God Won’t be Kept Down

Christ is Risen!

In more than one way, life can seem to be a rollercoaster of great joy and great depression. Economically our finances grow and decrease. Physically we grow strong only to eventually get weak and frail. Even spiritually we have our ups and downs. This week, because of Pascha, we are having a ‘up week’ for sure, but it won’t last. I’m not being doomsday. I’m being real.

As the spiritual high wanes and we move on with our daily tasks, we will again feel the burden of living in a world that is not committed to God. I’ve noticed over the years that even those in Church every Sunday tire of greeting each other with Christ is Risen before the end of forty days. It has long been the tradition of our Church to greet each other this way between Pascha and Ascension. It is as if our zeal is crushed by the burden of life. Even that is nothing new.

Today is the commemoration of the consecration of the Church of the Theotokos and the Life-Giving Spring. This site of the Church has been the source of great joy and great desecration over the centuries. For me it is a reminder that God cannot be kept down. Every time the Church was destroyed it was eventually rebuilt. The original Church dates back to the 5^th Century, while the current Church was restored in the 20^th Century. It reminds me of today’s Gospel lesson.

At that time, Jesus came to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples; and there they stayed for a few days. The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign have you to show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.

John 2.12-22

Of course, this passage from the Gospel is prophetic of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. It also speaks to the zeal of faith. You can beat down a person of faith, but you cannot destroy it forever. Day after day we read of martyr saints who took a beating only to rise unscathed.

The world will never cease to fight against Christ, His Church, and His people. Just a cursory view of history reveals ‘ups and downs’ in the greatness (speaking in worldly terms) of the Church. We shouldn’t be surprised when we experience the same attacks our ancestors experienced. It didn’t keep them down, and it won’t keep us down.

If we learned anything at all from the past several weeks, it is this. God won’t be kept down. Pascha is a celebration of the victory of God over death. We see death as something to fear because we live earthly lives. The saints didn’t fear death. The Church doesn’t fear death. We shouldn’t fear death.

Death is not the end, just as tearing down the Church of the Life-Giving Spring wasn’t the end of the Church. Death was not the end of Christ. Death was not the end of the Saints. Death will not be the end of us either if we dedicate our lives to Christ.

So, if you begin to feel down in the days to come as the ‘high’ of Pascha fades. Don’t panic. It is natural. It is the world fighting you. Focus on the lives of the saints who stood up over and over again. Focus on the history of the Church of the Live-Giving Spring. Think of today’s Gospel lesson. Focus on being dedicated to God, and you won’t be kept down.