Aziz Matta

Tomorrow we celebrate the event of resurrection and we aim to perceive its meaning. The event is that Jesus of Nazareth has risen from the dead and has conquered death as the Paschal hymn articulates it at our Church: “by death, trampling down upon death”.

The event itself was described with special consideration by the writers of the New Testament, since the event is hard to believe in, beside the fact that the writers considered it as the foundation of Christian Faith. Had resurrection not occurred, faith would be in vein and the preaching about Christ would be in vein. Thus, on one hand resurrection is real, consequently its reality has to be established, mainly through the witness of those to whom Jesus had appeared, and on the other hand resurrection is the heart of faith and this contributes to the certainty of faith.

It was Paul the apostle who claimed Resurrection as the core of Christian faith and he was the first to write on Christianity implying that his teaching on Resurrection was received from the apostles. Paul did not distinguish between the event and its meaning and he wrote down a theology that can be summarized by these words: “Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” Thus, belief in Resurrection is confirmed by the words of the apostle: “that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (1Corinthians 15: 4-8).

To explicate this point further we can refer to the eyewitnesses of the death of Jesus and they were as well eyewitnesses of his appearances after the resurrection, in the sense that they recognized the one who appeared to them as the same who was hung on the wood. Those eyewitnesses were: Mary the Magdalene, the women who carried the ointments and went to the tomb, Simon Peter, the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, the apostles gathered in Thomas’ absence and then in his presence, some of the apostles on Lake Tiberias and the apostles in Galilee. He also appeared to them at the time of his ascension to heaven. These appearances are eleven in number, and we read one of them every Sunday in the Orthodox Church.

Narrating these appearances shows the critical spirit of the apostles. This narration makes it obvious to me that the apostles were free of careless popular thinking. They were far from immature and provocative belief.

Thomas’ denial of the resurrection at the beginning and the fact that he was not convinced by the disciples’ words show his strong critical spirit. The next week Jesus appeared to them while Thomas was with them.

Nevertheless, the feast is not limited to the departure of the Nazarene from the tomb, which was a cave and not a hole in the ground. The feast articulates the whole salvation we are given since the incarnation of the Son of God, and specially the salvation we were given through the cross. Before the moment of the crucifixion, Jesus has said “it is completed,” which is to say that ‘I have completed everything my Father has sent me to do and I have fulfilled every word of the prophets’. Thus, after Christ, we owe everything sublime, pure, and true to him. That is to say that integrity of thought, intellectual and artistic output and the victory of the oppressed person, all of these draw their inspiration from the life and words of Jesus. From this standpoint, we hope, on this day, for resurrection from personal toil and the reality of the fall, and we ask for aspirations toward heaven. From a dogmatic standpoint, we have in Easter a promise that we shall rise on the last day. God’s perfection has appeared in Christ. The Savior’s resurrection foretells us that Jesus’ call to us is to “be perfect”.

The feast is the liberation from all types of death in our personal life and in the lives of those around, whom we serve. It is a continuous event within us unto the end of the age. This is why the Feast of the Resurrection extends from Good Friday to the morning of the feast. Whenever this triad enters our lives, we can celebrate the feast every day, promising that all the days of our lives will become an eternal Pascha. Our joy is founded on Jesus’ victory, thus, we do not admit joy on one day and grief on another. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” Hence, whenever some say that we are suffering with Christ, we do not mean that the pain of the body or the soul is better than safety. We can accept the sufferings since sometimes they reflect the inner safety. If heaven, at the end, is our victory over sin and death, then we are in it, and if heaven pours out in our daily lives, then we become a paschal community and then we can sing, “Christ has risen from the dead, by death, trampling down upon death.”

Thus, there is no truth in the saying that “Christianity is a religion of tragedy.” As I heard it once, I told the person addressing me that tragedy, in its Greek sense, means that you are imprisoned in a locked room. However, there is no ceiling above us. There is nothing above our heads than heaven. We have left all the prisons into “the freedom of the sons of God.” This is why, recently, one of our saints used to greet every friend he met saying, “My joy, Christ has risen”.

By this word I greet all who have read me between today and tomorrow, until sorrow cease to exist.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “القيامة” –An Nahar- 23.04.2011

The human being in his/[her] human skin is what he/[she] is, and, for us, there is no other way to know the person apart from one’s skin. You start to know the person through one’s body. You find in one’s eyes the eyes of his/[her] father or mother. Though people differ in description, yet the truth is that the newborn is attached. Genetic science teach you what is accurate, until this child comes to an age which shows the cognation in natures between him/[her] and his/[her] parents, and the cognation in certain movements, in the walk and the sitting down. Then, you perceive the unity and the distinction, until the body is, or almost becomes, completed. And whenever you look at, with great scrutiny, you will see the resemblance either increases or decreases. Such as in this family duplicity is stronger, and in that it is weaker.

