Every Easter brings to mind that beautiful story found in
Nikolai Arseniew’s book, Mysticism in the East.
Comrade Lunachatsky was lecturing in Moscow’s largest assembly hall
shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution.
His theme was “Religion: Opium of the People.” All the Christian mysteries are but myths, he
said, supplanted by the light of science.
Marxist science is the light that more than substitutes for the legends
of Christianity. Lunachatsky spoke at
great length. When he finished, he was
so pleased with himself that he asked if anyone in the audience of some seven
thousand had anything to add. A
twenty-six-year-old Russian Orthodox priest, just ordained, stepped
forward. First he apologized to the
commissar for his ignorance and awkwardness.
The commissar looked at him scornfully: “I’ll give you two minutes, no
more.” “I won’t take very long.” The
priest assured him. He mounted the
platform, turned to the audience, and in a loud voice declared, “Christ is
risen!” As one man, that vast audience
roared in response, “He is truly risen!”
May that response find an echo in your heart and mine
because the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the source, the
reason, the basis for the inarticulate joy of our Christian lives.
And the ransomed of the LORD will return.
They will enter Zion with singing,
Everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Isaish 35:10
Reflections for a Ragamuffin
by Brennan Manning
Happy dogs sunning themselves
