Christ is risen.
We have reached this day after our long journey with Jesus, where we discover on this day that what we have been seeking was not far from us, and what we want is within our hands. And after this journey full of questions, expressions, sighs, and supplications, we stand asking ourselves: What am I searching for? And what have I come to seek?
Some search for authority, others for success, others run after fame, and others for security. Some believe they have found what they sought when they believe and perform religious duties that give reassurance, so they fast as a duty. Some search for the forgiveness of sins, and some search for a lost pearl. Each of us searches for something he tries to find. And however the attempts differ, there remains within man a deep thirst that nothing quenches: it is a yearning for the true homeland, and this homeland is the pearl that each of us searches for, and this homeland is the Father.
Since Abraham, when God called him saying ‘come, and I will show you,’ Abraham went out after the word of God searching for the land of promise. And when God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt, He did not bring them out from a land to a land, nor from one geography to another, as they supposed; rather, their homeland accompanied them for forty years, but they supposed that the land God promised them is a geography, and this geography is a land in the east. The land that flows with milk and honey, and the new homeland that all searched for and did not find, is the Father. Saint Augustine says: ” You have made us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” This divine longing that Saint Augustine utters is, in truth, the reason that makes man follow Jesus, because Jesus Himself is the way and the life. The ancient people searched for a land, and we search for the Person who is this new homeland.
In the Old Testament, the concept of homeland was tied to a land in which the people dwell, but the ancient people did not find rest in their land, and it was not a true abode, but rather a place of conflict, occupation, and disputes, and in the end they lost it and were displaced from it. The land goes and is lost, and may be occupied and abandoned. The ancient people wasted their life searching for a land and the geography of promise, and lost everything in the end, because they lost the way. But today Jesus leads us so that our exodus is not from one place to another, but from a place to an embrace, from a place to a Person, from the face of the earth to the face of God.
Many see Christianity as a religion among religions, or an ideal ethical model, or supreme human values, or a religion that surpasses the rest of religions by its commandments and what is new in it. All this is human talk. Whoever sees Christianity in any of these models still lives far from the face of Jesus. For Christianity is the realm in which we search for our final abode, where God becomes that place that my journey reaches and in which I settle. Christianity is not a set of laws for us to walk by, but a Person we walk with; and it is not a goal we reach, but an experience through which we know that we have truly arrived.
All of us will remain in perpetual search for this homeland, and we may lose the way as the ancient people lost it, who believed that God wanted to give them a land to dwell in, whereas God wanted to make of Himself the homeland of the new man. Therefore Saint Basil the Great says: ” Do not search for God outside yourself, but prepare for yourself an inner homeland worthy for the King of glory to dwell in.”
How does the Father become this homeland? When I understand that Jesus is the Bridegroom, He is my Bridegroom, whom my soul longs for and yearns after; when I ask that He live in me and realize what the Apostle Paul said: it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; when the lover says to his beloved, ‘I die in you’? This word, however illogical it may be, carries in its depth an existential significance: I want to come to an end in you, and for you to become my final dwelling, where I dwell in your depths. And this, in truth, is what the saints achieved. The troparion of the women martyrs says: ” Your ewe lamb, O Jesus, cries out with great fear, saying: Your ewe lamb, O Jesus, cries out to You with a loud voice, saying: O my Bridegroom, I long for You, and I strive seeking You; and I am crucified and buried with You in Your baptism, and I suffer for Your sake so that I may reign with You, and I die for You so that I may live in You. But as a spotless sacrifice, accept her who has been slain for You out of longing.” This reminds us of the Song of Songs, when the lover cries out in it: ” I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (3:6).
Our entire past journey, from the Sunday of Orthodoxy to today, was the entry with Jesus step by step into this homeland. We did not come to become diligent disciples, or philosophers, or intelligent people, but that He might lead us to the face of the Father, to return us to the Father whom we lost by our sin. Saint Ignatius of Antioch says: ” There is not within me a fire that loves matter, but living water flowing within me, saying: come to the Father.”
Today, in this Pascha, rejoice and be glad, for Christ is risen, and we have found our way. Whoever has arrived, let him rejoice, for he has obtained his heart’s desire; and whoever is still on the way, let him rejoice, for he will arrive after a while; and whoever has not known the way, let him rejoice, for behold, he knows the way now. Rejoice, however you are; rejoice, for Christ is risen and behold, He leads us to the face of the Father. Christ is risen and has become our Bridegroom. Christ is risen, and the Father has returned as our homeland.