The old passes away

Christ is Risen! Christos Anesti! 

(And please don’t do what so many people like to do, inserting Greek letters wherever possible to approximate the Greek. For example, XPISTOS ANESTH. Try pronouncing that as written in English! That’s just silly. And a desecration of both the English and Greek languages!) So, again, CHRISTOS ANESTI!

This year Pascha was of course very different from all other years. We missed being together for the midnight Service of the Resurrection (Anastasis), but at least we live streamed on our Facebook page the Agape Vespers on Easter Sunday.

Yes, our attendance at Holy Week services has gone down in recent years, but enough of us gather during the week to make us a true community of faith walking with Christ to his passion and resurrection. Other churches might preach the cross and the resurrection. We experience it. Experience of the Gospels is very much at the core of the Orthodox manner of faith and worship. And our icons play a huge role in how we experience the Gospel narratives. The icons of Holy Week communicate their own theological and existential messages to enrich our hearing the Gospel stories of Christ’s passion week.

The icon above is the icon of the Resurrection that Angela has decorated with flowers so beautifully every year – but not this year, obviously. And every year Angela covers the bottom of the icon with greenery as much as possible to hide the figure under the feet of Christ so people don’t venerate him instead of Christ! (Yeah, we do worry about things like that!) Here is the icon from one of our past Easters.

So who is that figure that Jesus Christ is stepping on? Do you remember the words of the Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom that we read at the end of the Resurrection Matins, before Liturgy begins on Easter night?

By descending into death, He made death captive.
Death was embittered when it took His flesh.
This is what Isaiah foresaw when he said:
Death was embittered (It was embittered!) 
as it encountered the Savior.
Death was embittered (It was embittered!), 
for it was abolished.
It was embittered (It was embittered!), 
for it was mocked.
It was embittered (It was embittered!), 
for it was slain.
It was embittered (It was embittered!), 
for it was overthrown.
It was embittered (It was embittered!), 
for it was bound in chains.

The translation is the one we read on Easter night every year. The Greek text actually has Hades (Άδης), who is the Greek mythological personification of the realm of Death. So, Hades/Death is the figure that Jesus is stepping on. Death/Hades is bound in chains. By his death Christ destroys the power of death. We are no longer captives to death. Death has been made captive by Christ! That’s the message in the words we read on Easter night and in the icon.

The Resurrection icon is not the only icon that features mysterious figures. Here, for example is the icon of Pentecost. The tongues of fire are shown descending upon each of the apostles as described in chapter 2 of Acts. At the bottom is a figure that looks like a king.

The figure represents Kosmos, the fallen World. Note the darkness that surrounds him. He represents “the people who sat in darkness.” But the kingly figure holds a cloth to show readiness to receive the good news of Christ. So the people who sat in darkness are open to receive redemption and enter into the light, which they would receive through the teachings of the apostles. Again, profound message through a mysterious figure.

Then there is the icon of Epiphany, the Baptism of Christ. 

Jesus is in the waters being baptized by John. And there are angels in attendance. The angels are not in the Gospel narrative but in the icon’s genius to open our eyes to spiritual dimensions and to what is happening behind the scenes of the Gospel description of the Baptism. But the angels are not the most interesting figures. The real interest is in the waters, the strange figures that appear on both sides of Christ and under his feet. Two figures are shown mounted on strange sea creatures and fleeing away from Christ. These are mythological representations of the Sea and the powers of Chaos which Christ subdues by entering the streams of creation and claiming and sanctifying all creation. Although mythological, the figures can just as well represent all the forces that destroy the beauty and holiness of creation. Have not the polluting and climate destroying entities of today attained almost mythic power on our tortured planet? So maybe the mythical figures in the Jordan are not so mythical. But notice also under the feet of Christ, what looks like a cross and under the cross the head of a snake-like creature. Clearly a reference to the snake in the Garden that led humanity astray. Christ came to bring back humanity from our old, fallen ways. If we would only listen!

And that is the unifying message of the three icons of three great feasts of the Orthodox year: Epiphany, Pascha and Pentecost. All three icons include visual representations of the Old World that is conquered or redeemed and sanctified by the presence of Christ: Chaos in the Epiphany icon; Death in the Resurrection icon; Fallen World in the Pentecost icon.

But let’s conclude with yet another iconographic representation of the Old that Christ came to overcome. At the bottom of the icon of the Crucifixion of Christ is a small dark opening where a skull is clearly visible: the skull of Adam, the first human created by God. You can spend a little time to contemplate the spiritual message of this image. This is already too long. God bless you and love you in the days we together endure.

Tags: Anastasis Crucifixion Epiphany Icons Pentecost