Vigils Reading – Holy Saturday

THE DEATH OF CHRIST

HAS TRANSFORMED DEATH

By St Cyril of Alexandria

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They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices,

according to the Jewish burial custom. At the place where he had been crucified

there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been

buried.

Christ was numbered among the dead. For our sake he was put to death

in the body, even though of himself and through his Father we believe him to be,

and indeed he is, life it self. In order to do all that was required by God, all that

was involved in his having become man, he freely submitted the temple of his

body not only to death, but to everything that accompanies it, to the laying out of

his body and its burial in a tomb.

The Evangelist says that his tomb was in a garden and that it was new.

This teaches us in a symbolic way that it is through Christ’s death that we gain

entry into paradise; he entered as the forerunner on our behalf. The newness of

the tomb suggests the new and untrodden path from death to life and the

renewal by which Christ frees us from corruption. By Christ’s death, our death

has been transformed into something quite new, more like a kind of sleep. We

are alive now to God, as Scripture says, and destined to live for ever. This is why

Saint Paul frequently refers to those who have died in Christ as those who have

fallen asleep.

In the past the power of death had always prevailed against our nature.

From the time of Adam to the time of Moses, death ruled over all, even over

those who did not sin, as Adam did, by disobeying God’s command. We bore the

image of the earthly man, Adam, and underwent the death inflicted by the

divine curse, but when the second Adam who is divine and from heaven

appeared among us, he fought for the lives of us all, purchased them by his own

death in the flesh and then, having destroyed the power of corruption, he rose

again. In this way he transformed us into his own image, so that the death we

now undergo is of a new kind; it does not lead to eternal destruction, but is

rather a sleep, full of good hope. In fact, it resembles the death of Christ, who

opened up for us this new pathway to life.