I am the Resurrection and the Life

Saint Justin Popovich

If there is one truth in which all the truths of the Gospel could be summarized, that truth would be the resurrection of Christ. And furthermore, if there is a reality in which all the New Testament realities could be summarized, that reality would be the resurrection of Christ. Only in the Resurrection of Christ are all His miracles, all His truths, all His words, and all the events of the New Testament explained.

Until His resurrection, the Lord taught about eternal life, but with His resurrection He showed that He Himself is indeed eternal life. Until His resurrection, He taught about the resurrection of the dead, but with His resurrection He showed that He Himself is indeed the resurrection of the dead. Until His resurrection, He taught that faith in Him brings one from death to life, but with His resurrection He showed that He Himself had conquered death and thus secured for those who have died the passage from death to resurrection.

Through sin, man became mortal and finite; through the resurrection of the God-man, he becomes immortal and eternal. And this is precisely where the power, the authority, and the omnipotence of Christ’s resurrection lie. And for this reason, without the resurrection of Christ, there would not even be Christianity. Among the miracles, the Lord’s Resurrection is the greatest miracle. All other miracles stem from it and are summed up in it. From it spring faith and love and hope and prayer and piety. This is what no other religion possesses; this is what elevates the Lord above all people and gods. This is what, in a unique and indisputable way, shows and proves that Jesus Christ is the only true God and Lord in all the visible and invisible worlds.

That a person truly believes in the Risen Lord is demonstrated by their struggle against sin and passions, and if he does struggle, he must know that he is struggling for immortality and eternal life. But if he does not struggle, then his faith is in vain! For if a person’s faith is not a struggle for immortality and eternity, then what is it? If faith in Christ does not lead one to immortality and victory over death, then what is the point of our faith? If Christ did not rise from the dead, this means that sin and death have not been conquered. And if these two have not been conquered, then why should anyone believe in Christ? But he who, through faith in the Risen Christ, struggles against every sin of his own, gradually strengthens within himself the sense that the Lord has truly risen, has blunted the sting of death, has conquered death on all fronts of the battle.

Without the Resurrection, there is nothing in heaven or under heaven more absurd than this world, nor greater despair than this life than this one, without immortality. In all the worlds, there is no existence more miserable than that of a human being who does not believe in the resurrection of the dead. That is why, for human existence, the Risen Lord is “all in all” in all worlds: that which is Beautiful, the Good, the True, the Lovable, the Joyful, the Divine, the Wise, the Eternal. This is all our Love, all our Truth, all our Joy, all our Goodness, all our Life, Eternal Life in all eternities and infinities.