“Let God arise, Let His enemies be scattered; Let those who hate Him flee before Him. As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish; as wax melts in the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God; let them rejoice exceedingly” (Psalm 68:1-3)
You’ll hear us priests chant this psalm with great joy in our hearts, interspersed with the choir’s affirmation, “Christ is risen from the dead,” answering the Old Testament hope with the news that their wish has been granted. He has risen, His enemies are scattered, and the righteous are celebrating. That has already happened, yet the ultimate victory has yet to be achieved. Our song is proleptic. Christ is risen, and He lives within and among the righteous. As He was with the apostles, so He is with those who are buried with Him in baptism and are living through prayer and faith already in His Father’s kingdom. But the end is not yet.
We “look for the resurrection from the dead and the life of the world to come,” as we proclaim in the Creed that marks the midpoint of the Divine Liturgy. Not just “look for,” meaning looking forward to His return, we yearn for it to happen. Rather than being pulled back into a golden age of childhood, we are, as it were, drawn ahead by an invisible elastic band to the future beyond death. With our spiritual ancestors of the early church, we too pray “Maranatha!” Come, Lord! Let the Lord Jesus come, so that the world as we know it will disappear. Those who hate Him and fled before Him were not obliterated. Like the devil and his demons, they merely retreated from the greatest event of all time, the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, God and Savior, biding their time. They fled before Him then, but they crept back to attack those for whom He surrendered His life on earth. They melted like wax, only to reappear in other forms. Nor did they perish, because the heavenly Father will not annihilate what He created, neither human nor bodiless powers of heaven. Already we are alive in Him, but His work is not yet complete. He will return, but in the meanwhile we are left to continue His plan of salvation for all humans on earth.
We need not look far to discover the task before us. The beauty and spiritual refuge of dozens of our Orthodox Churches in Kosovo and surrounding areas have been destroyed and defiled. Terrorists are intent on eradicating Americans and westerners, Christians and Jews worldwide. In our nation sins exceeding ancient Sodom and Gomorrah are rampant, challenging traditional morals, family values and Christian teachings.
At the opening of the past century a Russian composer, Alexander Scriabin, could dream of creating a musical work of such resounding beauty that it would end on a chord which would bring about a harmony of the universe and the transfiguration of mankind. We have witnessed the opening of this century and a new millennium with the destruction of ancient figures of religious art in western Afghanistan, the attack on the World Trade Center, the infamous 9/11, and the expression of radical Muslim religious faith by a jihad against whatever in the world of Christianity is considered gracious, exquisite and sacred. The purpose of terrorism, as defined by the master terrorist Lenin, is “to terrorize;” i.e., to freeze hearts in fear, to destroy harmony and create panic, dread of the unknown, a life of ongoing fright.
The challenge before us is to affirm the order of the cosmos, the plan of the Father, the triumph of Jesus Christ and its effects among us, and the awareness of the Holy Spirit at work in the world, and in our hearts.