Orthodox Hymns On Hell

In my series of blogs reflecting on hell  I presented some comments about hell from the Scriptures, some Patristic Fathers and from a few current Orthodox Theologians.      The first blog in the series was Hell, no?    The immediate previous blog to this one was Contemporary Orthodox Theologians on Hell. 

This is just an addendum.  Below are a few Orthodox Resurrection Hymns sung during the regular Octoechos cycle on Sundays throughout the year.  These hymns would be very familiar to most Orthodox.  Take note of their attitude toward hell.  Hell is not something to be feared, nor welcomed.   These hymns portray Christ as slaying hell, delivering us from hell, shattering the gates of hell, capturing hell, binding hell and destroying its powers.   Additionally the hymns portray hell fearing Christ.  

Orthodox Resurrection hymns portray hells powers as being destroyed by Christ.  They show hell being emptied of all its people because of Christ: of Christ entering into hell and defeating it.  They certainly do not portay Christ as using hell for his purposes, nor of Christ sending people to hell – he came to empty it and destroy it, not fill it with sinners.

When we Orthodox think about hell, we need to think what it is that we prayerfully sing and proclaim in church each Sunday when we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ from the dead.   Christ came to save people from sin, death and hell, not hand them over to these enemies of God.

Resurrection Tropar [Tone 2]:   When thou didst descend to death, O Life Immortal, Thou didst slay hell with the splendor of Thy Godhead! And when from the depths Thou didst raise the dead, all the powers of heaven cried out: O Giver of Life! Christ our God! Glory to Thee!

Resurrection Kontak [Tone 2]:   Hell became afraid, O Almighty Savior, seeing the miracle of Thy Resurrection from the tomb! The dead arose! Creation, with Adam, beheld this and rejoiced with Thee! And the world, O my Savior, praises Thee forever!

Resurrection Tropar [Tone 3]:   Let the heavens rejoice! Let the earth be glad! For the Lord has shown strength with His arm! He has trampled down death by death! He has become the first born of the dead! He has delivered us from the depths of hell, and has granted the world great mercy!

Resurrection Tropar [Tone 4]:   My Savior and Redeemer as God rose from the tomb and delivered the earthborn from their chains. He has shattered the gates of hell, and as Master, he has risen on the third day!

Resurrection Kontak [Tone 5]:   Thou didst descend into hell, O my Savior, shattering its gates as almighty; resurrecting the dead as Creator, and destroying the sting of death. Thou hast delivered Adam from the curse, O Lover of Man, and we all cry to Thee: “O Lord, save us!”

Resurrection Tropar [Tone 6]:    The angelic powers were at Thy tomb; the guards became as dead men. Mary stood by Thy grave, seeking Thy most pure Body. Thou didst capture hell, not being tempted by it. Thou didst come to the Virgin, granting life. O Lord who didst rise from the dead, glory to Thee!

Resurrection Kontak [Tone 7]:    The dominion of death can no longer hold men captive, for Christ descended, shattering and destroying its powers! Hell is bound, while the prophets rejoice and cry: The Savior has come to those in faith! Enter, you faithful, into the Resurrection!

Next Blog:  Hell: It’s No Place to Go

The Ecumenical Understanding of Christ

Two of the themes for the Sundays after Pascha Gospel Lessons have to deal with understanding baptism and focusing on the question, “Who is Jesus?”   This is natural since the Great Lenten period originally was a time of preparation for baptism at Pascha, and the post-Paschal period focused on helping the newly baptized understand what it is they had experienced in baptism, in the Paschal celebration of the resurrection, and in receiving Holy Communion.

 On the 7^th Sunday after Pascha we commemorate the Holy Fathers of the 1^st Ecumenical Council and their rejection of the teachings of the priest Arius.    This is directly related to answering the question, “Who is Jesus?”  For though we can find in scripture the ideas that Jesus is the messiah/christ, son of God, Savior, Word of God, co-creator of the world, Christians did debate what these words and titles meant and their implication for what salvation means.

