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April 23, 2011
New
York, NY: Easter Epistle of His Grace Jerome, Bishop of Manhattan
Pascha,
the Lord’s Pascha!
A thousand years ago, before the separation of the Western Church
from Orthodoxy, it was the custom in Benevento, Italy, to sing the
Easter Sunday service in both Greek and Latin. There, what no doubt
was the original Greek text of the Paschal Stichera was preserved:
"the Pascha of Christ the Redeemer" [Πάσχα
Χριστοῦ τοῦ Λυτρωτοῦ
‒ Pascha Christi Redemptoris]. The same reading is still
found in the pre-Niconian (Old Rite) Slavonic:
"Пасха
Христа
Избавителя." Later, however, that was changed to "Pascha,
[which is] Christ the Redeemer," perhaps by the following
train of thought.
Every injustice strikes us as a kind of enemy captivity. We have a
sense that what is right should prevail: that there should be truth
and order. What is wrong ought not to be triumphant. When we feel
abused, offended, or when we see evil on the rise, we feel that we
are in an occupied country, as it were: we are living in captivity.
Naturally our soul cries out for a hero, a deliverer to come and
free us, and come to the defense of truth and righteousness: we
crave a redeemer.
Pascha is a Semitic word (from the Aramaic language spoken by
Christ and the Apostles), and it means a passing-over ("passover"),
or transition, as explained in the Synaxarion (Matins reading) of
Easter Sunday. Ancient Israel’s crossing-over from Egypt, out of the
house of bondage, is celebrated as the Old Testament Passover, or
Pesach (the same word as "Pascha," but in Hebrew instead of
Aramaic), while the Resurrection of Christ is the New Testament
Passover, or Transition. It is a bitter thing for the believer to
hear the persecution of Jesus Christ, the betrayal by Judas, the
unjust trial, sufferings and death on the Cross, the entombment, in
the days before Easter. But then, with inexpressible joy, we become
witnesses to the Resurrection, the triumph of truth, the powers of
evil and death defeated: the Lord’s Redemption!
That Christ Himself is also the Passover, is a further
reflection, which later, as can be seen, influenced the text of the
Sticheron. Born of the Ever-Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ is become the
transition or passage between God and mankind, He is both True God,
and True Man, once and for all uniting fallen humanity with God.
Likewise in His Resurrection, Christ is a connection or
passing-over, since in His Person, human nature is now "seated at
the right hand of the Father," thus giving us access to the Kingdom
of Heaven. "Christ, having become a High Priest of the good things
to come... entered once into the Holy of Holies, having obtained
eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:11-12), "which we have as an anchor
of the soul" (Hebr. 6:19).
Thus we have redemption as the Pascha of Christ, and Christ Himself
as our Passover, Redeemer, and Savior from the power of evil and
enemy captivity: He is the Hero of our soul, the Defeater of all
that can ever, in this life or the next, cause us grief, or subject
us to abuse. Meeting Him in our church, instead of a colored egg we
bring him our all, and joined to those who sing of the Resurrection,
we too hymn Christ the Redeemer!
+JEROME
Bishop of Manhattan
Holy Easter 2011
Media Office of the Eastern American
Diocese
