 13th c.) [J. Paul Getty Museum]

by Audra Yoder

I

Feasts hosted by lords or kings in medieval England were occasions of great pomp and ceremony. Elaborate rituals governed every aspect of the decking of a great feudal hall. The rites of preparation began in the morning with the laying of the tablecloth, and culminated in the evening with the ceremonial uncovering of the lord’s bread and utensils in preparation for eating.

The retainers charged with the task of laying the tablecloth had the highest honor. While the hall was being prepared, these retainers—known collectively as the “affinity” of their lord—were required and expected to behave as though they were in the presence of the lord himself. They were to bow, to avoid turning their backs to the high table, and to observe every detail of etiquette even in their master’s absence. In ceremonial practice, the presence of the lord’s table was equivalent to the presence of the lord himself.

In the same way, altar guilds are charged with assuming the Lord’s presence as they handle his dishes and table linens. As a generous host delights both in the anticipation of beloved guests and in their presence, altar guild members solemnly rejoice in the preparation of the Table, knowing that its Guest and Head is already present. When we approach Christ’s Table, we approach Christ himself. The technicalities of our Eucharistic theology ought not to affect how we behave in the Lord’s presence.

There is a unique joy in altar guild ministry, because it affords the opportunity of serving Christ, the clergy, and fellow parishioners on different levels simultaneously. In a lower sense than the Sacrament itself, altar guild service brings into being that which it represents—the communal Supper of the Lamb. Truly, those with whom we Commune are our companions in the highest sense—the word “companion” means literally “one who breaks bread with another.” In the Eucharist, Christ is simultaneously the Host, the Guest of honor, and the Meal itself. Like the medieval host, he shares his bread with his companions in order to communicate and realize two essential truths: that he is the provider of the food, and the one who elevates his companions by sharing his bread, and by extension his life, with them.

II

In 1939, a German sociologist named Norbert Elias published a massive work that would later be translated into English as The Civilizing Process. Elias attempted to trace the evolution of modern manners and thereby to articulate what exactly differentiated the “civilized” from the “uncivilized” in the European mind. Like any good scholar, Elias avoided placing value judgments on changes wrought by centuries-long historical processes. Still, it seems to me that some of his arguments point to what our contemporary society has to gain by communing together at the Eucharist:

“People who ate together in the way customary in the Middle Ages, taking meat with their fingers from the same dish, wine from the same goblet, soup from the same pot or the same plate…such people stood in a different relationship to one another than we do. And this involves not only the level of clear, rational consciousness; their emotional life also had a different structure and character. Their affects were conditioned to forms of relationship and conduct which, by today’s standard of conditioning, are embarrassing or at least unattractive. What was lacking in this courtois world, or at least had not been developed to the same degree, was the invisible wall of affects which seems now to rise between one human body and another, repelling and separating, the wall which is often perceptible today at the mere approach of something that has been in contact with the mouth or hands of someone else, and which manifests itself as embarrassment at the mere sight of many bodily functions of others, and often at their mere mention, or as a feeling of shame when one’s own functions are exposed to the gaze of others, and by no means only then.” [1]

A great deal has been written on the multitude of ways in which the Eucharist breaks down barriers between people, and between people and God. I am expressing no new insight when I say that the Eucharist both transcends and transforms human cultures, overcoming prejudices and divisions wrought by sin and uniting people to each other and to God. Just as Christ’s Incarnation shattered the barrier between human flesh and Divinity, the Eucharist feeds and unites us physically and spiritually, nourishing our whole selves, our souls, bodies, and relationships.


[1] Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, vol. 1, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 60. I hope readers can forgive me for taking Elias’ words out of context and using them in a way he certainly did not intend. The entire work is a most thought-provoking and interesting read, and remains very influential, although sociologists and historians today object to his arguments and methodology.

