Excerpts from a Paschal Homily by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Excerpts from a Paschal Homily by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich

They who come into this world through their mother’s womb will leave it through death and the grave. This is the rule. Only, death for us who die in Christ is no longer a dark abyss, but is birth into new life and a return to our homeland. The grave is, for us, no longer an eternal darkness but a gateway at which God’s resplendent angels await us. For all who are filled with love for the beauteous and loving Lord, the grave has become only the last obstacle to His presence - and this obstacle is as weak as a spider’s web. And so the glorious Apostle Paul cries: “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  How has the Lord not conquered death when death is no more visible in His presence?  The grave is no more a deep abyss, because he has filled it with Himself; neither is the grave dark anymore, because he has illumined it; neither is it fear and horror anymore, for it marks, not the end but the beginning; neither is it our eternal homeland, but only the door to that homeland; The difference between death before Christ’s Resurrection and after it is like the difference between a terrible conflagration and the flame of a lit candle. Christ’s victory is fundamental, and therefore, through Him, death is swallowed up in victory. (1 Corinthians 15:54).

…Christ is by far the greatest Physician in human history, for He brought men the cure for the sickness beyond all sicknesses - for sin, from which all other sicknesses and all man’s other sufferings, both physical and spiritual, are born.  This medicine is He Himself, the risen and living Lord. He is the one and only effective medicine for sin….

Knowing the weakness of our being, the Lord Christ intended it [the medicine]for the faithful, for them to take Him as food and drink under the visible forms of bread and wine. This the Lover of Mankind did out of His immeasurable love for men, simply in order to facilitate their approach to the life-giving medicine for sin and for the corruption brought about by sin. He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me and I in him…and he shall live by Me (John 6:56-7).  Those who sin feed on sin, and the life that is in them is gradually lost through sin. Those, though, who feed on the living Lord feed on life, and the life within them increases more and more, and death decreases. And as much as life is increased, so much is sin decreased. The insipid and gloomy sweetness of sin is replaced in them by the joyful and life-giving sweetness of Christ the Victor.

Blessed are they who have tested and experienced this mystery in their lives.  They can be called the sons of light and children of grace.  When they pass from this life, they will, as it were, leave hospital, being no longer sick men.

…as man in Paradise freely chose the fall, death and sin at the hands of Satan, so he is now free to choose life and salvation at the hands of God, the Victor.  Christ’s victory is a balm, a life-giving balm, for all men, all having become leprous from sin and death.

This balm makes the sick well, and the well even healthier.

This balm raises the dead and gives fuller life to the living.

This balm makes a man wise, it ennobles and divinises him; it increases his strength an hundredfold, a thousandfold, and it raises his dignity far above all other nature, in its weakened state, even to the resplendence and beauty of God’s angels and archangels.

O most lovely and life-giving balm! What hand would not take you? What heart would not apply you to its wounds? What throat would not sing your praises? What pen would not record the wonders you have wrought? What abacus would not count up all your healings of the sick and raisings of the dead up till now? What tears would not be shed in gratitude to you?

Come then, all you my brethren who fear death. Come closer to Christ the Risen and the Raiser, and He will free you from death and the fear of death.  

Come, all of you who live under the shame of your open and secret sins. Draw nearer to the living fount that washes and cleanses, and that make the blackest vessel whiter than snow.

Come, all of you who seek health, strength, beauty and joy. Lo, the risen Christ is the rich Source of then all. He awaits you with compassion and yearning, desiring that no one be lost.

Bow down before Him, in body and soul.  Unite yourself with Him with all your mind and thoughts. Embrace Him with all your heart. Do not worship the enslaver, but the Liberator; do not unite yourself to the destroyer but to the Saviour; do not embrace the stranger but your closest Kinsman and your dearest Friend.

The risen Lord is the Wonder of wonders, but He is, while being the Wonder of wonders, of the same nature as you are - of real human nature, the primal nature that was Adam’s in Paradise. True human nature was not created to be enslaved to the irrational nature that surrounds it, but to govern nature by its power. Neither does man’s true nature consist in worthlessness, sickness, mortality and sinfulness, but glory and health, in immortality and sinlessness. 

The risen Lord has torn down the curtain that divided true Godhead from true humanity, and has shown us in Himself the greatness and beauty of the one and the other. No man can know the true God except through the risen Lord Jesus; neither can any man know true man except through Him alone. 

Christ is Risen, my brethren.