 What the Fathers affirmed is that Jesus is truly the Son of God and One of the Holy Trinity.    The Church of the 4th Century affirmed that Christians are in fact monotheists, AND that the revelation of the One God is that God is Trinity.   Their teaching is important because today Islam affirms the teaching of Arius about Jesus.        Muslims do claim to be true followers of Jesus, but they like the Arians of the 4th Century deny that Jesus is ontologically the Son of God, one of the Holy Trinity.    Jesus is a prophet in Islam, but a mere mortal and not Lord.

Regarding the Christological arguments of the early Church, Nicholas Constas wrote: 

Thus the anti-Christian philosopher Celsus (ca. A.D. 176) argued that, if the Christian savior was in any sense divine, “he would have never uttered loud laments and wailings, nor prayed to avoid the fear of death, saying something like: ‘Oh Father, let this cup pass from me’ (Matt 26:39).” By the fourth century of the Christian era, the Stoic valorization of endurance in the face of pain found an unexpected ally in the theology of Arianism. Arius, a priest in the church of Alexandria, argued that the passion of Christ was a clear sign that the wounded savior of the Gospels was not to be identified with the impassible divinity. Based on his cowardly performance in the garden of Gethsemane, Arius and his followers concluded that Christ was neither transcendentally wise nor divinely dispassionate.

The Isalmic objections to Jesus being the Son of God and Savior of the world are the same today as they were 1700 years ago.  The Church considered those objections in the 4^th Century and found them theologically lacking and not able to fully account for the revelation of God we find in the Gospel.   Islam claims to be the correct understanding of Jesus, but their ideas of Jesus were rejected long ago by Christians as being inadequate in dealing with the fullness of the revelation of God.  For Christians, history is both important and alive as it helps us to deal with those who have not a new or better understanding of Jesus Christ, but who inherited an incomplete understanding of Him.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

The Resurrection: Life Beyond Life After Death

Christ is risen from the dead,

Trampling down death by death,

And upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

 Many Christians have seized upon Jesus’s resurrection as the sign that there really is “life after death.” This tends to confuse things. Resurrection isn’t a fancy way of saying “going to heaven when you die.” It is not about “life and death” as such. Rather, it’s a way of talking about being bodily alive again after a period of being bodily dead. Resurrection is a second-stage postmortem life: “life after ‘life after death.’”…But interestingly, none of the resurrection stories in the gospels or in the book titled Acts of the Apostles (more colloquially called   simply Acts) speaks of the event proving that some kind of afterlife exists. They all say, instead: “If Jesus has been raised, that means that God’s new world, God’s kingdom, has indeed arrived and that means we have a job to do. The world must hear what the God of Israel, the creator God, has achieved through his Messiah.”…From that point of view, as the Eastern Orthodox churches have always emphasized, when Jesus rose again God’s whole new creation emerged from the tomb, introducing a world full of new potential and possibility.  (N.T. Wright, Simply Christian)

Our Paschal Hymn tells us that Christ is risen from the dead not risen from death.  What is the difference?   Death is what happens to all living creatures – all living creatures have a beginning and an end which is death.  In Christian thinking what happens to humans after death?  They do not go out of existence but rather become part of the dead – they continue to exist in the realm of the dead (The realm of the dead in  Hebrew is “Sheol”,  in Greek  “Hades.”)   On Holy Saturday we commemorate Christ’s descent to this place of the dead (Ephesians 4:9, Romans 10:7) where he “rests” with the dead before arising to the new life which inaugurates the new creation (1 Peter 4:6). 

In singing that Christ is risen from the dead we are affirming that there is continued existence after death – “life after death” thus refers to our existence among the dead.  We affirm that Christ descended into the realm of death and filled that realm with His life.  He existed with the dead but then bodily was resurrected from among the dead into new life in the renewed creation.    The important note for us is that this affirms that all of those who have died still exist (Jesus says, God the God of the living not of the dead.   He refutes the misunderstanding of his contemporaries who think death is final and that “the dead” do not exist.   The dead exist and therefore have life Jesus teaches in Matthew 22:23-33, so they can be resurrected.  Resurrection is not calling them out of non-existence back into existence, but rather restoring bodily life to those who have been separated from their bodies – their bodies died and were returned to the earth, but their souls continued existing among the dead.)  

