By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
We live in an era of information and information technology, an age in which television broadcasts play an important role. Despite this, however, we live in an era of disinformation and misinformation. We learn a lot of news going on in the world, but we ignore the greatest news, which is the essence of things.
Henry David Thoreau, referring to the information of his age (1854), said that the newspapers offered "nothing new". He emphasized that if one reads of an incident, a robbery, a murder, etc. then nothing else needs to be read. "If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad of instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea" (Walden, ch. 2). Walter Benjamin (1938) says that modern information is in reality "short disconnected information". He writes characteristically: "It is virtually impossible to write a history of information separately from a history of the corruption of the press" (The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire). How much more is this the case for contemporary information!
But the empty tomb of the God-man offers old and always new information, about death that is conquered, about real life that springs up from death, about the kenosis, the sacrifice and the offering. It is probably better to say that the empty tomb of Christ does not only offer information, but even better - that life has conquered death.
Broadcasts run on created light and make people aware of the surface, but the empty tomb of Christ shows the uncreated Light, which illumines the darkness of Hades and fills all of creation with light. So while the channels of information satisfy the senses, the empty tomb of Christ gives rest to the spiritual senses, and reveals life beyond the senses.
