Easter Message 2008

To all the brothers and Sisters around the World, greetings in the precious name of the Risen Christ:

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!

This is my first Easter message to all of you, my beloved, and it has been the good will of God who leads me closer to you. 

It is my joy in this Easter Sunday as your Presiding Bishop to remind you the fundamentals of our faith as we have been raised to be witness of the Risen Christ. Hallelujah!!!

The Church of Christ, of which our family of churches is not only a part, but its fullness at every Divine Worship service in every congregation. Christ is presence in our midst. His Risen Body is in our midst as we gather together to worship God, to instruct God’s people and to share the Lord’s Supper. At the same time, it is the Body which was born of the Virgin; the Body which grew into mature humanity; the Body which went through all our human needs and tests, struggles and temptations; the Body which suffered and was crucified; the Body which is Risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father; the Body which is being spiritual food by the unique Person of Christ penetrating each one of us with the power of the Holy Spirit, transforming us into one and uniting us into the oneness of His Heavenly Life and into the uniqueness of His earthly example, built up by His Holy Spirit, as the whole Church in every community, congregation, fellowship, service of our entire family of churches.

All these various forms of His Body are “various” only in their earthly sense: eventually, existentially, they are identical. In a Heavenly and Divine sense, they are one and the same: the Body of Christ!

The Fullness of His Body is in the totality of my body, of your body, of every body of every man, every woman, every child and every elderly person within the Church, as a “temple of the Holy Spirit,” sanctifying our human spirit, with our body and soul.

“It is a great mystery,” writes the Apostle Paul.

This mystery is the very source of the Christian faith and the example of the Celtic Christian spirituality. It is our spiritual experience within the life of the Church as we know it, of Christianity itself!

Without it — we are all empty shells, a semblance, an appearance, an apparition that is not real, a lie and a falsehood, a deception of the world and a source of atheism and destruction.

Let us make no mistake: if our Church life is not the Body of Christ because of our falsehood and lies and unrepented sins, then it becomes the “net of the evil one”! and we are not living the resurrected life, but the life of death and deception.

It is our own choice, our own decision: to be the Body of Christ, as God’s people, or gradually to fall into the destructive net of the “Prince of this world”.

This danger is very real and very near!

Let us be aware of it!

To avoid this danger, we must build the “ground of our being” on the solid Rock of Christ Himself, on His unique Personality as expressed in His two natures: Divine and human.

His human nature reveals His divinity only if our human life in the Church: in the Church, is based on that Rock. And the basis of the Rock, as it is expressed in the ninth article of our Faith in the Creed, is:

“ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH”

Let us not make the common mistake of considering such Church to be the Roman Catholic Church, or The Vatican, because the Church goes beyond such denomination into something bigger and larger. In the King’s Family of Churches, it is present fully the whole community: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Even though, the Church is not only the King’s Family of Churches.

1. “One” in the fullness of the Community of God’s people unity in the Communion and fellowship of all.
2. “Holy” in the holiness of the Holy Spirit, in its Pentecostal, charismatic, Orthodox understanding.
3. “Catholic” in the original sense of the word: “catholiki”, “cath-oly” — not on my own, but with the whole, “according to the wisdom of the Church and its wholeness” — THE WHOLE CHURCH”!

Each person, each family, each congregation and each group in it, each community, each fellowship — spiritual and parochial — each ministry — young and old — council — congregation and diocesan — Assembly or meeting, commission and committee . . . the whole of the King’s Family, the whole of each particular/national church — each one of them not “on their own”, but “according to the wisdom of the whole Church” — from all ages and all peoples: “catholic”.

4. “Apostolic” — bound in the example of the historic Church, the divine mandate, the sacramental union, the canonical order in oneness of Faith and Teaching, with the Apostles to whom was given the power of the Holy Spirit “to bind and to loose”; that is to be bound directly to the local bishop, the successor to the Apostles — in full obedience to him and in strict discipline, not “out of fear, but in conscience’, and through him to the Assembly of Bishops both locally and throughout the world, from the past (the Ecumenical Councils) and in the present (the consensus of all bishops).

“Where the Bishop is, there is the Church,” as it was formulated at the turn of the first and second centuries by St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch.