Notes on the Epiphany

Adoration of the Magi, "Leiden Saint Louis Psalter,"
(England, 12th c.) [Leiden University Library]

“‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?  For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage’.” — Matthew 2:2

I

Observing the star of the one born “king of the Jews,” magi come to pay him homage.  Led by “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars,” [1] they come to pay homage to the star come out of Jacob (cf. Num 24:17).  These stargazing Gentiles, these wise men from the land of the sunrise, come to give gifts to the newborn king of Israel.  

They come to Jerusalem in the time of Herod, Rome’s client king in Judea. [2]  Herod, whose brutality evinced his insecurity, is troubled to learn of their search for “the one born king of the Jews.”  And with Herod, “all Jerusalem” is in turmoil, much as the city will later be when her king comes to her, fully grown, “and mounted on a donkey” (Mt 2:3; cf. Mt 21:10).  Herod shrewdly gathers the chief priests and scribes to take counsel “against the Lord, and against his Anointed” (Ps 2:2), using the Scriptures and the strangers in his effort to find the child and to destroy this new threat to his power.  Desperate to maintain an always slipping grip on power, Herod seeks vainly to destroy the newborn Messiah, who “shall live as long as the sun and moon endure” (Ps 72:5).

Upon setting out from Jerusalem, the wise men see again “the star that they had seen at its rising” now “stopped over the place where the child was” (Mt 2:9).  Having found the child “with the help of the Scriptures,” [3] they rejoice with a great joy (v. 10).  The wise men are overjoyed because they have been led beyond their ken to the Truth in person, to the Christ, “the desire of all nations” (Hag 2:7). [4]  Joyfully, they kneel down and pay homage to the child.  In their gifts and their obeisance, the magi anticipate the day when

          All kings shall bow down before him,

              and all the nations do him service. (Ps 72:11)

          They shall bring gold and frankincense,

               and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. (Isa 60:6)

Yet the wise men, like Balaam—that soothsayer from the East who said of the star to come out of Jacob, “I see him, but not now” (Num 24:17)—catch only a glimpse of the coming King.  They “see (but not now) the one whose kingship would not be visible historically until he had hung on the cross beneath the title The King of the Jews and would not be communicable until he had been elevated to God’s right hand through the resurrection.” [5]  The light of the resurrection will reveal Jesus of Nazareth to be “the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Mt. 1:10).

II

Detail of Miniature of the Adoration of the Magi
(England, early 13th c.) [British Library]

“Mary’s virginity was hidden from the prince of this world; so was her child-bearing, and so was the death of the Lord.  All these three trumpet-tongued secrets were brought to pass in the deep silence of God.  How then were they made known to the world?  Up in the heavens a star gleamed out, more brilliant than all the rest; no words could describe its lustre, and the strangeness of it left men bewildered.  The other stars and the sun and moon gathered round it in chorus, but this star outshone them all.  Great was the ensuing perplexity; where could this newcomer have come from, so unlike its fellows? […] The age-old empire of evil was overthrown, for God was now appearing in human form to bring in a new order, even life without end.  Now that which had been perfected in the Divine counsels began its work; and all creation was thrown into a ferment over this plan for the utter destruction of death.”

— Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 19 [6]

III

“…were we led all that way for

Birth or Death?  There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt.  I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.”

— T.S. Eliot, from “Journey of the Magi”

[1] Dante, Paradiso, 33.145.

[2] Cf. Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Brazos, 2007), p. 38: “Jesus is born into time, threatening the time of Herod and Rome.”

[3] Raymond E. Brown, “Magi and the Star,” in An Adult Christ at Christmas: Essays on the Three Biblical Christmas Stories–Matthew 2 and Luke 2 (Liturgical Press, 1978), p. 14.

[4] Cf. Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives (Image, 2012), p. 97:  “...the wise men from the east are a new beginning.  They represent the journeying of humanity toward Christ.  They initiate a procession that continues throughout history.  Not only do they represent the people who have found the way to Christ: the represent the inner aspiration of the human spirit, the dynamism of religions and human reason toward him.”

[5] Brown, op. cit., p. 14.

[6] English translation from Andrew Louth, ed., The Apostolic Fathers: Early Christian Writings (Penguin, 1987).