Easter Christians: belief or relationship

 Saintly Rus, 1905 - Mikhail Nesterov 

 

The Russian tradition of greeting each other on Easter morning has always been captivating to me. On seeing someone for the first time on Easter one is supposed to say, “Christ is risen!” The person thus greeted has to reply, “He is truly risen!!!” The profound simplicity of this interchange is both sacred and beautiful, like the sacrament or a sabbath dawn, bearing witness of its divine creator in compelling pinks and blues. Like a hymnal sung by larks and robins that hurry to beat all humans in their celebration of the empty tomb. 

It’s fascinating to me that in a country where for nearly a century the government took every imaginable measure to eradicate Christianity, obliterate it, and punish its practice, the Easter tradition survived, as a young sapling springing up from a stump of a cut-down tree.

The legend has it that two millennia ago the Savior came to visit some peasants in an unknown location in Russia.[1] The narrative is consistent with the Lord’s statement that He had other sheep He was to visit we read about the scriptures (3 Nephi 16:1). He told them to take on His name, which they did. The Russian word for peasant крестьянин and the word Christian христианин are practically one and the same, except for a split hair difference in the quality of the initial guttural.

But it took Russia nearly a thousand years to adopt Christianity as its official religion. Sometimes I wonder what it was like for the early Christians to practice their religion in a pagan-filled world. What was it like for them in the unique crucibles of the world hostile to Christianity at large? Their experience was markedly different than ours when the world at large seems to profess Christianity.

What does it mean for us in our day and age to be Christians?   Is it our adherence to a set of beliefs and tenets we know to be true? A set of rules and practices? Is it a proclamation of His resurrection? His victory over death? Is it a confession of our belief in His existence? In His divinity? What stands behind that word Christian, that giant word, cast like a long shadow by the Savior of the World Himself?

“He is risen!” we say.  Is it our acknowledgment of someone else’ accomplishment or recognition of our indebtedness? The Redeemer and the redeemed...Everything in the Gospel is structured around relationships: Father and son, Master and servant, follower and friend. It isn’t a congregation of witnesses Christ wants. He would much rather have a relationship with us. Preferably a dynamic one, not still like a stain glass image or a painting, but one that will progress to become increasingly more intimate. He wants us to know Him well enough that we can move from bearing witness, to being His servants and ultimately His friends and equals (D&C 93:45). And isn’t that the best way to become a God, is to be friends with One, to put Him in the same room with you, along with the other four people you are trying to become a sum product of?

When you have a relationship with someone, you know what they like and dislike, what they value...You anticipate their reactions. You can probably hear the sound of their voice in your mind, replay in memory the bubbling brook of their laugh or feel the welcoming warmth of their bear hug. You know what they will say. You reach out to them and respond when they reach out to you. That’s a relationship. That is knowing someone. 

“And this is ​​​life​ ​​​eternal​, that they might ​​​know​ thee the only true ​​​God​, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast ​​​sent”​ (John 17 :3).  To know the one true God is the ultimate purpose of life and gospel living. In other words, to have a relationship... 

            In ancient Hebrew the idea of knowing is rendered with the word    ידע ya-da[2], but there it isn’t limited to a recognition of one’s existence. Rather it implies a personal, intimate closeness, an insight into their mind and heart. And as we seek out and serve our Master we come to know His "thoughts and intents of his heart” (Mosiah 5:13).

Having a relationship with deity can be a difficult concept to grasp, if we have been focused on something different. That relationship can be suffocated if exposed to enough religiosity, that concerns itself with behavior and performance more so than the condition of one’s heart. It’s easy to mistake for our standing in an organization or for a relationship we have with our leaders, with those that have some kind of stewardship over us. The truth is the Lord “employeth no servant” (2 Nephi 9:41) as he clasps our hand to take us through the veil of mortality into His presence.

 With a ruthlessness of a chiasmic reversal the animosity to all things truly Christian  will increase. Once again, the world, hostile, barbaric and incapable of perceiving things spiritual will resort to lighting Roman candles to illuminate its darkness.  And that is to be expected.

And as our society propels further into the primordial chaos of end times, all of our relationships will be under pressure, all will be challenged, undermined in some way and perhaps annulled or unavailable for us to us to fall back on.  All will be taut like a stretched-out canvas of a trampoline, hopefully ready to catch us, not rip. 

All, that is, except for one:

 

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.( Helaman 5:12)

 

As we stand in the cool and musky silence of the empty tomb, as Christians, looking at the neatly folded burial clothes, we are reminded that "He is not here…”, but truly risen (Matthew 28:6). May we also know and remember that for us, He is still very much here. 

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[1]    According to some legends and folk songs Christ visited the peasants on the shores of Baikal, a beautiful and very deep lake, tucked away in the pristine Siberian wilderness. 

 

https://www.uncharted101.com/lake-baikal-the-pearl-of-siberia/

[2] https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/dictionary/3500.html#3045