Rolling away the stone

Was I worth dying for? Today as Christians around the world take time to honor the day Christ surrendered His life on the cross, many will attend church wondering if they were worth dying for. Good Friday, the day Christ was nailed to the cross is a time for reflection on our own lives. Then there is Easter, Pascha, the day we celebrate our new life, redeemed from sin.

It is mostly forgotten about during the rest of the year that Christ forgave the people calling for His execution with His last few breaths. Imagine what that must have been like for the people who were screaming "Crucify Him!" to hear those words from Him. Did they regret what they did? When the temple curtain was torn, did they understand? Did they understand when the ground beneath their feet shook or when the sky turned dark? What did they do the day after? How did this change them? Did they even understand what happened a few days later when the tomb was empty?

Christ had a choice to lay down His life or walk away. He had the power. When He was on His knees in the garden grieving over destiny, He asked God to find another way and "let this cup pass" from Him. He did not want to die but put His life into the hands of God, leaving it up to Him. This we also forget. Christ knew His time here was nearing the end. It also proves that He knew how His life would end all along.

Abiding in the Light of Pascha
Fr. Christopher Foley

It is the feast of feasts, the holiday of holidays, which surpasses not only human feasts, but even feasts of Christ, as the light of the sun is brighter than that of the stars. It is the day of resurrection and the beginning of true life."

St. Gregory of Nazianzus

We have just celebrated the true Pascha, or passover, of our Lord. This is the passing over from death to life, from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, from suffering to healing. We are now reveling in the light of His glorious resurrection. The brightness of these days is our participation in this "true life" that St. Gregory speaks of above. We can see it all around us in nature. St. Gregory goes on to list many things in nature that reveal to us this new life springing up in his homily on Pascha. He says that everything is "conspiring together, rejoicing together, for the beauty of this feast." Everything all around us is hymning Christ who has sprung up from the tomb in order to bestow life on the whole world. He begins, "Now the heaven shines more brightly, the sun stands higher and glows more golden; now the moon's orb is more radiant, the chorus of stars gleams more clearly. Now the sea's waves make their peace with the shores, the clouds with the sun, the winds with the air, the earth with the plants, the plants with our eyes. Now the springs gush forth with a new sparkle; now the rivers flow more abundantly, released from the bonds of winter's ice. Now the meadow is fragrant, the shoots burst forth, the grass is ready for mowing, and the lambs skip through the rich green fields... All things sing God's praise, and give Him glory with wordless voices. For God receives my thanks for all these things: so each of their songs becomes our hymn, for I make their hymnody my own!... Now is the world's spring, the spiritual spring, spring for our souls, spring for our bodies, spring visible, spring invisible."
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Christ's message of love, forgiveness, mercy and compassion was delivered everyday when He spoke to the huge crowds but it was fulfilled when He clung onto all of these with His life was being sacrificed. As He healed the lame, restored sight to the blind, fed the hungry, forgave the sinner, He knew how His life would end. When He spoke to some people He knew hated Him, He also knew He would forgive them.

Matthew 17
22When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. 23They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life." And the disciples were filled with grief.

How can any of us still think there is something we cannot be forgiven for? There is nothing beyond His mercy.

Consider Saul of Tarsus. Saul was determined to see all Christians put to death because he truly believed he was serving God and this mission of death was his duty. He was very good at tracking down the followers of Christ until one day on the road to Damascus, he was blinded, feel to his knees and heard a voice calling down to him asking why he was persecuting Him. It was the voice of Christ. In that moment, Saul understood how wrong he was and he must have remembered all the lives lost because he was wrong. Christ not only forgave Saul but Saul, renamed Paul went on to reach the gentiles and convert them into Christians. He also wrote most of the New Testament. Christianity spread because Christ was able and willing to forgive him for all he had done. Paul was willing to be forgiven and change his ways.

We can all be forgiven by God, Christ and other people. The problem most of us have is forgiving ourselves. Thoughts we've had, things we've done, selfish acts, all come back to haunt us but if you believe, if you walk away from church, especially after Easter services, you are cleansed. You are forgiven. From that moment on, you can be the type of person Christ talked about once you begin to forgive yourself.

The stone you need to roll away, trapping you is what you hold against yourself. Let that stone roll away!