The Church
preserves its identity thoroughly. 2000 years that passed did not manage to change the
Gospel. It remains the same good news and bright God’s message addressed to
people. Sometimes it seems to us that the rite has replaced the faith, that we
have stumbled into the traditions of the past, that
the life of the Church has become darkened like the image on the miraculous icon and
has been covered with a thik cover. But then the day of Pascha arrives and makes
all the doubts and fears go away. Any dualism of the soul and any blasphemy
against the Truth disappear in the sound of Paschal bells and victorious “Christ
is Risen!” chants.
We should not just live only one week a year with this Paschal joy. We need to catch it and hold
it just like Elisha, the disciple of Prophet Elijah, did when he held Elijah’s
mantle in his hands.
The Church stretches the Paschal string through the whole
year so that we can follow the commandment of Apostle Paul: “Rejoice evermore”.
And there are ties on this string, which are Sundays. It is a minor Pascha; an
antipascha, not in the meaning "against", but in the meaning "instead". Of course, when
Apostles Peter and Paul were alive, the Church did not celebrate the feast of
the All-Praised Leaders of the Apostles. While the Mother of God was still alive, there was no
feast of the Dormition. What did the Church have, when there was no Dormition,
Intercession, Entrance into the Temple and the Apostles’ feast days? The Church had
Sunday. It is the first feast of the new humanity, thanks to which our
connection with the early Church and the cradle remains firm and does not
break.
The world
is contraucted on the basis of seven days(week). The number six points to the
created world while the number seven reminds us that the created world is
blessed. Here lies the key to understanding of the meaning of Saturday
celebrations. On the seventh day, which is Saturday, God blessed everything
that he had created. Thus, on Saturday a person had to rest from his everyday
work, think about the Creator’s work and glorify Him for how perfectly He had
everything organized. It was supposed that on Saturday a man did not reveal his
power over the created world: he was supposed to spend that day without
digging, cutting or lighting a fire. This day should have been filled with
prayer, rest and thoughts about God. However, a man has sinned and fallen
victim to the seducer. He needed to be saved from sin. Saturday could not save
the man, because it was only there to support his spiritual life. Christ healed
humanity and He did that on Sunday, the first day of the week.
The redemption of the world is even greater example of love than its creation. The fact
that God easily created a beautiful world beyond compare shows that He is almighty and wise.
At the same time, the fact that He sent His only Son to save the world shows
His love. What should we do then? For what should we love God more? For His Almightiness or for His love toward us as fallen creations? The Church states:
for His love. The Church does not cancel Saturday but instead calls it a feast day and fills
it with prayer. Nevertheless, the Church places Sunday, the first day of the
week, above Saturday. We celebrate it more passionately, because it is our
constant reminder of the One Who loves us and sacrificed Himself for us.
Sunday is
the first and the eighth day of the week at the same time. It is the first day
in terms of the weekly cycle, and it becomes the eighth day when it breaks the
cycle and goes beyond it. On that very first day, God created light and
separated it from darkness. It is joyful that we can see the similarity between
this day and the day of Resurrection. The thing is, the Resurrected Christ
defeated darkness. He made it visible and let the man get out from it and step
into the light. Concerning the eighth day, the
liturgical Sunday celebration turns us into participants of blessed
eternity, the everlasting feast described in the Gospel. The Holy Fathers
referred to it as the eighth day. The seventh day, is when God does not create
anything new and rules over what is already create. With Christ’s coming and
His righteous Judgement, a new day will come – the eighth day - and the Kingdom
of Heaven, of which there shall be no end. The Sunday celebration unites the
two ends of history – its artistic beginning and its dramatic end. All the beauty of this theological meal is
open for any person who takes part in the Sunday prayer.
By the
way, the Resurrection of Christ is the eighth resurrection in the Bible, and
the first one by its meaning. Before it there were three resurrections in the
Old Testament: Elijah and Elisha resurrected the adolescents, and one dead man
revived after he had fallen on the Elisha’s bones. In the New Testament, the
Lord resurrected the son of the widow, the daughter of Jair and Lazarus. The
seventh resurrection was the resurrection of many saints in Jerusalem during
the Savior’s sufferings on the cross (Matthew 27:52-53). The Lord Himself was
the eighth. But what kind of a resurrection was it? He resurrected for
everlasting eternal life, over which death has no power. All the people who had
been resurrected before died later, because their nature was not transfigured.
Only the Lord opened the gates to Eternity for us with His total victory over death. Therefore,
it turns out that His Resurrection is the eighth in its order and the first in
its meaning. The same is with His day, the Lord’s day.
An article by Fr. Andrew Tkachev
Source: http://otrok-ua.ru/sections/art/show/den_vosmoi.html
CONVERSATION