Just as Christ resurrected Himself, He has promised to resurrect those who
believe and choose to be part of His Kingdom. In our spiritual journey, we are
encouraged to gaze beyond our earthly life… to consider the consequences of our
daily choices. In so doing, we visualize how our earthly life has ultimate fulfillment
when we seek God’s will for ourselves and our families. It is then that we
anticipate with joy our future resurrection into God’s Kingdom.
To guide us to consider the significance of our personal resurrection, I
recommend you read a superb spiritual reflection by St. Nikolai of Ochrid and
Zica. In his 92nd reflection in Prayers by the Lake, he contemplates the
implications of our Savior resurrecting each of us from the dead:
My Lord is the One Who resurrects. He resurrects the dead from morning
until dusk, and from dusk until dawn.1
What the morning buries, the Lord brings to life in the evening; and what
the evening buries, the Lord brings to life in the morning.
What work is more fitting for the living God than to resurrect the dead into
life?
Let others believe in the God Who brings men to trial and judges them.
I shall cling to the God Who resurrects the dead.
Let others believe in the God, Who does not even draw near to the living
when they call upon Him.
I shall worship the God, Who holds His cupped ear even at cemeteries and
listens, to hear whether anyone is crying out for resurrection or for the One
Who resurrects.
The gravediggers dig graves and are silent. The Lord opens graves and
shouts.2
A mother places her daughter in a grave, the Lord takes her out of the
grave; the Lord is a better mother than the mother.
A father covers his son with soil, the Lord uncovers him. The Lord is a better
father than the father.
A brother buries his brother, the Lord resurrects him. The Lord is a better
brother than the brother.
The Lord has neither tears nor smiles for the dead. His whole heart belongs
to the living.
The world mourns for their kindred in the cemeteries; the Lord seeks His
own with a song and awakens them.
Resurrect my soul, O Lord, so that my body might also be resurrected.
Dwell in my soul, and my body will become Your temple.3
My neighbors ask with anxiety whether this body of ours will be
resurrected.
If you have denied yourself once and for all, and no longer live for yourself,
then your body is already being resurrected.4
If your body is a temple of the Most High God, then the One Who resurrects
is within you, and your resurrection is already being accomplished.
Our body changes with age, throughout our lifetime we have called many
bodies our own. Which of them will be resurrected?
Perhaps none of them. But you can be certain that if you have had a body
which expresses the Word of God clearly, it will be resurrected.5
My Lord Who resurrects, does not resurrect death, because death was
never alive.
You are the One Who resurrects and You are the resurrection, for You are
life.6
Only the seed which contains You is resurrected, and that seed which is of
You.7
You will only bring to life that soul which now lives by You and not by the
world.
You will only preserve that body, which has begun to be filled with the Holy
Spirit during this time.8
That which is of the Living God in the graves, will be resurrected into life.
No one can resurrect the dead except the Lord, and no one can rise from
the dead except the Lord.
For He is in His holy people. Truly, He is in His living people, both in the
grave and out of the grave.
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1. “Jesus said… ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though
he may die, he shall live’” (John 11:25).
2. Cf. John 5:24-30 and 1 Thess. 4:13-17.
3. Cf. 1 Cor. 6:19.
4. Cf. Gal. 2:20, Rom 6:3-11, and Col. 2:12.
5. Cf. 1 Cor. 15:35-57.
6. Cf. John 11:25.
7. Cf. John 12:24.
8. Cf. Phil. 3:10-11, 20-21.
