Christ Is Risen: A Victory Accomplished and Given
A Reflection on Pascha
Pascha – (Acts §1 (1:1-8) / Saint John §1 (1:1-17)).
Христосъ воскресе изъ мертвыхъ,
Смертїю на смерть наступи,
И гробнымъ животъ дарова!
This is the cry of Pascha. This is the voice of the Church. It is not a question, nor a hope, nor a pious wish, but a proclamation. And if we listen carefully we shall hear something striking in these ancient words.
The Grammar of Victory
Notice the verbs: not He is rising, not He is trampling, not He is bestowing. But rather: Воскресе – He rose. На смерть наступи – He stepped upon death. Животъ дарова – He granted life. All is spoken as already accomplished.
The Church does not stand at the tomb wondering what may yet happen. She does not pray that Christ might overcome death. She does not wait to see whether life will prevail. She declares it: It is done.
This is the boldness of Pascha, a boldness preserved with particular clarity in the older liturgical tradition. For when our Lord cried upon the Cross, “It is consummated,” He did not speak of something partial or uncertain. He did not leave behind a work yet to be perfected by others. He brought it to its fullness. He perfected it.
And in His rising from the dead, He revealed, not began, His victory.
Death has been entered. Death has been broken. Death has been trampled beneath His feet. And to those in the tombs – to Adam, to Eve, to all who lay in darkness – He has already granted life.
This is what we proclaim on this day: not that Christ is trying to save, but that Christ has accomplished salvation, once for all, and opened it unto us.
The Paradox of the Already and the Now
And yet, if this be so, if death has been conquered, if life has been given… why do we still die? Why do we still struggle? Why do we still feel the weight of the tomb?
Here we must listen not only to the ancient Tropar’, but to the fullness of the Church’s song. For even as we proclaim, “He stepped upon death,” we also sing in the stichera: Смертiю смерть поправъ, “trampling down death by death,” Сущимъ во гробѣхъ животъ даровавъ, “bestowing life upon those in the tombs.”
Some may wonder at the shift in tense from the aorist past of the Tropar’ to the present expressions of the Stichos. But this is no contradiction. Rather, it is the unfolding of a single mystery in two complementary movements.
What Christ has accomplished once for all He now gives, He now applies, He now makes present in each soul that turns toward Him. Pascha is not repeated, but it is received, entered into, and lived.
The victory is consummated, and yet it is not distant. It stands before us. It is offered to us. It presses upon us even now. It must be entered with faith, guarded with repentance, and worked out with fear and trembling.
Two Truths, One Faith
And so we stand between two great truths: a victory already won, and a life now being filled with that victory.
If we forget the first, our faith becomes anxious and uncertain, as though all depended upon our striving. We begin to think that Christ has given us only a possibility of salvation, a chance at life, and that the outcome remains in doubt until we have done enough, believed enough, suffered enough.
If we forget the second, our faith becomes distant and cold, as though Christ had done something long ago that touches us not at all. The Resurrection becomes a historical fact we acknowledge, but not a living reality we enter.
But the Church, in her wisdom, gives us both. She preserves the ancient cry Christ is risen!Therefore, death is no more master. And she sings the living hymn: He is bestowing life! Therefore, come and receive it.
The Treasure of the Older Form
Those of us who retain the older liturgical tradition do not do so out of mere antiquarianism or stubborn attachment to the past. We do so because we have found in these ancient forms a clarity and a fullness that nourishes the soul.
The aorist voice of the Old Rite Tropar’ – He rose, He stepped, He granted – speaks with an unshakeable confidence. It plants our feet upon the bedrock of accomplished fact.
This is not to say that the later form is false or deficient in itself. The present expressions of trampling, of bestowing, these rightly emphasize the ongoing application of Christ’s victory to each generation, to each soul. But when this emphasis stands alone, when it replaces rather than complements the traditional proclamation, something is obscured. The foundation becomes less visible. The certainty can become less clear.
It is worth asking: what happens to the Christian soul when it hears, year after year, only the language of present action? Does it not begin to wonder whether the victory is still being fought? Does it not begin to feel that the outcome depends, somehow, solely upon us?
The older form guards against this. It reminds us, with every repetition, that the battle is won. The tomb is empty. The gates of Hades are shattered. Life has been granted. And this not as a future hope only, but as a present reality flowing from a consummated work.
The Call to Enter In
Beloved, you are not called this day to make Pascha “happen.” You are not called somehow to complete something that Christ has left unfinished. Rather, you are called to enter into what He has accomplished, to remain in it, and to bring forth its fruit in your life.
To step out of the tomb, and this not by your own strength, but because life has already been given.
To turn from sin not as one who must earn forgiveness, but as one to whom forgiveness has been opened and who must now enter by repentance, and abide therein.
To pray not as one crying into emptiness, but as one standing in the light that already shines, and striving to walk therein.
For as we have heard in the holy Gospel: “The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” The light shines. Not will shine. Not might shine. It shines. And no darkness – not the grave, not sin, not death itself – can overcome it.
Conclusion: Spectators No More
Therefore, let us not stand afar off as though this were a tale of long ago. Let us not admire the Resurrection as spectators, appreciating it from a safe distance. But let us believe it. Let us receive it. Let us enter into it.
For Christ is risen! The victory is consummated! The life is granted! The tomb is empty!
To Him Who has trampled down death and granted life to those in the tombs be glory, with His Father without beginning, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.
12 April 2026