A Good Friday Meditation from St. Athanasius, "On the Incarnation"

A very strong proof of this destruction of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by a present fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead...Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot as he now is, the passers-by jeer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage because of the king who conquered him. So death has been conquered and branded for what it is by the Saviour on the cross. It is bound hand and foot, all who are in Christ, trample it as they pass and as witness to Him deride it, scoffing and saying, "O Death, where is thy victory; O Grave, where is thy sting?" (I Cor. 15:55).

St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, Chapter 27.