When we die, we too go to the place of the dead which is now filled with the light and life of Christ (Revelations 14:13).  Death can no longer hold the dead captive.  We are freed from being eternal prisoners to death and now can rejoice with Christ while still awaiting our own resurrection.   For Christians we have already descended with Christ to the place of the dead in our own baptisms (Romans 6).  We are now alive in Christ and death no longer holds us captive (Romans 14:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:10).   When we physically die we will be with Christ, even though in the place of the dead.  There we will joyfully await the final resurrection in which the last enemy death is completely annihilated (1 Corinthians 15:26).   Thus we need not fear death, for even death itself will not separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:38-39). 

 ”Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. … Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice  and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”  (John 5:25,28-29)

The Church: We are to be Ministers of the Gospel

In the season beginning with Pascha part of the daily scripture readings  of the Orthodox Church includes lessons from the Acts of the Apostles.  There we learn about the work of the apostles and early Christians as they carried out the ministry which Christ commanded them to do and as they formed the Church in accomplishing the great commission.

All Christians are called to some form of ministry—we are to be actively working to build up the church.  St. John Chrysostom wrote:

Paul writes: ‘Anyone who will not work shall not eat.’ [2 Thess.3:10] The Apostle himself would have been able not to work, since he had been entrusted with a great mission. Notwithstanding that, he worked day and night. All the more reason for others to do the same. ‘We hear that some of you,’ St. Paul goes on, ‘are living in idleness, not doing any work.’ Even if they were passing the time in prayer and fasting, they would not be doing the manual work of which the Apostle is speaking. He concludes: ’Such persons we command and exhort in the name of the Lord Jesus to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living.’ Paul does not say: ’If they are idlers, let the community keep them.’ On the contrary, he demands two things; that they keep quiet, and that they work!    

Chrysostom envisioned all Christians actively working in ministry – not coming to church to see what they can get out of it, but coming to the church ready to serve others.  Our word “liturgy” implies that we are going to work together for the common good (liturgy has the same root word as energy which is the same root as urge and erg – it means work!).  Just prior to being sent into  exile in 403 by the emperor, St. John Chrysostom wrote about what the Church meant to him.   He found strength and encouragement from his flock – his fellow believers:

Tell me, what do we have to fear?…I mock the threats of this world; I disdain its favors. I do not fear poverty, I do not desire wealth; I am not afraid of death; I wish to live only for your benefit…Do you not understand this word of the lord: “When two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there, in the midst of them?” And where so many people are united by the bonds of love, will the Lord not be present with them? I have His word; should I trust in my own strength? I have His word; He is my support, my safety, my haven of peace. Should the world know total upheaval, I nevertheless have this one Word: I can read it; it is my protection, my safety. Which text? “I am with you always until the end of the age.” Christ is with me; what then shall I fear?

The Freedom to Defeat Evil, Not the Freedom from Evil

Theodicy -  The effort to explain or justify the goodness of God while accounting for the existence of evil in the world.

Sergius Bulgakov in  THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB offers this thought:

The question of the final destiny of Satan becomes exceptionally acute in the problem of theodicy … Here, it is a question of whether evil in invincible in creation.  It might appear that, even though God condemned Satan to expulsion from this world, He could not, or did not want to, create a world that is free of evil, but rather one that defeats it even if only in the end, so that it  therefore forever remains the outer boundary of the world, as it were.   

Bulgakov’s thought – perhaps God did not want a world where no evil existed; He wanted a world in which evil is defeated. 

Consider Genesis 3:15 in which God is cursing the serpent for having deceived Eve -  “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.  He shall bruise your head, and you shall be on guard for His heel.”  God puts the enmity between humanity and the serpent because God wants humans to defeat Satan not to avoid him or be afraid of him or be rid of him.  God wants the humans to confront and destroy their enemy Satan.

