FEAST OF THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD
ՏՕՆ ՅԱՐՈՒԹԵԱՆ ՏԵԱՌՆ ՄԵՐՈՅ
At the center of the Church's year, and at the center of everything we believe, stands the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In Armenian, we call the feast Զատիկ. Its date moves each year, and everything else in the calendar moves with it.
What we proclaim
In a world measured by time, where everything living comes to an end, one morning something appeared that had never appeared before: a life that will not end, present within our own. The One who rose from the dead dies no more. This is not one Christian teaching among others. It is the whole of it, the thing the Church exists to announce.
Very early on the first day of the week the women came to the tomb, wondering who would roll away the stone for them, and found it already rolled back. Inside sat a young man in a white robe, and he told them not to be amazed. The One they were seeking, Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, had risen.
Every Sunday is Easter
What the Church celebrates once a year, she celebrates again every week. In Armenian we call Sunday Կիրակի, from the Greek for the Day of the Lord, and we also call it Յարութեան օր, the Day of Resurrection. Open any calendar and you will find that every Sunday of the year is turned toward that morning. We are always living after Easter, and always going toward it.
Trampling down death by death
The fifty days from Easter to Pentecost form a single season, and Pentecost is Easter's fulfillment. Our Lord ascended and sent down His Holy Spirit, and a new people came into being, living still in this world but with everything changed.
In the Introit of Easter we do not say that Christ trampled down death by His Resurrection. We say He trampled down death by death. This is deliberate. He did not go around death; He went through it, and in going through it He broke it from the inside. A Christian still dies. The body still fails. But death is no longer the end of the sentence. It is where the sentence turns.
A faith of joy
The spirituality of our Church is paschal, and the true content of the Church's life is joy. That is what a feast is: joy given form. When we hear Քրիստոս յարեաւ ի մեռելոց, Christ is risen from the dead, and answer Օրհնեալ է յարութիւնն Քրիստոսի, blessed is the resurrection of Christ, we are not repeating a formula. We are saying the thing that makes sense of everything else.
St. Gregory of Nyssa said of the night of Pascha that it becomes brighter than the day. That is the secret strength of the Christian life, and only within that joy is the rest of the faith intelligible.
Lord, glory to Your Resurrection.
Adapted from V. Rev. Fr. Ghevont Samoorian, DOMAR: A Compendium of Directorium and Calendar of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church according to the traditions of the Apostolic See of Jerusalem (Armenian Orthodox Theological Research Institute, 2006).
Jesus Christ is risen, 14th century, Matenadaran collection
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