Sermon 231
SERMO 231
ON EASTER DAYS
The disbelieving disciples are reproached for lying.
The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is customarily read in these days from all the books of the holy Gospel. In this reading, we observe how the Lord Jesus rebuked His disciples, His primary members, clinging to His side, because they did not believe that He, whom they mourned as having been slain, was alive. The fathers of the faith were not yet faithful, the teachers so that the whole world might believe what they were going to preach and for which they were going to die, they did not yet believe. They did not believe that He whom they had seen raise the dead had himself risen. Therefore, they were rightly rebuked. They were shown themselves to recognize who they were through themselves, who they would be through Him. Just as Peter was shown himself, when he presumed at the coming passion of the Lord and wavered when that passion came. He saw himself in himself, he grieved himself in himself, he wept himself in himself; he turned to Him who had made him. Behold, they still did not believe, in this reading they still did not believe, even though they now saw. How great His condescension, who has granted us to believe what we do not yet see. We believe their words, they did not believe their own eyes.
The resurrection of Christ dissolved sin and renewed us.
The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is the new life of those who believe in Jesus. And this is the sacrament of his passion and resurrection, which you ought to know and practice diligently. For life did not come to death without cause, nor did the fountain of life, from which one drinks to live, drink the cup that was not due to it. For it was not owed to Christ to die. Let us therefore seek whence death came; the father of death is sin. For if no one had ever sinned, no one would die. The first man received the law of God, that is, the commandment of God, with the condition that if he kept it, he would live; if he broke it, he would die. Not believing that he would die, he brought upon himself death and found that what He, who gave the law, had said was true. Hence death, hence mortality, hence labor, hence misery, hence even after the first death the second death, that is, after temporal death eternal death. Every man is therefore born bound to this condition of death, to these laws of hell; except for that man who became man so that man would not perish. For he did not come bound by the laws of death, therefore it is said in the Psalm: "Among the dead he is free." Whom the Virgin conceived without lust, whom the Virgin bore and remained a Virgin, who lived without sin, who did not die because of sin, sharing with us the penalty, not sharing the sin—the penalty of sin is death—the Lord Jesus Christ came to die, not to sin. By sharing with us the penalty without sin, he dissolved both the sin and the penalty. What penalty did he dissolve? The one that was due to us after this life. Therefore he was crucified to show by the cross the fall of our old man, and he rose again to show in his life the newness of our life. Thus apostolic doctrine teaches: "He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." The sign of this matter was given to the fathers in circumcision, that every male should be circumcised on the eighth day. Circumcision was performed with stone knives, because the rock was Christ. In this circumcision, the putting off of the carnal life on the eighth day through the resurrection of Christ was signified. For the seventh day of the week is completed with the Sabbath. On the Sabbath the Lord lay in the tomb, on the seventh day; he rose on the eighth. His resurrection renews us. Therefore, on the eighth day, he circumcises us. We live in this hope.
If we live well, we were dead but we have risen.
Let us hear the Apostle saying: If you have been raised with Christ... . When shall we who are not yet dead rise again? What is it then that the Apostle wished to say: If you have been raised with Christ? Would he have risen if he had not first died? He was speaking to the living, who were not yet dying and already rising. What does it mean? See what he says: If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things on the earth. For you have died. He says it, not I, and yet he speaks the truth, and therefore I also say it. Why do I also say it? I believed, therefore I have spoken. If we live well, we have died and risen; but whoever has not yet died nor risen, still lives badly; if he lives badly, he does not live; let him die lest he die. What does it mean: let him die lest he die? Let him be changed lest he be condemned. If you have been raised with Christ, I repeat the words of the Apostle, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ appears, who is your life, then you also will appear with him in glory. These are the words of the Apostle. To him who is not yet dead, I say let him die; to him who still lives badly, I say let him be changed. For if he lived badly and no longer lives badly, he is dead; if he lives well, he has risen.
Nothing earthly makes us blessed.