In the genetic science it has been noticed, more than in the past, that resemblance is not only confined to the form, and to the skin, but rather it is about the depth of the soul, i.e. the inner formation of the human being. And then, the great dissimilarity has been revealed, i.e. the rift between you and your parent, since the souls are not cells that might resemble or accumulate. Your father might be rational, moderate or balanced, and you, would be on great or little contrast to him. You might say, for the sake of interpretation, that it is because of the environment. But you cannot analyze why and how the impact of environment came to be. You cannot relate between environment and the change that you brought about. There is something that interferes this existence from above it, or from below it, or from its sides. There is something other than the inherited skin. There are violations within you concerning what you have been touching. Your father might have been very quick-tempered while you come to be quite. What has touched you? What has occurred within you, in order that you seem to be disrupted from your father and mother? Are you the son/[daughter] of one of the people, or you are not the son/[daughter] of this earth?

Has duplicity been affected with a factor outside this human skin? The human subject becomes one whenever he/[she] feels his/[her] belovedness. One comes from one’s mother’s womb, and from all the elements that form the person, and later when the umbilical cord is cut one moves toward independence and toward his/[her] unity. As one’s feelings become harmonized, one comes to sense that he/[she] is able to say ‘I’. This state is not in opposition of the other ‘I’. Rather, one does not want to dissolve in the others, but [also] one does not isolate oneself from others. One’s ‘I’ is one’s own self in its harmony. This is what we call the dialectic of unity and multiplicity. The personality stabilizes through unity and distinction, accompanying one another. The fear is [however] in the clash [that might result] between them.

Synergy is not only among the living ones. There is no greater evidence of the continuation of the soul, after death, from that it still gives, or, you still receive from it. How many dead ones accompany your life strongly, in a way you have not experienced as they were alive? From where has this communion come? This is not a verbal dialogue. This communion does not occur as emotional interference, since such interference demands a face. Faces have disappeared. The body is no more a foundation for anything. There is neither imagination nor emotion in this issue, as we could have been felt. You are merged unity, however, it is a unity that has received different fountains, and thus, it also has to become a fountain. The one human being is humanity, though he/[she] is not a crowd.

From all this we might conclude that every one of us is unique, in the sense that there is nothing like oneself. However, to be unique does not give one any privilege. Rather, he/[she] gives you the privilege, in order that you might become through him/[her]. And one might provide you with that which one does not know, and you take according to the gift of taking, within you, and you love and know what to love in the Other. Your friend knows what to take, and in his/[her] turn, he/[she] grows through you and advances. This is the education in which no one brags about being the teacher. This is the integration of equals, where everyone complies the Other as better than oneself, since one views the Other as a giver.

To the extent of being aware of this mystery friendship is built. Someone being asked about the mystery of his relation with his friend has said: we are like this because he is he and I am I. Namely, there is that which is deeper than mental knowledge. The relationship is built through that which transcends you nature and the nature of another. This is pure love, through which alone we grow.

Other than the human element, and if you were a connoisseur, beauty might cultivate you. Some of us come from their love of nature, and some come from their love of modern or antique houses, or arts. Your personality, then, is flourishing and it can save you from grief and drought. You are the endowment of nature and you are affluent with it, or you are the endowment of art. In this way, the fountain within you gets nourished and your draught disappears. And hence, heavens [or gardens] might be implanted within you.

The ‘I’ is then both universal and sentimental. There are some who take little from nature and arts, but they take much from human beings. Whatever were the resources, the human being is manifoldly affluent and you have to discover his/[her] beauty. You might develop your ability to assimilate whatever you are eligible to receive, since, in origin, you have no limits. You are you, but you are also that which you will become.

Though you have no limits in the path that you have chosen, yet you cannot do everything. Thus, accept what you are given and expand in it, since you are called to return the multiple of every talent [or gift] that you were given to God the bestower and to the people surrounding you. God has distinguished you by that which God has not distinguish another. Thus, make use of what you have, since the ‘I’ of the Other has to grow within you your concern, in order that the world might not dry out. You cannot sleep whenever you are talented; since the Lord dislikes that the world gets deserted.