5. The word “Church, “Ecclesia” — “the community called out of the world” denotes the other side of the picture of Church life: “the bishop without a diocese” is not “the Church”. And the words “without a diocese” do not mean simply the absence of a territory of parishes under his rule, but “WITHOUT THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN HIM”. That is: without his love for them, without his care for them, without their openly expressed wishes to him, without their requests to him, without their advice and constructive criticism expressed to him, without his consulting them, without their common discussions and dialogues with him, without his directing them and his ultimate and full responsibility for them!

When that direct relationship (which is without fear: for “love does not know fear”) is broken, then the Church itself is broken on both sides!

And when the Church itself is thus broken, the Divine side is gone and the human side becomes then a source of demonic activity and “demonic aims”, a nest of the “Legion”, as described in the Gospel (”we are many”) and a ready made home for any evil!

If we look upon the Church only as an earthly “corporation” (an “organization”) as distinct from “organism”; a “political democracy” as distinct from the rule of God; or in terms of legalistic “by-laws” as distinct from the “power of the Holy Spirit”. Then, we are lost!

There is no need to go any further: it is clear to everyone what I mean and everyone knows the history of the King’s Family of Churches: how it has developed over the last years and in the course of these last few years in such wonderful and miraculous ways and how this history has brought us to the edge, to the point of destiny!

The decision to step into destiny has not been an easy one, and it has been painful for me as it had a high personal cost; not only for me, but even for my family. I know it is for many of you as well. It is with hope, faith and love that I believe the King’s Family will be an energetic force behind the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

I am not talking about evangelism, or not only about evangelism. I am talking about something much more profound, more mystic and mysterious. I am talking about the power of the Church to advance the Kingdom of God and transform the nations through teaching and instructing them all what Jesus Christ commands.

Almost 2000 years have gone since the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sadly, the Body of Christ seems they have taken the wrong path again, and again. Even those who believe to be the Heralds of Truth, they have became deceives by their own human traditions and interpretations of the Holy Scriptures.

If you ask me how this could be, let me say because they have forgotten the ancient path and the witness of those who have walked before us. The Church is not something new at all, it is not a new organization. The Church is God’s answer for the world. We are the society of the chosen ones. We have been elected to be His people and follow the resurrected life on the earth until we gather with the whole family of the redeem people in the second coming of Christ.

I cannot hide from you the fact that there are irreconcilable differences with specific denominations and with particular so called ‘pastors’ on questions of: the basis of spiritual life, ecclesiological views, church order and structural patterns, discipline, liturgical practice, problems with the calendar and relations with other jurisdictions, homosexual permissiveness (only in the case of those people who insist on the right to remain full members of the Church with an official sanction, quite distinct from the purity of Christ and His Holy mercy and forgiveness), defense of the persecuted and the struggle for human rights, church administration and Episcopal authority (with direct and common err of congregationalism and presbyterianism), the relations between ethnic groups, along with various unethical actions by pastors and dishonest slanderous methods on the part of certain groups in their “struggle against the hierarchy”. All of this — which is not Christianity (in my view) — entered into my decision to step into destiny.

It is time to speak out, “All of these differences remain irreconcilable and, maybe, it is time to separate from those who are not willing to serve God not self. It is time to stand and being counted by the high call of God. The Body of Christ has waist much time in church politics and interest ecclesiastic groups.

Now, on this Sunday of Resurrection, let us step into destiny in the fullness of love and devotion, discipline and unreserved obedience in the spirit and power of the true Faith of Christ, abiding in the Holy Spirit and in communion with the Father. Let us be united in the Holy Trinity as God’s people, the Church of Christ.

And remember that the King’s Family of Churches, in spite of its shortcomings and imperfections, sometimes serious (in the youth of her state and with the complexity of jurisdictional problems), carries within herself the inexhaustible legacy of Christianity and the special mission of Christ.

Be faithful to God and to the Body of Christ!

“THIS IS THE DAY OF RESURRECTION, LET US BE ILLUMINED BY THE FEAST, AND EMBRACE EACH OTHER, SAYING: BROTHERS! LET US STEP INTO DESTINY BY THE RESURRECTION AND PROCLAIM:

CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD, TRAMPLING DOWN DEATH BY DEATH AND TO THOSE IN THE TOMBS, BESTOWING LIFE!”

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!

+Bishop Josep M. Rossello