But what is it: to live well? Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. As long as you are earth and to earth you shall go, as long as you cling to the earth—by loving the earth you certainly cling to the earth—and you become its enemy of whom the Psalm says: "And his enemies will lick the dust." What were you? Sons of men. What are you? Sons of God. Sons of men, how long will you be heavy-hearted? Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood? What falsehood do you seek? I will tell you now. I know you want to be blessed. Give me a man who is a robber, a malefactor, a fornicator, a sorcerer, a sacrilegious man, stained with every vice, overwhelmed with every crime and wickedness, who would not want a truly blessed life. I know you all want to live blessedly; but from what does a man live blessedly? This you are not willing to seek. You seek gold because you think you will be blessed by gold; but gold does not make blessed. Why do you seek falsehood? Why do you want to be exalted in this age? Because you think you will be blessed by the honor of men and the pomp of the age, but the pomp of the age does not make blessed. Why do you seek falsehood? And whatever else you seek here, when you seek it worldly, when you seek it by loving the earth, when you seek it by clinging to the earth, you seek it in order to be blessed; but no earthly thing will make you blessed. Why do you not cease seeking falsehood? From where, then, will you be blessed? Sons of men, how long will you be heavy-hearted? You do not want to be heavy-hearted, you who burden your heart with the earth? How long have men been heavy-hearted? Before Christ came, before Christ rose, men were heavy-hearted. How long will you be heavy-hearted? Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood? Wanting to be blessed, you seek things from which you will be miserable. What you seek deceives you; it is falsehood that you seek.
Christ, who bore our evil, will give heavenly goods.
Do you wish to be blessed? I will show, if you wish, whence you can be blessed. Follow there: "How long will you be heavy-hearted? Why do you love vanity and seek lies? Know. What? Because the Lord has magnified his holy one." Christ came to our miseries: He hungered, thirsted, was fatigued, slept, performed wonders, suffered evils, was scourged, was crowned with thorns, was smeared with spit, was struck with blows, fixed to a cross, wounded with a lance, placed in a sepulcher, but rising on the third day, with labor completed, with death dead. Behold, there have an eye on his resurrection. For the Lord has magnified his holy one, that he should be raised from the dead and given honor in heaven to sit at his right hand. He shows you what you ought to understand if you wish to be blessed. Here indeed, you cannot be. In this life, you cannot be blessed. No one can. You seek a good thing, but this earth is not the region where what you seek is found. What do you seek? Blessed life. But it is not here. If you were seeking gold in a place where it is not, the one who knows it is not there, would not say to you: Why are you digging? Why do you trouble the earth? You make a pit where you will descend, not where you will find anything. What would you answer to one advising you? I seek gold. And he: I do not tell you that what you are seeking is nothing, you seek a good thing, but it is not where you seek. So also when you say: I wish to be blessed, you seek a good thing, but it is not here. If Christ had it here, so would you. In the region of your death, what did he find? Behold: coming from another region, what did he find here except what abounds here: labors, pains, death, behold what you have here, what abounds here. He ate with you what abounded in the cell of your misery. Here he drank vinegar, here he had gall. Behold what he found in your cell. And he invited you to his great table, the table of heaven, the table of angels, where he himself is the bread. Therefore, descending and finding these evils in your cell and not disdaining such a table of yours, he promised his own. What does he say to us? Believe, believe that you will come to the goods of my table, when I did not disdain the evils of your table. He took your evil and will give his good? Indeed he will give. He promised his life to us, but what he did is more incredible; he pledged his death to us. As if he would say: To my life I invite you, where no one dies, where truly blessed life is, where food does not spoil, where it refreshes and does not fail. Behold where I invite you, to the region of angels, to the friendship of the Father and the Holy Spirit, to the everlasting supper, to my brotherhood; finally, to myself. To my life I invite you. You do not wish to believe that I will give you my life? Hold the pledge of my death. Therefore now, while we live in this corruptible flesh, by a change of conduct let us die with Christ, by love for justice let us live with Christ. We will not receive the blessed life unless we come to him who came to us, and begin to be with him who died for us.