The Meaning of Pascha

By Patriarch Pavle of Serbia of blessed memory

The Resurrection must be our own Experience

Brothers and sisters, our faith in Christ’s resurrection and in the coming universal resurrection is not a delusion It is, on the contrary, our directly experienced spiritual knowledge. We share this knowledge, however, to the extent that we are true Orthodox Christians, which is to say, to the extent that we live in the Church. And To live in the Churchmeans to experience her as the Union of God and humanity, the Assembly of the Saints, the People of God, and not as an ideology or, still less, a “religion.”

The Experience must begin Now

Already here and now, through our own incorporation into the Body of the Church in Holy Baptism, we can taste the final resurrection through our personal participation in the Cross and Resurrection of Christ (see Romans 6:3-5). In the same way our whole Christian life and effort, through taking part in the sufferings of Christ, can make it possible for us to also take part in advance in the future resurrection of the dead. (see Philippians 3:10-11)

Pascha & the Eucharist

We experience the high-point of this participation and the fullness of this foretaste in the Holy Liturgy of the Church, in our Eucharistic union with Christ our risen Lord in Holy Communion. We are united with this Lord Who came into the world among us, to us, and in us through the Holy Spirit whenever we “gather together in one place” in His name, This union is especially realized when we eat and drink at His Holy Banquet Table of life and love. This is He Who “will come again in glory,” and to Whom we ceaselessly and unrestrainedly call with the perfect words of the New Testament Scriptures: “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20) The Body and Blood of Christ, the Bread of Life and the Drink of Immortality, our true Food and Drink, is the pledge of the resurrection “on the last day” and of eternal life. (see John 6:32-55) A person is not immortal on his or her own by nature or by the necessity of immortality, but only through Holy Communion in the grace-filled Gifts, which is participation in the Union with the Lifegiver, as the risen Lord Himself teaches us: “As the living Father has sent Me, and as I live by the Father, so whoever eats Me shal l also live through Me.” (John 6:57)