AWAKE O SLEEPER! by Rev. Yanchy Lacska, PhD

On Easter morning, Christians worldwide celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, the high point of our Christian faith. While many of the symbols of Easter have their origins in pre-Christian celebrations, they all are reminders of the awakening of springtime after the seeming deadness of winter and seem appropriate symbols for celebrating the Resurrection and the triumph of life over death.

Jewish rabbis (Remember, Jesus was a Jew) tell us that it is always important to find ourselves in Biblical stories. So, where can we find ourselves in the Resurrection stories in the gospels? I suggest the Resurrection is also about us symbolically dying and being transformed. Perhaps it is about dying to what early Celtic Christian teachers called our ‘false self’ and awakening the “true self”. The false self is who we reveal and show to others and ourselves. It is what Carl Jung called our persona. The false self looks at things from the lens of the ego and cultural expectations and changes to meet various roles we play in life.

The true self, or Self, as Jung called it, is the part of us that sees through spiritual eyes. It is the spark of the divine within us—the us made in God’s image. The false self needs to die metaphorically so that the true Self can be awakened and rise. Jung wrote: “What happened in the life of Christ happens always and everywhere. The Risen Christ represents the final perspective of every True Self.” This could be another way to interpret the parable of Jesus:

          Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.

(John 12:24-25, The Message)

One of the greatest teachers of the Celtic Christian world, John Scotus Eriugena, in ninth-century Ireland, taught that we suffer from “soul forgetfulness” and that Christ came to reawaken us to our true nature and each other. He came to show us the face of God and our own true face. But our true face or Self is well hidden behind our false self.

Do you remember the 1991 movie Hook? Robin Williams played the now grown-up Peter Pan, and Dustin Hoffman played Captain Hook. In one scene, the Lost Boys examine the grown-up Peter, and after carefully looking deep into his eyes and touching his face, one little boy says, “Oh, there you are, Peter.”

Author and minister J. Philip Newell wrote, “The gospel is given not to tell us what we already know about ourselves, but rather to tell us what we do not know, or what we have forgotten, namely who we are. It is given to lead us into the true depths of the mystery of God’s image within us.”

The Resurrection is not only about whether Jesus physically walked out of his tomb two millennia ago. It is about Jesus becoming who and what he was always meant to be, the one we call Christ. It is about our hope of becoming who we are meant to be—our True Self. As an Orthodox-Catholic priest, when I preside at the Holy Mystery of Baptism, I say the following, as part of the Rite, to the person being baptized, whether an infant or an adult: “You are baptized. You are illuminated. You are sanctified. Become who you already are.”

On Easter morning, may we glimpse the image of the Holy One deep within us and the threads of divinity woven into the fabric of every woman and man, and every creature. And in glimpsing these threads of light, let us be awakened to the beauty around us and deep in our souls. “This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine in you” (Ephesians: 5:14).