God wanted humanity to defeat Satan.  Perhaps that is the ultimate dominion we are to have over creation.   But how was this to take place?   As Abraham told his son, “God will provide for Himself the offering”  (Genesis 22:8).   God does provide the means to defeat Satan –  the God-man, Jesus Christ who achieves  victory over Satan and death.    This gives a stronger sense to the offertory prayer of St. John Chrysostom who says of Christ: “He was given up, or rather He gave himself up for the life of the world.”  God wanted humanity to defeat Satan and God in the incarnation provides the means for this to happen.   The defeat of Satan through the death on the cross was God’s plan all along.   God confronted Satan head on and defeated him, or as Chrysostom says in his Paschal Homily looking at this confrontation from the point of view of Death:

It took a body, but happened upon God!
It took earth, but encountered Heaven!

This was God’s plan all along – to have humanity defeat Satan.  The surprise to the whole plan was that God would become human to accomplish the goal.

Christ is risen from the dead

trampling down death by death!

Thomas Sunday (1994)

Sermon notes   St. Thomas Sunday, John 20:19-29                                      May 8, 1994

At the very beginning of Great Lent I told you that Lent was designed to be a liturgical tool to teach us about life as disciples of Christ. I used the word microcosm, meaning the few weeks of Lent were really our whole life lived out in a few short weeks. Each Sunday of Great Lent was given a special Gospel Lesson to help us understand what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

Each week was like moving down a narrowing tunnel.

Each week our way of life, our beliefs and perspectives were challenged by our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we could properly understand and follow him. Each week we were drawn deeper into that ever narrowing tunnel, and as Mark’s Gospel has it, it is a tunnel that gets darker as we go in. It gets darker because the world increasingly rejects Christ and pushes him toward the crucifixion. It gets darker because slowly his family and followers and then even the disciples of Jesus abandon him, betray him, deny him and flee from him.

But also always, there is a speck of light at the end of the tunnel which we are drawn towards, which we continue to move towards, but to get there we must pass through this most narrow and painful passage, we are forced to crawl on our hands and knees on painful, cold and hard stone.

There is no other way for us to go if we are to follow Christ, for we all must pass through that narrow and dark passage of the tomb of Christ. And all of Lent and all of Holy Week lead to the darkness of the night, Christ in the tomb, and we hoping that God will arise and judge the earth. And then in the middle of the night, in the midst of this darkness, the light appears, the unfading and everlasting and gladsome light of Christ, Risen from the dead. We have passed through the cross, through the tomb, through death, through hades, into the never ending light of God’s Kingdom. And that tomb of Christ which stinks of death suddenly becomes the fount of life, the source of the resurrection, the font of baptism, the means of new birth, of regeneration, of access to God, to the kingdom, to eternal life.

The tomb of Christ, his death, his burial, become for all of us the passage into new life, we enter through this narrow passage way in our own baptism, where we die with Christ and are buried with him, and then are raised with him to a new and unending life. And each Pascha, we are reminded of this journey, of our journey through the darkness of this world, through the cross and tomb into the joyful light of God’s Kingdom. And our little walk into the darkness of the midnight, is a reminder that we are but sojourners on earth, passing through on our way to the Kingdom of God, and the night does pass away, and the darkness does fade into the light of Pascha, and the New Day, just as this world and our life on this earth also will pass away, and only that which God establishes will continue on forever. And that is a reminder not to live for this world which too is passing away like the night, but to live for the Kingdom of God which stands forever, and is never over come by the darkness.

And today we stand on the other side of that tomb, of the darkness of death, the cross and the grave. Today we know of the resurrection and we have experienced the light and life of Christ our God in baptism, in the Gospel, in the Liturgy, in the Eucharist. And we pass through the tomb of Christ which also becomes the font of life for us all, and we are here again in the world, facing the new reality of God’s resurrection.

But for all its newness, for all the light of Christ, and the power of the resurrection, and the joy, and the hope, we also notice that some things in the world have not changed. In fact many things seem to go on as if there is no God and there is no resurrection. The world is still awash in sin – in violence, disease, warfare, abortions, lust, greed, murder, death, disbelief. And we are confronted with this contradiction, if Jesus indeed is raised from the dead, why is the world so much like it was before? Are we really to believe that Jesus is risen from the dead? Are we to understand that this resurrection has changed the world forever? The apostles tell us that they saw Jesus alive, risen from the dead, but what are we to believe?