You are born of your father and mother, and then of the environment of nature, science, art and life-experience. However, above all you are born of God, who alone embraces the whole of your person to Godself. Through birth, you get separated from your mother. Birth is a departure. Nevertheless, whenever you are born of God through God’s grace, God would have been granted you some of God’s existence. The scholars of my Church say that you would come from God’s eternity and that God loves you by the same love as God loves God’s Christ. God brings about a new ‘I’ other than this which you have received from your mother. From her and from your friends you become different in degree. Only through God you become different in nature. You become deified and you would not remain only a body emerging from a body. Only “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” [John 3: 6], namely of a different being than the one which one’s mother brought to the world. One becomes of a different world, that which descends upon you through divine love.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “أنا من أنا؟” –An Nahar- 25.03.2011

There is no such a thing that inspires awe within us as death. The reason behind this is that death is the foe, though there are other foes, yet death remains without a rival. Perhaps it is possible to refer the enmity between us and death to the fact that we are unable to anticipate it, since we do not know the day or the moment at which it may come to us. It happens that a terrible disease occurs to a person, yet he/she remains in life, while another who has not undergone such a disease vanishes.

Usually relatives and friends think of their loss as a punishment from God. They say that “God gives life and causes death”, since life and death cannot occur apart from the command of the one who is the cause of everything in life. Isn’t it the responsibility of the Creator to be the cause of everything, i.e. of existence and nonexistence? However this approach implies that God has two different plans: one to reduce existence to nonexistence and another plan to keep life going on. This further means, and in simple words, that God eternally has been keeping a notebook in which God has written the name of a person and the reason of God’s taking care of him/her until one reaches the hundred years or more in life, or the reason of God’s abandoning of another person, as it is commonly said. Isn’t the claim of God’s abandoning a person a claim of God’s favoritism to some over others?

In reality we do not know the divine intentions and we are somehow left to face a mystery as we encounter the reality of death, from which we cannot escape. I admit that this is frightening; however it is much more frightening to say that God is the cause of one’s departure from life. Our approach is completely altered whenever we believe that God wants us to continue living and that God does not make arbitrary decisions, God does not have our names in a notebook and God does not search for one’s name and the time of one’s departure from this life. God is not a temperamental God and on the level of human feelings death remains an obscured mystery until the mystery is disclosed at the last day.

In sūra 39 [al-zumar], v.42 it is written that “God receives the souls at the time of their death”. This verse distinguishes between death, i.e. the soul’s departure from the body, and God’s receiving of it. God withdraws what has been entrusted to the human soul. This is the work of God. However, for what reason does God withdraw the soul from the natural world, this seems to be an unanswerable question.

I don’t want to enter into the question of divine predestination, rather I prefer to hold on a free reading of the text, which allows me to see the difference between the death of the souls, or their departing the bodies, and their being received by God. What I want to say is that the souls find their way to God and God receives them through God’s mercy. This is what really matters for the believer.

There is no way to comfort a believer by trying to explain the biological reasons behind death. That will not change the believer’s grief about a relative or a friend. It must be further said that biological knowledge about death is based on presumption. Scientific presumption however is unable to comfort the person, whenever one’s beloved had departed life, since one would not want the beloved to depart.

The whole story is that we do not appreciate absence. The reality that a beloved person is no more within our sight causes pain to us, since for us the meeting of the eyes, and of the other senses, is important. Existence is in adhering and being near to the beloved ones. No one can be reconciled with absence and the shock that it causes in the person differs based on the measure of love one carries within oneself toward the departed. The whole universe is not founded on rational understanding and the shedding of the tears is nothing else than a sign for lacking understanding.

Whenever one is able to disperse the departed person from one’s sight and memory, one would be able to free oneself from an image that seizes him/her. It is not enough to move the departed person from one’s sight to one’s discernment, since this keeps one within the grip of death. One has to free oneself from the departed ones because life itself is in God’s hands. Whenever we trust the departed ones to the divine care and to the truth of divine love, we elevate them to Truth as such. We usually hear about war-disasters and we here some claim that this martyr or that is alive in their lives. If this is true and if that martyr is alive in a person it means that the person is the slave of that martyr. Rather we are called to be free from all the departed ones. We are to meet them only in prayer, through which we bring them to God, since they do not need us, but they need divine inclination toward them.

The communion of saints, as Christians call it, has nothing to do with remembering the departed ones. Rather, it is a communion in holiness solely. Those churches which believe in intercession do not claim an emotional excitement, rather they draw upon the Holy Spirit that purifies the souls and makes out of all souls the one Church.

