On Life 72 – Death Is a Beginning – April 12, 2015

   Some people think life is worthless: for it ends in death when everything is gone. One poet expressed this idea, saying,

After death, I will be no thing

Indeed before it, I have not been a thing.

   Life ends in death. Nevertheless, it starts then. It is not the end which some people see. Resurrection is the great incident that declares that the value of everything in life has not shrunk or ended. Rather, it is a true life which has started and will not end. Our life is not absurd. It is worth more than we think or imagine: for through it, another unimaginable life is determined. Whoever does not sow his day will not reap his eternity. Whoever wastes his days or, even, minutes, will gain nothing but pain. Resurrection is followed judgment. Man will be rewarded according to his deeds. So, resurrection makes whoever toils and capitalizes on his life happy. On the other hand, it scares whoever wastes his life.

   The Bible clarifies this in a parable: A master assembled his servants, giving each some talents which they should trade and profit by. Then, he traveled. When he returned, he summoned them to see what they had done with their talents. Whoever traded with and profited by his talents was given more and with everlasting happiness. Whoever did not work, destroying his life, had his talent taken from him and was laid with the wicked. So, on every Resurrection, we should sit to and ask ourselves, “Did you trade with and profit by your talents? Your talent might be knowledge. Did you win or lose by it? Did you give knowledge to whoever needed it, or did you withhold it? Maybe your talent is authority. Did you use it in helping the needy? Or did you harm them with it? It might be your strong personality. Did you heed where you lead others with it?”

Do not be as depressed as the poet who writes,

Why build? We are but dust,

And to dust we shall return.

   Yet, what we build through our lives accompanies us to resurrection, only if it is for others’ welfare. We will be rewarded according to it. Resurrection has given life a profound meaning. It made it a mission which everybody should accomplish and a path not seen save by those who look to eternal life.

Many happy returns on Resurrection: the path to eternity.

General Bishop

Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center