THE "REAL WORLD" AND THE RESURRECTION

Sometimes in the Church we hear talk of the "real world"--meaning the world outside the Church, I suppose. This is a most unfortunate term because it gives a false impression of the Church's teachings about reality--the one we live in currently and the one that will be ours for all eternity.If the "real world" is all about what people do when they are not in church then what is done in church is by definition, "unreal", and thus, unimportant. At best it is a feel good game that may be alright for me but utterly unimportant for someone else. This is, basically, the attitude of most people in the Euro-American "West" today--including many who call themselves devout Christians. It is, for believers, an absolutely disastrous mentality.

Why?

The answer is painfully obvious. It puts the life in Christ on the same level as soccer, yoga, going out to dinner, or having a drink with friends. It is a trite and banal attitude about the meaning of existence—one fit for a consumer society, and you can’t get more banal than that!

The “real world” for the Orthodox believer is, first and foremost, the life we live in Christ which is most clearly and beautifully portrayed in the life we experience in the Church. All of the events we have participated in during the services of this Great and Holy Week, and especially of the events we shall enter into in the Resurrection liturgy tonight, have brought us in touch with “REALITY” as it is on the deepest level.

This is not a matter of opinion—fine for me, but maybe not for someone else; it is a matter of FACT. Otherwise, it is of no matter—no consequence—at all. We have not, over the course of Holy Week, merely joined in playing our parts in a well beloved play, or watched a sentimental seasonal movie in order to get an emotional “high”. Rather, we have entered into reality—true reality, which is as far removed from the pseudo-real world of individualism and consumerism as heaven is from hell. In fact, the events of this week have made it clear to us that the so called ‘real world’ out there is very much hell bent. It is in love with promises that can never be fulfilled—whether those of politicians or, of the merchants of things or, the purveyors of “spirituality” without God. The politicians promise us a brighter future, if only we follow their plan, the salesmen promise us joy through accumulating their ‘stuff’, and the purveyors of “spirituality” promise us cheap salvation without effort. In short, they all promise unreality in the guise of what is real, they promise paradise and deliver an insatiable hell of striving without ever achieving.

The experience of Holy Week and Pascha shows us another way—one that does not make saccharine promises of easy accomplishment and self satisfaction. The Way of the Cross—which anyone who wishes to experience the Resurrection must follow—is a way of sorrow in terms of the pseudo ‘real’ world, but it is ultimately the way to true joy. By following in this way we find that, ultimately, this is the world of ghosts and vapors, constantly dissolving into nothingness, while the really ‘real’ world that is coming is solid and clear and beautiful. It is the Risen Christ who passes through walls and locked doors as if they were so much fog; it is the resurrected world that we Christians long for, a world purchased through earthly struggle and grief but, once won, imperishable and eternal.

Does this mean that we can have no experience of real joy in this world—that it is only about dragging along our cross without any remission from our grief? Of course, not! Through the cross, we are taught, joy comes into the world—this world! So, no, it is not all about tears and sorrow. Holy Friday turns into Pascha; the fast into feasting, tears into laughter. It is because we know that we have become inheritors of a Kingdom that is real in a way that nothing in the creation we now experience can ever be real that we can rejoice. The grief of life in this world, the insatiable urges of our mortal nature, are swallowed up in a joy that cannot die. We can embrace the Lord’s Pascha for the gift it is—not the promise of a politician, as salesman, or a cheap guru—but one that transcends, even as it embraces, the pain of the loss of health, strength, loved ones, and life itself. The unfading light of the Resurrection shines into this ghostly and transient world and promises that someday we shall, indeed, become real and solid and that the very flesh we bear—so fragile and ephemeral—will itself become solid and eternally beautiful in a way we can’t even comprehend until the Day itself dawns on us.

Do not ever speak of the “world” outside the Church as if it were the real thing. It should be our greatest heartbreak that so much of our time is spent under the power of its illusions and delusions. It is the chimera of that world we need to leave behind in order to receive the gift that never ages—the gift of Pascha, the Unending Dawn of the Real World that is even now upon us if we have but “eyes to see”.

The End of the World

As we enter into Great and Holy Week the Orthodox Church considers the "Last Things". In the Western Churches, and in the Orthodox Western Rite, this is the theme of Advent--the Pre-Christmas Season. But, in the East, it has always been the theme of Holy Week.

What will the end of the world look like?

The Church spends very little time discussing the images of an apocalypse--mostly because those images are very much secondary to the real theme of the end--that of Judgment. In a sense, it can be said that we have been living in the "Last Days" since the awesome events of our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection--when the "sun hid its rays" and the moon and stars cloaked themselves in darkness (to use the images found in the Church's hymns and iconography for Great and Holy Friday). Since then the world has merely been on pause between the Lord's first coming and His final return. History, at least from a Divine perspective, has ended. Everything has been accomplished (as the Lord said from the cross).

Seen in this light, it makes no sense to try and read the spiritual equivalent of tea leaves in order to discern how close we are to the final moments. In fact, each and everyone of us is only a few years at most from the Judgment Day. We shall all face our Judge when we draw our last breath. The images of the Bridegroom services which are celebrated at the beginning of Holy Week are a constant reminder of this. We are called to be prepared so as not to be "shut out from the Kingdom".

So, in the end it really doesn't matter whether the stars fall from the sky above us or if an atomic war breaks out or armies meet on the plain of Megiddo. Whether we go in the company of billions or by ourselves, quietly or in the midst of the tumult of war, we all face the Judge of the World and will be held accountable for ourselves.

How odd it seems, from an Orthodox Christian perspective, that so many books are written trying to discern when the end will come. How silly to work oneself up over the predictions of the Mayan calendar or some other such thing! The Lord has already spoken--two thousand years ago--that "NOW is this world judged" and everyone it it, each and every moment of our lives.

If that doesn't compel us to acquire a healthy and holy fear, then all of the books and prophecies in the world are useless.

The message of the coming week is clear: Be prepared, repent, and know that the Judge is already at the door. "Blessed is the one He finds awake and ready" when He comes.

Newsweek's Semi-Annual Anti-Christian Cover Story

We ought to be used to it by now--the Christmas and Easter editions of "Time", "Newsweek", and the rest of the liberal ilk. We can generally expect an article about why the Jesus we proclaim as the Son of the Living God (because He did so first) was instead just a new age guru who arranged his own execution through Judas (the only disciple who truly understood him), or a misunderstood Rabbi who would have been appalled at the very idea of "Christianity", or who faked his crucifixion and married Mary Magdalene(or, his "beloved disciple", John!). and ran off to Paris.

We ought to be used to it, but it still gets under my skin. Perhaps it is just because the editors of those magazines don't have the guts to insult other major religions on such a regular basis (perhaps out of a well founded fear of the world-wide reaction if they did so).

This year Newsweek has proclaimed, through the voice of a self described "devout, though deeply flawed" Episcopalian on their staff, that the final decline and fall of Christian America is well under way. They even have the data to prove it! That's not to say that there aren't a few interesting points in the article-- its just that most of it is silly opinion under the guise of actual news reporting (or, worse yet, research!).

Americans have always been notoriously strong on religious (now called 'spiritual') feelings and short on theological reflection. The old Church as Social Club has been replaced by Sports as Social Club, etc.

Newsweek's obituary for American Christianity is vastly overdone. It might be more interesting and instructive to the reader if they would come out with articles about the thriving religious communities in this country, Christian and otherwise, at the various holy seasons of the year and allow the people in them to express the hope and joy they experience as part of them.

But that would mean an end to editorializing by ignorant (and pretty much uninterested) reporters for the sake of the actual story. Not likely in today's left wing press.