Based on what has been said one has to make the effort to see the departed one leaning on the teacher’s chest. The Last Supper is a lasting event and in our detachment from the world we are inclined to listen to the heart of the Lord and only then we begin to understand and be elevated to the Father. In the presence of the Father we rest only on divine mercy, i.e. the range in which we can be truly in God. In the Kingdom we can have some taste of resurrection, while resurrection is not about time rather it is compassion and tenderness. At the moment in which we yearn for forgiveness, it descends upon us from above since it is not possible at the time of departure merely to encounter nothing. From the very beginning we experience resurrection as we approach the Easter event.

Our paschal reality (the Easter event) is not a delayed event. However the general resurrection is to be announced at the last resurrection and then God’s love to us and our love of God will brightly shine.

In this sense divine glory is not dispersed, rather it is abundant fullness. Whoever is able to live this reality with complete conviction never dies.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “رهبة الموت” –An Nahar- 19.03.2011

The human soul is an arena for the tension between “rising” and “falling”. It can rise and it can fall. What is Good does not go along with Evil. They clash. “Bad things”, without knowing from where they come, proceed from you even though you are intrinsically bent towards what is good and are a dwelling for God. No other being nests in you. There is a transmittance into you of what is diabolic but there is also that which is divine until you are healed.

The matter is not one of good and evil tendencies that work themselves in the soul with one outweighing the other. The issue concerns what resides in your depths. The question the Lord pauses for you is: “Are you on my side, are you with me?” And the question is so for us on Judgment Day. The issue is not how well you have applied yourself to the Ten Commandments. These can only signify as to whether you are God’s friend or one of His enemies.

Your repentance in this life is not merely a transition of a moral nature from being “bad” to being “good”. This takes place through ongoing rigorous repentance; your repentance is a shift from your depravity to the presence of God; from you holding back from Him to His self-revelation to you. Being in evil, you cannot have your deeds acknowledged as good unless you seek God’s face; that is you enter into His love. Then He takes away your sins. The issue is not what you seek, but whom you seek. And if you happen to seek mercy, forgiveness and compassion, you are in fact seeking God; because your soul will not be satisfied except with Him.  He fills all of His “beauties”. “And of His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”(John 1: 16). Thus there is a variety of “graces” bur they all proceed from the Divine Fullness. It is not an over statement if I say that the sinner moves from a state of rejection of God to one of befriending Him. Without that relationship we inherit nothing and we see nothing.

This close relationship removes the remoteness existing between your power and God’s. The closeness might develop to union; one between “the Creator” and “the created” in such a way that the relationship of worship of the Creator by the creature remains. Without this closeness you remain “thrown” purposelessly in this universe. So it is necessary that God intervenes with Man to bring about salvation.

God comes down to you with Divine Love. The only thing that can exist between you and Him is communication. Love is a bond of unity between us and God though each remains in his own statehood independent of the other. If you believe, you can bring yourself to this encounter with Him.

In a dialogue, the two dialoguing parties are equal and of the same standing. This is not the case in our relationship with the Lord unless He condescends to make us so in His love. This is so in Christianity because of the Incarnation. God, in the incarnation, has put upon Himself the mantle of equality with us. And that is a genuine and voluntary act of condescension on God’s part; this is met with an ascending act on our part. That is the type of “dialogue” between God and Man. In reality, that means surrendering yourself to Him and submitting to His Word.

In this dialogue, God does not “give and take” with you; He only commands you. And it is so in matters of sin and temptation. He commands you to “silence” temptation and to say “No” to sin the moment it springs up in your mind. You do not “give and take” with the devil. You only renounce him from the start. Do not discuss things with him; just renounce him.  You take refuge in the Word of God only. Get filled with it in your heart so it flows in you and stand in the face of temptation so that you do not get in a dialogue with it (temptation).

The pleasure of sin can attract you. Only the light of Jesus, when it comes upon you, can pull you out of the attraction of pleasure to the joy of the intimacy with Christ. Thus you put away one pleasure for one that is greater. When the joy of the Lord draws you to Jesus, the choice (between sin and God) becomes easier. Rejoice in the Lord always so that your joy, having been made strong, becomes a source of resistance (to temptation) at times of trouble. You have to be intimate with the Lord so that He becomes your shelter and in that shelter you are helped.

Here comes the question about the training of the will. The human being is made strong every time one says “No” to temptation and seeks the power of the Holy Spirit. That is not only a training of the will; the Fathers tell us of the training of the “whole being” through asceticism, fasting, prayer and studying the Word of God.

Abstinence from eating and drinking and amusement and all that is not of benefit in the times we are in, makes us receptive of Grace. And being immersed in Grace, we become a “living word”, and we are empowered to reject what hinders His Word, and transforms us in feelings and thoughts to a divine mind and a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الكلمة والروح” –An Nahar- 12.3.2011