Positioned far below the earthly mountains in the upper right and left corners of this image, Christ stands powerfully on the broken gates of hell, which are formed into a cross. Up above, gathered in the blue sphere of liminal space, is an icon within the icon in which three angelic figures gaze at another cross, this one gold and unbroken. These angelic figures represent the Holy Trinity. There are deep mysteries here, but for the purposes of this text, consider just one: How is it that the cross, a first-century Roman instrument of torture and death, is gilded and venerated by the God of the Universe, and how does such an image fit in an icon devoted to the resurrection of Christ? 

At first this question may not seem so momentous. Do we not build museums filled with images of the Holocaust, for example? Do we not memorialize places of great tragedy? Clearly, there’s a human need to bring the heart and mind to bear on symbolic representations of past suffering or evil. But something is different here. The figures gazing at the golden cross are neither human nor bound by earthly time. In the Orthodox understanding, the Triune God decided, before the world was even created, to set in motion the events that would become Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Why? In order, the Church says, to open the possibility for all humanity to enter the intimate gathering in that blue circle: for all of creation to join in the mystical celebration of the Life-Giving Trinity. 

This opening, this reuniting unity, is made possible only through Christ’s voluntary journey toward and ascent to death on the Cross—and the icon points to this with its repeated crosses and cross shapes. There is the aforementioned golden cross and its echoed shape in the broken gates of hell; there is the X-shaped cross formed by gold lines raying out from Christ’s resurrected body; there is a red cross in the halo around Christ’s head; and there is also the shape made by the lines of worshipping humans spreading out horizontally, crossed with the upright body of Christ, his glorious height reaching down to the depths of hell and up to the Trinity above. 

“Through the Cross,” the Orthodox sing at Pascha, Orthodox Easter, “joy has come into all the world.” None of the humans in the icon have halos; none have done anything to earn their spot at the feast table with God. Yet neither are the people anonymous: we see Adam and Eve, representing humanity, reunited with Christ, the Prototype for humanity. Behind Adam is King David, John the Baptist, and prophets from the Old Testament. Behind Eve are faithful women, queens, and the Virgin Mary. Christ’s saving act, decided upon before the beginning of creation, invites the human race in all its particularity to awaken into its own journey of ascent into the joyful banquet that never ends and, once again, walk with God in the new Paradise of his Kingdom.

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