Glory to God On The Highest: The Death of Death

“Then the LORD God said to the serpent:  ‘Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures;  On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life.   I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;  He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.’ ”     Genesis 3:14-15 NAB

"Do Not Lament Me O, Mother"

Mary, The Mother of God, weeping for her Son

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”     Matthew 28:5-10 NAB

Latin Icon Of the Risen Christ

For this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality. And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?     1 Corinthians 15:53-55 Douay-Rheims 1899

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The Bright Week, in Orthodox Christianity, is a celebration of Christ's Resurrection.

So far from "a cult dedicated to the dead Christ" as some protestants lovingly put it, Orthodoxy teaches Christians to live and love life; to give glory to God by living out the faith we receive from Jesus Himself because He is the author and finisher of our faith, to stop weeping and feeling afraid, because He destroyed Death by dying on the Cross; HE IS INDEED RISEN and is coming back. 

Let's celebrate life by glorifying God's resurrection this Bright Week.

Now, a volume of words from St. Justin the Martyr:

"If He had no need of the flesh, why did He heal it? And what is most forcible of all, He raised the dead. Why? Was it not to show what the resurrection should be? How then did He raise the dead? Their souls or their bodies? Manifestly both. If the resurrection were only spiritual, it was requisite that He, in raising the dead, should show the body lying apart by itself, and the soul living apart by itself. But now He did not do so, but raised the body, confirming in it the promise of life. Why did He rise in the flesh in which He suffered, unless to show the resurrection of the flesh? And wishing to confirm this, when His disciples did not know whether to believe He had truly risen in the body, and were looking upon Him and doubting, He said to them, You have not yet faith, see that it is I;Luke 24:32, etc. and He let them handle Him, and showed them the prints of the nails in His hands. And when they were by every kind of proof persuaded that it was Himself, and in the body, they asked Him to eat with them, that they might thus still more accurately ascertain that He had in verity risen bodily; and He ate honey-comb and fish. And when He had thus shown them that there is truly a resurrection of the flesh, wishing to show them this also, that it is not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven (as He had said that our dwelling-place is in heaven), He was taken up into heaven while they beheld, Acts 1:9 as He was in the flesh. If, therefore, after all that has been said, any one demand demonstration of the resurrection, he is in no respect different from the Sadducees, since the resurrection of the flesh is the power of God, and, being above all reasoning, is established by faith, and seen in works." (from Apologetics On The Resurrection Chapter 9) http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0131.htm

Arise O God! Alleluia, for You Are Risen!