In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Christ is risen!

Our Church devotes the first Sunday after Easter to Evangelic story about Thomas, Christ’s disciple who said he wouldn’t believe the resurrection of Jesus Christ till he touched Him himself. What is the essence of this story? And why does the Church pay our attention to it after Pascha at once as if saying to us, “This is written for you, it concerns each of you”. And really, the events of this story take place in the world eternally, and nowadays they may happen more often than in the days when doubting Thomas met his resurrected Master. What is all this about? Of course, first of all, about our faith, its essence, its fundamental difference from that rational knowledge which is based on the fact we saw, heard and touched ourselves.

All Christianity is based on the faith in Christ Resurrection, on belief that once in earthly history, in the whole world the death was overcame and the dead resurrected. And if there is no such faith, then there remains in Christianity only some general teaching about love, kindness, forgiveness, the teaching that can be found in other religions and philosophies. There remains a story about wonderful man who doesn’t resemble anyone but failed in the main thing saying. “And I will be raised up on the third day” (Mt. 16, 21) – and wasn’t raised up. There remains a story about failure and, at last, deception.

To be a Christian from the very beginning meant to believe just this unprecedented, impossible and nevertheless real victory over death. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith also in vain”, says the Apostole Paul. (1 Cor. 15,14). If it is really so, then all in Christianity depends on the question: how can we believe it? None of us saw the Resurrected, didn’t touch His hand, His side pierced by a spear, however, it is this faith that is told about, “Blessed are they who didn’t see, and yet believed”(John, 20,29). So, how shall we believe?  To rely on the experience of other people, on what the Church teaches us? Yes, surely, but still it’s not our, my faith yet. And meanwhile wee always told that any knowledge is based on evidence, we are always taught that in essence the Doubting Thomas was right refusing to believe without evidence, without touching. And the Lord Himself didn’t condemn him, He suggested that Thomas believed the reality of His presence by touching Him. And still the Lord says, “Blessed are they who didn’t see, and yet believed” (John, 20,29).

So, going deep into our faith, as if verifying it this time by the story about the Doubting Thomas, you come to one clear feeling, to one answer. I ask myself, “Do I believe in the Resurrection of Christ? Yes, I do. I believe. And why?” And our heart answers, “Because I believe in Christ, the Christ who tells me, who comes to me from eternally living and life-giving pages of the Holy Gospel”. Or in other words: I believe in Christ not because He resurrected but I believe that He is risen and alive because first of all I believe Him. “Never did a man speak the way this man speaks” (John 7,46), answered those whom the Pharisees sent to listen to Jesus and collect charges against Him. And my heart knows just the same and will always know it. If the Lord said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18), if he said, “I will be raised up on the third day” (Mt. 16:21), if all his life described in the Holy Gospel, He had been looking forward to meeting death to overcome it, then it couldn’t be deception. This Man couldn’t deceive, this teaching aimed at God’s victory, at the Kingdom of God couldn’t be deception.

Thus, either there was no more tragic and awful deception in the history, or all is truth, all is a life, all is a victory in the Gospel. Yes, all this book, every word in it is the experience of those who were writing it. This is the experience of those who saw the Resurrected Christ and therefore they are choking with joy, they are dazzled by light, they are filled with the most victorious of all faiths. What did the Church overcome by and what is it overcoming by now but only by this joyful confirmation, “Christ is risen!” What is all its life in but in joyful experience of new meeting with resurrected and alive. “And we will come to him, and make Our abode with him” (John 21:29). Yes, blessed. And we know this blessedness and testify to it.

Only some days ago we again experienced this blessedness at radiant Paschal night in front of the closed doors of the Church, when not because of our mind with all its verifications and testimonies but from all our essence, from the very depth of our experience we answered, “Christ is risen, indeed!” And these days it’s very good to read about the Doubting Thomas, it’s good to go deep into our faith, to find its life-giving depth and core. All our faith is in the words of paschal singing: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by Death, and upon those in the tomb, bestowing Life”. We have no evidence, only faith and blessed joy of its presence in our life. Christ is risen indeed!  Amen.