“HOLY WEEK: HOW TO CONQUER DEATH”
Orthodox Christians strive for nothing less than to overcome death—to conquer it, to obliterate it— the same way our Lord Himself did when He rose on the 3rd day. But conquering death means two things: The first is to defeat the presence of the inner death during this “age,” which is the death of the heart or “spiritual death”; the second is to become a “new creation” by reversing the effects of “biological” death when our Lord comes in glory at the end of time. For here death, at last, dies once and for all, and the righteous achieve an eternal life that is not so much an unending “ linearity” (time without end) but a participation in God’s eternal Being through the gift of grace. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:25).
Life in the Church is therefore all about defeating the death that has taken hold of us on account of original (“primordial”) sin. The Lord created the human race to live forever, so that we might be continually growing in grace “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). Yet because sin has infected our lives, death holds us in its grip. Death, then, gives birth to sin—that is, to its incentive and inception; and once sin has fully grown, sin gives birth to even more death.
Thus, we are all caught in a vicious cycle of “sin, death, more sin, and more death…” that we are unable to overcome. As a matter of fact, many are so deep down “into the hole” that they no longer even know that anything other than the darkness surrounding them. This was the point, even before the coming of Christ, of Plato’s story about humans stuck in their “cave.” What remains is the darkness of boredom, banality, and absurdity: the empty husks that are the remnants of human beings who have chased after their passions for the whole of their existence. This is the “living death,” the death of the inner man, the demise of the human heart, and a foretaste of the self-enclosed hell that will be for eternity.
Spiritual death happens not in an instant. It is a downward sliding, a creeping deterioration of the human person. Bit by bit, unbelief grows. The heart grows calloused and dull; it writhes and withers, and the breath of God’s Holy Spirit is extinguished. But since “nature abhors a vacuum,” and in the absence of the Holy Spirit, other spirits come to dwell. But these spirits are maligning and abusive. Blow after blow, they bruise the mind and heart to such a point that one is left semi-conscious, “half dead” like the man beaten by thieves on the side of the road in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The passions of the flesh—lust, greed, gluttony, lethargy, and listlessness (godless despair)—numb the soul.The presence of prolonged anger and resentment poisons the heart. Over time, these things add up to what St Paul calls “life in the flesh” and “the carnal man”—a living death, or more accurately, a lifeless life.
Every Christian begins his journey of faith at the point of such absolute carnality. But with God’s help, the experience of inner death caused by the passions begins to be undone. A miraculous extrication begins. Day by day, the believer learns how to encounter temptation with prayer, and through prayer to pass through temptations’ fire. Tripping and stumbling are inevitable. But with repeated repentance, and with frequent confession and Holy Communion, believers mortify their sins: they “put to death” their deeply rooted passions. The more they die to sin, the more they live in Christ – the true beginning of the resurrection. The mind “sees and understands” because it is no longer stuck in the mud, deluded into thinking that the bodily pleasures are all one should be living for. The heart is re-enlivened by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Like “new wineskins” that expand as the fruit turns to wine, so the soul is enlarged and begins to embrace all things into its Christ-like love. The eternal life of God’s Being is shared by grace and begins to manifest itself in little, miraculous ways: acts of mercy, forgiveness, kindness, and charitable works.
Holy Week and Pascha for Orthodox Christians is the time set aside to know and experience this death and resurrection in Christ. Everything that happens to Jesus will happen to us: the trial, the condemnation, the scourging and mocking, the nails and the spear, the death and burial, and finally the mystery the resurrection.
Are we ready to conquer death?
Fr. Paul Jannakos
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