If indeed Christianity is supposed to be a religion of salvation from earthly evils and tribulations then it is certainly a total failure. No, it is not with this kind of salvation that we are concerned. We are concerned rather with that salvation of which we spoke previously, from that radical and tragic transformation that occurred and is still constantly taking place in the rapport of man with his own life— a transformation that man himself is already incapable of correcting and restoring. The name that I gave to this transformation, to this fall, is death; death, not only as the end of life, but life itself as a senseless waste, as diminution and disappearance, life itself as a dying, already from the moment of birth; the transformation of the world into a cosmic cemetery; the hopeless subjection of man to disintegration, to time, and to death. It is not the weak person but rather the one who is strong who seeks salvation, who thirsts for it. The weak person looks for help. The weak person desires that mediocre and boring happiness that is offered to him by the various ideologues that have once and for all come to terms with death. The weak ones are content to accept to live for a while and then to die. Those who are strong consider such a view unworthy of man and of the world. This is our response to the opponents of Christianity who claim that we are terribly weak if we need salvation. It is not we alone who need this, but that whole image of the world and of the true life that lives in man; that whole being, which recoils against this senseless commotion on a globe stuffed with corpses. Therefore, the Christian understanding of salvation means a restoration of that life, Life with a capital “L,” Life eternal and unfading, for which man knows he is created. And it is not a sign of his weakness but rather of his strength that man hungers for salvation and receives it from God. For God is that very Life that man had lost, subjecting himself irrevocably to the world, having lost himself completely in time and in death'. And so we believe and we know, as John the Evangelist says: “Life was made manifest” (1 Jn 1:2). God did not save us by the exercise of power, nor with a miracle, nor by force or through fear, nor by intimidation, but only by coming among us in the world and for the world, for life itself—life as divine beauty, as wisdom, and as goodness, life as the beauty of the world and of man, life as capable in itself and by itself to transform, to obliterate, and to consume death. And this Life appeared not as one more philosophical theory, not as a principal of organization, but as a Person. Yes, Christianity teaches and proclaims that in one Person, in one place, and at one point in time, Divine Life appeared to mankind in the image of the perfect Man—Jesus Christ from Nazareth in Galilee. The intellectual, the technocrat, the so-called “contemporary man” shrugs his shoulders and declares: what nonsense! And yes, nonsense or not, it is this image, this Person, this Life, which over the course of two thousand years has held an incomparable sway over the hearts and lives o f people. There is no single teaching, no philosophy, which has not changed or vanished over time; not one kingdom, not one culture, which has not faded into history. But if there was and if there is in history a miracle, it is the memory of this one Person, who did not write a single line, who was in no way concerned with what would be said about him later on— a Person who died a shameful death on a cross, as a criminal, a Person who lives, truly lives, in those who believe in him. He said of himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). Now millions of people walk along this way, preserve this truth, live by this life, so that even the most powerful government, which precisely organizes every detail of peoples lives from cradle to grave, controlling each word, each thought, each breath— even that government—is powerless before this faith. Christ is the savior of the world—this is the most ancient Christian affirmation. And he saved the world and us by virtue of giving us the possibility to live life independently of death and time, and in this lies our salvation. If the apostle Paul accepted Christ after a long period of persecuting his disciples and suddenly exclaimed, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain!” (Phil 1:21), then we can certainly say that something has radically changed in the world. 

Fr Alexander Schmemann, 'Death, Where is Thy Sting?'