Today the blessed Evangelist announced that a widowed mother's only son, already bound with funeral bands and laid upon the mournful bier—as the crowds accompanied him on his way from the prison of death to the tomb—was through Christ restored to life (Luke 7); and he shook the hearts of all, moved their minds, and struck their hearing with amazement. But let the Gentiles marvel at this, let the Jews be astonished, let the world tremble: yet we, who believe that all who from the ages have died shall be raised from their graves at the single voice of Christ, why do we marvel? 'The dead shall rise up,' says Isaiah, 'and they that are in the tombs shall rise again' (Isa. 26, according to the LXX). And the Lord: 'The hour shall come when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live' (John 5). To this the Apostle: 'In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet;'
'for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorruptible' (1 Cor. 15). What is this trumpet, which wages war upon the powers below, dissolves the masses of the tomb, thunders life to the dead, and gives triumph to those rising into perpetual light? What is it? That which the Lord above spoke of: 'The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God' (John 5). Not a trumpet which, through the narrow passage of a hollow horn of wood or of bronze, gives a mournful bellow to warriors, but one which from the heart of the Father, by the mouth of the Son, gives a life-giving cry to both those below and those above. 'And at the last trumpet' (1 Cor. 15:52)—the trumpet which in the beginning called the world out of nothing, that same one at the last shall call the world back from perdition; and that which at first raised man from the mud, the same at the end shall raise man again from the dust.
Brethren, thus we believe: that the trumpet of the divine voice divided chaos, gathered the orb, cleansed the elements, distinguished the world, hung up the heaven, founded the earth, bound the sea, submerged the depths, gave the alternations of order, and commanded the perpetual service of things; and lest the empty world should stand in horror, it fitted inhabitants and thus set apart their dwellings: in heaven it placed angels living by spirit alone, on earth it established the varied lives of earthly creatures, in the air it gave winged souls to fly, in the waters it made both small and great, that a multitude of living things might live; and in a wondrous manner it thus joined together the frame of the world out of disjoined parts, so that neither should the distinct mingling confuse, nor the distinction of things rend its unity.
Hence it is that the coupling of day and night was so divided that from rest should come labor, and repose from labor. Hence the sun and moon in turn traverse the bounds of the world, so that the sun with its doubled light may amplify the brightness of day, and the moon with its nearly equal light may not leave the seasons of night wholly blind. Hence the stars in their courses change their varied risings, that they may both mark the seasons for the nights and give guidance to travelers. Hence the seasons come by going, and begin to be while they cease to be. Hence seeds are born, grow, mature, come to youth, grow old, fall, die—and again, buried in life-giving furrows, dissolved in decay, return by a saving death into their own way, and from perpetual corruption are raised up into form.
If, then, brethren, the voice of God, the trumpet of Christ, through days, through months, through seasons, through years calls, calls back, leads, leads back, commands things to be, makes them not to be, gives to death, restores to life—why should he not be able to do once in us what he always does in all things? Or does the divine power grow weary in us alone, for whose sake alone God's whole aforesaid majesty has wrought? O man, if all things come back to life for you out of death, why do you not come to life again for God out of death? Or in you alone does God's creation perish—the creation for whose sake the whole of creation daily subsists, is set in motion, is changed, is renewed?
Brethren, I say these things not out of a desire to empty out the power of Christ's signs, but I exhort you that, by the example of the one who rose, we may be roused to faith in the resurrection of all, and may believe that the cross of our body is a plough: faith is the seed; the furrow, the tomb; the dissolution, the sprout; the waiting, the season; so that when the spring of the Lord's coming has dawned with a smile, the ripe verdure of our bodies may then rise up into a life-giving harvest that shall know no end, shall know no grey hairs, shall not endure the axe, nor feel the scourge. For when in death the chaff of the old man has been laid aside, there rises up into a new fruit the glorified body.
If at the temporal tears of a single widow Christ was so moved that he met her on the way, that he quenched the flowing streams of grief from her eyes, that he drove back death, brought back the man, raised up the body, restored life, turned lamentation into joy, and changed the mournful funeral into the festivity of a birthday, and gave back to the mother, endowed, her son alive out of death—what will he do now when he shall burn with all his might at the long-continued tears of his Church, at the bloody sweats of his Bride?
For through the Church that supplicates he pours out continual tears, through the martyrs he sweats his sacred blood, until, meeting his only son—that is, the Christian people, whom so many seasons bear off to death—Christ shall restore him from the mortal bier of perpetual life into the everlasting joy of the heavenly Mother. But since the time of Christ's birth is come, and the maidenhood soon to give birth already radiates a heavenly miracle, and no longer does a star announce to us the rising of the divine King, but the very ascent of the Sun himself, let us all run to adore him, and with sacred gifts confess that God and King has come forth from a virgin temple:
let us offer gifts, for to a new-born king a public offering is always prepared; let us offer gifts, for an undevout worshipper is but an empty one. This the magus proves, who, laden with gold, kindled with incense, hallowed with myrrh, bows before the cradle of Christ (Matt. 2). What sort of thing is it, if what a magus did, a Christian does not do? What sort of thing is it, if at the joy of the newborn Christ the poor man weeps, the captive groans, the guest laments, the stranger wails? The Jew always honored the heavenly feasts with tithes; what does the Christian think of himself, if he honors them not even with a hundredth part? Brethren, let no one suppose that I say this out of a zeal for declaiming, and not out of the feeling of one who grieves.
I grieve, indeed I grieve, when I read that the magi drenched Christ's cradle with gold, and I see that Christians have left the altar of Christ's body empty—and this especially at a time when the vast famine of the poor presses hard, when the mournful throng of captives pours forth. Let no one say, 'I have nothing,' when God seeks from you out of what you have, not out of what you have not—when he deigns to reckon to good account the two coins of the widow. Let us be devout to the Creator, that creation may be devout to us. Let us relieve the straits of our neighbors, that we may be freed from our own straits. Let us fill the altar of God, that a fullness of fruits may fill our granaries.
Surely, if we do not give, let us not complain that we do not receive. But may God himself grant you both present and future good things, through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is all honor and perpetual glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto all the ages of ages. Amen.