Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Resurrection of Our Lord

Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.” So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.” (Matthew 28:1–10)

But the angel rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. He sat in order to teach the Resurrection, not to relieve his weariness. A heavenly nature knows no weariness; it knows no fatigue. But the stone became the location for the angel’s instruction session, the chair of heavenly teaching, and the school of life, which had been put in place by the Jews to be the door of death, at the service of ashes, and to maintain grim silence.

The brightness of his countenance is distinguished from the dazzling whiteness of his clothing, in that the angel’s face is compared with lightning, and his clothing is compared to snow, because lightning comes from heaven and snow from the earth. Listen to the prophet as he says: “Praise the Lord from the earth, you fire, hail, and snow.” So in the face of the angel the brightness of the celestial nature is preserved, in his clothing the grace of communion with humanity is represented, and the appearance of the angel who is speaking is tempered, in such a way that eyes of flesh may both bear the gentle brightness of the clothing, and from the lightning-like gleam of his countenance tremble before the messenger of their Creator and stand in awe of him.

Peter Chrysologus, Sermons 75.5–6

The angel first mentions the name, tells of the cross, speaks of the Passion, acknowledges the death, but next professes the Resurrection, and then professes the Lord. And thus the angel identifies Him as His Lord after such great tortures and after the tomb, he speaks of His condition of servitude, and he realizes that all the dishonor of the Passion has been transformed into all the glory of the Resurrection.

Why then does the human being judge that God has been diminished in the flesh, or think that His power became deficient in the Passion, or believe that His sovereignty was wasted away by His condition as a servant? Rightly does he say that He was crucified, rightly does he show the place where the Lord had been laid, lest it be believed that it was someone else and not He Himself, one and the same, who rose from the dead. And if the Lord returns with the same flesh, brings back His wounds, still bears the very holes from the nails, and makes these pieces of evidence, which had been the indignities inflicted on His body in the Passion, into proofs of His Resurrection, why does the human being think that he will return in someone else’s flesh rather than in his own? Or is it perhaps that the servant disdains his own flesh, when the Lord did not change ours? Be content, O man, that you will be yourself in your own flesh, lest you not be yourself, if you rise in flesh that is not yours.

Peter Chrysologus, Sermons 76.1