The Resurrection Letters
THE RESURRECTION LETTERS
in fact the celebration. Scripture portions on redemption were read, especially those of the Exodus. Interspersed among the readings were Psalms, chanted antiphonally, and homilies or sermons based on the various lessons. There was intercessory prayer for the lost and prayer for those about to be baptized. It seems that the Pascha was the most acceptable time of the year for new believers to be brought into the church
— sometimes having waited as long as three years as "hearers of the Word"!
It should be emphasized that in all of these activities the thought was not simply on the commemoration of a past event; rather, it was an entering into it. Perhaps some words from a fourth-century sermon by John Chrysostom will help:
I turn to those who in this blessed night are having the grace of baptism conferred on them: I address myself to those fair offshoots of the Church, those spiritual flowers, those new recruits of Jesus
Christ. Two days ago the Lord died on the cross. Today he has risen from the dead. In the same way two days ago these neophytes were held in the bondage of sin. But today they rise along with Christ.
He died in the flesh and rose in the flesh. They likewise were dead in sin and have risen from sin.?
THE FEAST
Then, finally, it was time for the Great Eucharist. The church remembered the night when it was delivered. The newly baptized joined the faithful at the Table of the Lord, and the night-long service was concluded with great joy and thanksgiving. In the morning the believers excitedly greeted each other,
"Christ is risen!" to which the response was, "He is risen indeed!" The feasting was just beginning; the festival continued for fifty days following the Pascha, ending on Pentecost Sunday.
Fasting and kneeling, which were forbidden on Sundays, were also forbidden during the season of Pentecost. It was a time of celebration for the church.
7Adelbert Hamman, ed., The Paschal Mystery: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts (New York: Alba Books, 1969), p. 104.
EASTER IN THE EARLY CHURCH
THE MEANING OF IT ALL
Above all, in the early church the Paschal celebration was the celebration of our redemption. Just as today we see the Paschal lamb as a type or shadow of Christ, so also did the church fathers. They also saw the redemption of the Jews from Egypt as a prefiguring of our redemption from sin. Melito of Sardis said:
For this one, Who was led away as a lamb, and who was sacrificed as a sheep, by himself delivered us from servitude to the world, as from the land of Egypt, and released us from bondage to the devil as from the hand of Pharaoh, and sealed our souls by his own spirit and the members of our bodies by his own blood.®
This is the one who delivered us from slavery into freedom, from darkness into light, from death into life, from tyranny into an eternal kingdom, and who made us a new priesthood, and a special people forever.?
Baptism Closely connected with this concept of redemption is the baptism of new believers, which was part of the celebration.
Baptism was no light thing in the early church. As evidence we have St. Paul's statements in Romans 6:5,6:
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer serve sin.
8Hawthorne, Current Issues, pp. 164-65.
*Ibid., p. 165.
THE RESURRECTION LETTERS
And in Colossians 2:12:
. buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who has raised
Him from the dead.
In baptism, a person is identified with Christ in His death and rises to a new life through Christ's resurrection. An early second-century document, The Shepherd of Hermas, says,
"They go down into the water dead and they come up alive."?° At the same time the believer is united with Christ, he is united to His body, the church. Again, from the apostle Paul we read:
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13).
Baptism, then, was no option to our church fathers. It was that act by which one died with Christ to the old way of life and rose with Him to a new life, a life united to Christ and to His body, the church. Since entrance into the redemption that the Pascha celebrates is tied to baptism, what better time to baptize those who believe? As a believer is submerged in the water, he is "buried with Christ," dead to sin and to the world. His rising up out of the water is a picture of his rising with Christ to a new life. For the early church this was not merely a symbol. In baptism they were actively experiencing their redemption. In an homily to newly baptized believers, Basil of Seleucia (A.D.
468) told them:
. the Lord's body has been entrusted to you. More than that, I say you have become the body of the Lord, you are a member of Christ. In Paul's words, you have put on Christ: "You have been baptized in Christ, you have put on Christ' "(Gal.3:27).44
10Jack Sparks, ed., The Apostolic Fathers (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978), p. 246.
11Hamman, Paschal Mystery, p. 125.