Christ is risen, indeed!

Having just finished another funeral, I have had yet another opportunity to reflect on the gift of immortality that is afforded us in the Resurrection of the Pre-Eternal Word of God made flesh. In another blog, "Glory to God for All Things," Fr. Stephen, the blog's author, points out rightly that the self-emptying (kenosis) of the Son of God in the Incarnation is not merely an historical event but that it is more globally an essential characteristic of the Second Person of the Trinity. That is to say that Son, being begotten of the Father before all ages, likewise eternally empties himself of his own personal subsistence -- "as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just, for I do not my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me," to paraphrase a couple passages of the Gospel according to St. John.

We heard this message both in the gospel for Mid-Pentecost at this morning's liturgy and in the gospel of the funeral. This is the crucified Christ, the image of the pre-Eternal Love of God, and it is this empty, crucified one who in Himself bears the fulness of God bodily. This is the mystery of the God-man, the Theanthropos (fr. Theos, God, and anthropos, human), risen and glorified and regnant and expected unto all eternity and an eternity of eternities. This is the Kingdom of Heaven, this is the Hope of all the Ages, this is the LORD Jesus Christ!

He is risen, indeed!