We all have death in ourselves. Not the death that comes with old age, but the death that comes through sin. Old sin – mine, my brother’s and my sister’s, all the way down to Adam’s sin. But mostly mine.
This thought has been with me all the time we’ve been on this pilgrimage. We pray in all these amazing monasteries which were founded with great hope and then destroyed – taken down to the last stone, burned, abandoned and forgotten, only to be rebuilt centuries later.
I walk among these ancient olive trees that never seem to die, although they look like they have known death many times, and they bear the signs of its destruction. They are cut, they are broken, they are burnt to the ground, but they keep regenerating. Empty trunks, blackened by flames, humbly wait for the sun and the water to do the impossible and bring them back to life.
We all feel dead at times, unable to move spiritually, incapable to breathe a prayer or to look up to an icon. We all feel lost beyond hope at times, drained of any flow of life. Life seems to exist for others, while death is in me and I am in death. This darkness is in all of us, and there is no other way to the Resurrection except to bow down our heads in recognition of our sinfulness and to wait. The source of Life is not in us, but in Him.
You may feel dead inside, you may be trapped by this paralysis for years, you may lose all hope – but keep waiting for the One Who can bring the dead back to Life. Do nothing else but wait for Christ; wait patiently and humbly, and He will bless you with new fruit. Wait for the Resurrection of the dead, and Christ will never fail to save you.
