To share in the resurrection is to have contact with eternity, with something greater than ourselves, outside of the restrictions of matter. To have a share in the resurrection is to be of that same spirit that is also Christ. To share in the resurrection is to dwell, even if for just a moment, in our homeland which is not this place. God in his great kindness has sent for us a messenger to guide us back to our home beyond the stars.
Some will tell you that to partake of the resurrection one must partake of the suffering of Christ. But that is already true. It is true on an ontological level, in that we suffer the incarnation just as He did, and are bound to this world of blood and flesh. We luminous souls find ourselves caked in the mud and putrescence we call the body. It is this which blinds us to path to resurrection, and so those who say that we must die to the body to rise again is the spirit are not far off.
But it is also true on a more practical level. We suffer the passion and death each day. We live in fear; anxiety has become our home. We worry about our physical safety in a world where terror strikes without warning and seemingly without reason. We worry about our finances, our jobs, our responsibilities, and how we will possibly do what we need to do for those we love. We worry about our health, and our relationships, and a thousand other things that crucify us daily. And from every wound, blood and water flow. If to partake of the resurrection it were enough to suffer, it would be assured.
But it is not enough. The resurrection is the overcoming of these things; their transcendence. To be resurrected is to roll away the stone and find that these things are not here, for they are of the body that dies. It is only if we are resurrected by our participation in the spirit that we may open our eyes and see ourselves as we are, though many of us will not recognise what we see.
Each one of us is suffering our own passion. We do not ignore it or blind ourselves to it. We rise above it, and remember that our suffering, our pain, our torment, are not us but the things that befall us. We partake of the resurrection. We do not die because we are of that which lives and lives eternally.
On this Easter Day may we have the strength and the wisdom; the courage and the compassion; to see not just ourselves but our fellow human beings as resurrected souls, the Sacred Flame, well on their journey back to their homeland where we will join the great divine fire from which we all come. If we pray for the resurrection in the future we do so in error. Rather we should pray that we may see ourselves as we are, the unspotted mirror of the divine Being; that we may witness the Divine Life present here and now.
Easter is a reminder that the resurrection is here and now and not to come. As I write this, the Easter sun is dawning in the east. May it spread its beneficent rays over all of us and remind us of the glorious heritage of our being and that of each and every person.
I ask that you pray for me and for all humanity; for our Patriatch, the Annointed Iohannes IV, and all the bishops and the clergy and the laity of the Apostolic Johannite Church; for those in need and those who have already passed from this world; and for yourselves as I will for you, that you may be glorious in your resurrection, and that your radiance may, like the sun rising on this Easter morning, enlighten the whole world. I remain
Your devoted servant and brother before the Sacred Flame,
William Mar +Thomas
Given this Easter morning 27 March 2016 at the Oratory of St Athanasius