Truth began early one morning

April 23rd is the feast of the Great Martyr Saint George. The Vespers of the feast includes this profound Doxastikon of the Apostikha:

O brethren, let us spiritually extol that veritable diamond of endurance, George the illustrious Martyr. He was set on fire for the sake of Christ and forged by perils. Tortures trained him. Multiple martyrdoms devastated his body, which by nature was subject to decay. For love’s longing overcame nature, persuading the lover to cross over, by means of death, to the loved One, Christ our God and the Savior of our souls.

“Love’s longing overcame nature” – what an amazing statement. Desire, longing, πόθος – for whom? For Christ, of course. The desire, the longing for Christ, overcomes the limits of our human nature and allows the lover to cross over to the loved One, Christ. By means of death, the hymn says. But the desire for Christ happens here while we are alive, and finds its fulfillment in death, when we cross over to Christ, the loved one. This longing is what the women experienced on Easter morning. As they walked to the tomb they knew there was a huge stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb, and they knew they wouldn’t be able to move it, but they kept going (Mark 16:1-8). They were not feminists to start blaming men for blocking their path. Nor did they think to get some men who dressed as females. No, none of that modern stuff. They just kept going, wondering as they went. Their faithfulness carried the day. And they were met by the faithfulness of God. The faithfulness of God who had raised the Son of God from the dead and which now greeted the women with the good news of the resurrection.

I can imagine the trepidation as they walked. And it reminds me of another walk, the walk of Abraham in Genesis 22. Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was in her 90s when the Lord God gave them a son Isaac, the son of promise. But when the child was old enough to understand what was happening, God ordered Abraham to go to the land of Moriah and sacrifice his son! Without saying a word, not even to his wife, Abraham went. But I can imagine the trepidation and the questioning in his heart: Why was God asking him to sacrifice the son that God had given him in his old age?! On the third day they arrive at their destination where the sacrifice would take place. Isn’t it interesting that the women came to the tomb of Christ on the third day, and Abraham came to the place of sacrifice on the third day? One of many, many such parallels in the Bible; what we Orthodox call typology. 

There is a deep mystery unfolding – a mystery that links Genesis 22 with Jesus Christ. The boy asks his father, Where is the lamb for the sacrifice? Abraham answers “God will provide himself the lamb, my son.” As he raises his arm to carry out what God commanded, an angel speaks: “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.  

Abraham was obedient, just as the women were obedient to what they intended to do. Just as Jesus Christ was obedient even unto death! The lamb that God provided to Abraham became Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, as He is called in the book of Revelation. Do you see the parallels? Abraham and the women, a profound encounter with God and mystery on the third day, a lamb and the Lamb of God! Because of Genesis 22 some people accuse the Bible of condoning child sacrifice. They compare God to the Canaanite god Moloch. But it’s the exact opposite. Jesus Christ is the answer to Moloch and to all the sacrifices of the ancient world, and of the modern world which continues to sacrifice children to the gods of science and political ideologies. God tested Abraham in order to liberate him from all vestiges of paganism. And the death and resurrection of Christ are God’s answer to the culture of death that reigns in today’s world.

These stories and many others are the tradition that was handed down and became the holy scriptures, the Bible. If the Church departs from the ‘tradition’ handed down by the apostles and their descendants, we lose our connection to the eyewitnesses of the Word: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.” (Luke 1:1-4)

Ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων, καθὼς παρέδοσαν ἡμῖν οἱ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται γενόμενοι τοῦ λόγου, ἔδοξεν κἀμοὶ παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς σοι γράψαι, κράτιστε Θεόφιλε, ἵνα ἐπιγνῷς περὶ ὧν κατηχήθης λόγων τὴν ἀσφάλειαν.

Some very strong words in this opening to Luke’s Gospel. Note especially the important words in the Greek text: κατηχήθης, which derives from the noun catechism, and ἀσφάλειαν, a strong word that denotes the secure truthfulness of the preliminary catechism that Theophilus, the recipient of Luke’s Gospel, probably had received and which Luke now completes. Luke speaks to Theophilus of the teaching that he and others had received from those who were eyewitnesses to Christ. The verb παρέδοσαν comes from the noun παράδοσις, the word for ‘tradition’. St Paul said it clearly:

• 1 Cor 11:2. I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain (κατέχετε – κατέχω, to hold fast) the traditions (παραδόσεις) even as I have delivered (παρέδωκα – παραδίδωμι) them to you.
• 2 Thess 2:15.  So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions (παραδόσεις) which you were taught, either by word of mouth (διὰ λόγου) or by letter from us (εἴτε διʼ ἐπιστολῆς ἡμῶν).
• 2 Thess 3:6. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition (τὴν παράδοσιν) that they received (παρελάβοσαν – παραλαμβάνω) from us. 

παραδίδωμι / παραλαμβάνω – verbs that represent hand to hand, person to person, the handing (παραδίδωμι) of faith – and the reception (παραλαμβάνω)! The women who were the first to arrive at the tomb of Christ on that Easter morning handed what they saw and heard to the apostles and the apostles began the work of putting it all in words and books. The coming of Truth began with those women on that Easter morning. They did their work, and generation upon generation did likewise. Now it is our turn. Hand the message of Christ’s life, death and resurrection forward. Be an agent of paradosis, of tradition! And in this manner speak the life that blossomed from the empty tomb. CHRIST IS RISEN!