And this is where the Gospel lesson today brings us. Because, like Thomas, we were not there when Jesus appeared, and even though people we trust, the apostles, their followers, our bishops, priests, grandparents and parents, all say Jesus is risen from the dead, are we to believe?

And Jesus says to us, “You are indeed blessed, for you have not seen me and yet you believe.”

It is the doubt of Thomas, which is our doubt, and his confession of faith is for us.

Remember before you judge Thomas, that the other disciples also did not believe before they encountered the risen lord. None of them really believed in the resurrection until they had seen Christ themselves. The empty tomb, the message of the angels, the testimony of the myrrhbearing women, none of these things convinced the other disciples either. But Christ appears to the disciples and brings them to faith. He does not reject those slow-to-believe followers, he does not reject Thomas, but encourages him to faith. Neither will he reject you or I if or when we doubt the Lordship of Christ Jesus. Instead, He invites us, he welcomes us, He is ever patient with us because He loves us. If we have our doubts, note well that so did the disciples. Yet they came to believe that the resurrection was true, and then they took that news to the world.

Listen to these words from the hymns of Vespers for this Day.

Thomas, called the twin, was absent
When you came to your disciples through closed doors, O Christ.
He refused to believe what they told him,
But you did not reject him for his faithlessness.
When he saw your side, and the wounds in your hands and feet,
His doubts vanished and his faith was confirmed.
After both seeing and feeling you,
He confessed you to be neither and abstract God nor merely a man.
He cried: Glory to you, my Lord and my God!”

The disciples were assembled on the eighth day,
When the Savior came and gave them his peace,
He said to Thomas,
“Come, Apostle! Feel my hands, which were pierced by the nails.”
O Blessed doubt of Thomas,
which brought the hearts of believers to knowledge.
In fear we cry to You:
“Glory to You, my Lord and my God!”

If there are any doubts in your heart about Jesus or the resurrection, know that many people before you have also doubted, and there doubts were laid aside by personal experience, and it is they who witness to you today, who invite you to believe that Jesus of Nazereth is in fact God’s chosen Messiah, whose life, death and resurrection has changed the course of the world forever.

The Church Does Not Exist for Heaven

THE APOSTLES

In the season from Pascha to Pentecost, our daily Scripture readings include lessons from the Acts of the Apostles.  The original disciples of Christ – the Twelve, the Seventy, the Women disciples of the Lord – were joined by new believers and formed the Church.  The Church in the words of St. John Chrysostom is more important than heaven!

“Are you not aware of this, I ask you, that the Church is placed on earth but its life is lived in heaven? How does this emerge? The facts give clear proof; eleven disciples were under attack, and the whole world did the attacking; but those attacked had the victory, and the attackers were done away with. The sheep prevailed over the wolves; do you see the      shepherd sending the sheep amidst the wolves so that they would not achieve salvation even by flight? What sort of shepherd does this? Christ did it, however, to show you that good deeds are done not in the normal course of events but in defiance of nature and normal events. The Church’s roots, in fact, are stronger than heaven. But perhaps the Greek charges me with arrogance; let him await factual proof and learn the truth, how the sun would more easily be snuffed out than the Church disappear. Who proclaims this, you ask? Its founder; “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Instead of simply making this promise, he actually brought it to fulfillment; after all, why did he give it a firmer foundation than heaven? The Church, you see, is more important than heaven. For what reason does heaven exist? For the Church, not the Church for heaven. Heaven is for the human being, not the human being for heaven. This is clear from what he actually did: Christ did not take up a heavenly body.”                                                                                                                      

Biblical scholar N.T. Wright frequently points out that the popular notion of “die and go to heaven” is not what the New Testament teaches.  Heaven and earth are not opposing places, but rather the New Testament envisions the earth becoming heaven – this is the point of the resurrection of Christ.   The New Testament is not proclaiming the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the dead.  As he wrote in THE RESURRECTION OF THE SON OF GOD:

 “…the Messiah here is the truly human being, the fulfilment of God’s purposes in creation, now set in authority over the rest of the created order. There is no need to escape from the created order; the Messiah is its lord.  Nor is there any need to escape from earth to heaven; instead, the Messiah will come from heaven to earth, to rescue his people not by snatching them away from earth but by transforming their bodies.” 

