Sermon of PASCHA 2026
Christ is risen! Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
today we leave behind the sadness of Great Lent and step into the bright joy of the Resurrection. The tomb is empty. This is the greatest day for humanity. But Pascha isn't just something that happened a long time ago; it's something we are living right now, together.
In today’s Gospel reading, St. John doesn't tell us the story of the women at the empty tomb. Instead, he points to a deeper truth: "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." Why do we read this today? Because for three days, the darkness of the tomb, our sins, and death itself tried to put out the Light of our Saviour. But the Light kept shining, and the darkness couldn't stop it. The Resurrection is the proof that Christ has beaten the darkness and broken the power of death forever.
We hear about this total victory in the Easter sermon of St. John Chrysostom, which we read every single year. He talks about God's amazing grace and invites absolutely everyone to the feast. He invites the person who fasted and the person who didn't. He invites the one who worked all day and the one who showed up at the last minute. He tells us, "Let no one weep for his sins, for pardon has shone forth from the grave." Chrysostom gives us that great image of death being tricked. "It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven." Death is mocked. Christ took on our human death to destroy it from the inside.
But this great feast of faith that Chrysostom talks about isn't just a nice idea or a metaphor. It is happening right here, in the Church. When he says, "Enter all of you into the joy of your Lord," he is inviting us to the Divine Liturgy.
Being a Christian isn't something we are meant to do on our own. We are the Body of Christ, and we experience the risen Lord the most when we are gathered together. In our busy lives, it's really easy to drift away or feel like we can just pray by ourselves at home. But the Church is the hospital for our souls.
When you are here, standing next to your brothers and sisters, you are part of the Resurrection. When we pray the "Our Father" and ask for our "daily bread," the early Church Fathers understood this to mean the Holy Eucharist itself. This is why we must gather regularly to receive the risen Christ, our true spiritual food that sustains us. We need each other to sing, to support one another, and to share this Light together.
I really want to encourage you to make coming to church a priority. Don't let this joy just be for one night a year. Every single Sunday is a little Pascha, a weekly celebration of the empty tomb. The doors are always open, and the table is always set. Let's live like people who know that death is beaten, our Saviour is alive, and the doors to Paradise are wide open.