I would, as I have done so many times before, exhort you to take a serious look at our traditional Easter Icon. The true Easter icon depicts the Lord’s Descent into Hades and does not represent Him as coming out of the grave. It conveys the impact of His Resurrection, namely the destruction of Death and the granting of eternal life to humankind, which is depicted by the raising of Adam and Eve.
In the Western Christian world, Easter is all about Christ coming out of the grave. While we Eastern Christians do not deny the fact that He came out of the grave, that fact is of little importance to us. What is of importance to us is what His being raised from the dead means. God revealed, by raising His Son from the dead, that human life is immortal. It is immortal because life is a sharing in God’s own life.
These truths are represented in the Easter icon by the fact that the Risen Christ is depicted as pulling Adam and Eve out of the grave and smashing the very gates of Hades, the place of Death. The destruction of Death is depicted by Christ smashing the gates or doors of Hades and the key, lock and hinges being separated from the doors.
There is an almond-shaped nimbus around Christ – called the Mandorla, from the Italian word for almond. This Mandorla represents the uncreated, eternal light of Christ. In the writings of the Eastern Christian mystics, God is often experienced as light. This is not simply a pretty bright light. It is the same light which filled the apostles with wonder when they saw Christ Transfigured. It is the light which Christ Himself described as the power of the Kingdom of God. It is the light that filled the once perpetual darkness of Hades when Christ descended and brought life into the realm of death.
The icon on the cover of this Bulletin presents a slightly different version of the Easter Icon. In this icon, Christ is only pulling Adam out of the grave while he is holding a scroll in His left hand. The scroll, a sign of wisdom and authority, represents God’s revelation to all mankind about the true nature of human life and death – the scroll is God’s mandate.
Other persons appear besides Adam and Eve. Among them are John the Baptizer, King David and the Patriarchs of the Old Testament. This clearly tells us that immortality is a part of human life – all humans, because they share in God’s own life, are immortal. A person doesn’t become immortal just because of belief. Since human life is a sharing in God’s own life, it is immortal.
Χριστός Ανέστη!