“In Revelation 21 … the heavenly city comes down from heaven to earth.  That is what the narrative is all about.  As Christopher Rowland has insisted, the end of Revelation offers an ultimate rejection of a detached, other-worldly spirituality in favour of an integrated vision of a new creation in which ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’, the twin halves of created reality, are at last united.  Always intended for one another, they are by this means to be remade, and to become the place where the living god will dwell among his people for ever.”

Christ Reigns, Crucified and Risen

Christ is risen!

 Bright Saturday

                        CHRIST HAS RISEN

                        freeing the first-formed Adam from his bonds,

                        and destroying Hades’ might.

                        Courage, all you dead,

                        for death is done to death,

                        and Hades too is stripped of strength.

                        Christ reigns, crucified and risen.

                        He has made our flesh imperishable.

                        He will raise us up,

                        and give us resurrection,

                        and make fit for that joyful glory

                        all who have put their trust in him,

                        with fervent steadfast faith.

                                            (From Matins for a Lenten Saturday)

The Universal Resurrection

Christ is risen!

Bright Tuesday

On Palm Sunday, we sang the hymn, “By raising Lazarus from the dead before Your passion, You confirmed the universal resurrection, O Christ God!“   The universal resurrection is what we proclaim at Pascha.  The dead were freed from imprisonment and enslavement to death.  Christ tramples down and destroys death in order to give life to all of those in the tombs.   All?  You mean like everyone?  Good and bad?  Rich and poor?  Yes everyone. The Lord Jesus said, “…for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29).   Orthodoxy does proclaim the universal resurrection – God offers salvation to the world – to those already dead and to all who live. (Obviously in John 5:28-29, the universal resurrection is not opposed to the idea of a judgment).

We have to remind ourselves that our Lord Jesus Christ came not only for the salvation of the poor but also of the rich, not only of commoners but also of kings. He refused all the same to choose kings as disciples, refused rich people, refused the nobly born, refused the learned; but instead he chose poor, uneducated fishermen, in whom his grace would shine through all the more clearly…And if he had first called a king, the king would have said it was his rank that was chosen; if he had first called a learned man, he would have said it was his learning that was chosen. Those who were being called to lowliness and humility would have to be called by lowly and humble persons.        (St. Augustine)

Jesus may have chosen common folk – uneducated fishermen – rather than the rich, the elite, the educated to be His heralds and apostles, but he told them to go into all the world and proclaim the resurrection to all.   So too St. John Chrysostom’s Paschal Homily proclaims the joyous message of the universal resurrection: 

Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord, and, whether first or last, receive your reward. O rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy! O you ascetics and you negligent, celebrate the day! You that have fasted and you that have disregarded the fast, rejoice today!

Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness.

Let no one lament his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn his transgressions, for pardon has dawned from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Saviour’s death has set us free.

 Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

 (the emphases in all the quotes are mine and not in the original texts)

The Resurrection of the dead AND Life in the World to Come

Bright Wednesday

 Is the risen Christ Lord only of the dead and king only in heaven? Is the resurrection really about the immortality of the soul, “going to heaven,” or life after death?   That certainly is not the message of ancient Christianity. The Lordship of Christ begins here and now – in our hearts and on earth. 

If the Christians had believed that Jesus had merely ‘gone to heaven’, in however exalted a capacity, and that their aim should be to join him there in the  future, and indeed to experience some anticipations of that   blessing in the present, why should the present world be of any concern to them? But if Jesus had been raised from the dead, if the new creation had begun, if they were themselves the citizens of the creator god’s new kingdom, then the claims of Jesus to Lordship on earth as well as heaven would ultimately come into conflict with those of Caesar.                               (N.T.Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God) 

Oliver Wendell Holmes once criticized some Christians for being “so heavenly minded to be of no earthly good.”   That is not the case with Jesus Christ.  Christ took on an earthly body.  By His resurrection Christ gave new life to us in a renewed creation, and He taught us that the power and value of “Caesar” is limited; this world does not have the power to give ultimate meaning to our lives.  Martyrdom in Christianity means witnessing to the world about a power and a hope in our lives which is not limited by this world.