Talking about the Resurrection of Christ is always not easy. Talking about suffering, betrayal, death is easier, because it is an experience familiar to every person. We know pain, fear, loss. But the Resurrection is a mystery that only a few have experienced. We believe them or hear about it through tradition. How can we make it a living experience?
After the death of Christ, the disciples were in despair, locked in the house. And now - Christ stands among them, alive, but different. He enters through the locked door, and at the same time - eats with them, shows them his wounds. This is not a spirit - this is a resurrected, transformed body.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote that man's original physicality was light, transparent, until sin burdened it. The Risen Christ reveals that original, enlightened physicality, deified, transformed.
Thomas, often unjustly called “the unbeliever,” could not believe not because of doubt, but because, upon returning, he did not see the change in others. If Christ had truly risen, would they not have been burned by this change? And only when he saw Christ himself did he confess: “My Lord and my God!”
Saint Paul recognized the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He did not simply believe—he encountered the Living One. He was blinded by the radiance of the Divinity, like Moses, who could not see God and remain alive. Paul would later say: if Christ has not risen, then our faith is in vain.
Throughout the centuries, many people have encountered the risen Christ—in prayer, in communion, in the sacraments, in repentance, in the silence of the heart. A Christian is not just a believer “by hearsay,” but a person who once encountered the Living One.
And if we are witnesses of the Resurrection, does the world see it in us? Are we transformed?
The Resurrection tells us about the power of love. Christ died not for friends, but for enemies. His love descended into hell, entered the very heart of death - and conquered it. In the bright power of Divine love, hell collapsed.
