Saint Vladimir Seminary
April 21, 2024
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, is the final Sunday of the fast. We will soon put the forty days behind us; this coming Friday, the last day of Lent proper, we will sing, “Having completed the forty days that bring profit to our soul…” We will still be fasting during Holy Week, but the Great Fast will be over.
In keeping with this, today’s Gospel points us forward, past Great Lent and toward the coming Passion Week. On the way to Jerusalem the Lord tells us, his disciples, everything that will happen to him during Holy Week:
Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.
There are no secrets as to how this week will end. There will be sorrow, blood, and death, but God will not let matters lie; after all of that, there will be the great fear and joy of the empty tomb, the great hope of the Resurrection of Christ.
This sets the tone, by the way, for our entire experience of Holy Week. Holy Week is not a dramatized reenactment where we pretend not to know what happens next so that we can enjoy the story. The hymns of Holy Week always frame the events of each day in terms of God’s ultimate plan, culminating in the Resurrection.
Today’s Gospel does, however, raise a question: If the apostles knew what was going to happen to the Lord, why did Peter ever pull a sword in Christ’s bodily defense? Why did they run? Why did they fail to believe the women on Sunday morning?
Indeed, in less than two weeks we will hear the Lord’s entire farewell discourse from St. John’s Gospel as the first Passion Gospel, and in that discourse he makes clear the meaning and purpose of his suffering.
Still, the disciples, who knew the plan, as it were, could not stick to it: they could not accept it, could not believe it.
Our concern here is not so much with the holy apostles who experienced these events in history: we know that they ended up becoming the heralds of the Gospel and founders of the churches. Furthermore, we know that they remain forever as pillars of the Church, the heavenly Zion, and foundation-stones of the preaching of the Orthodox Faith.
Our real concern is with ourselves. After all, we too know the story, from beginning to end, from Lazarus and Palm Sunday to the garden, the betrayal, the Cross, and the third-day Rising. Indeed, we know the story from the Fall to the Last Judgment. We understand the scope of God’s plan; we have seen the Beginning and the End, which is Christ himself.
We are at least as clumsy and unfaithful as the disciples of old, even though we are in much better position than they. They had heard the Christ say that he would be crucified, but we know that his Crucifixion is the salvation of the world. Christ had assured them that he would rise, but we have their witness and testimony that he is risen and lives and reigns forevermore. Christ promised them the Spirit, but we have received the Spirit, and we can see the Spirit’s work in the saints over the last 2000 years.
Despite our great advantages, however, our behavior is, at best, no different than theirs. We know that our crosses, if we bear them faithfully, will lead to resurrection, but so often we run away from the Cross in our lives.
We have beheld the Resurrection of Christ, but we still spend much of our life living for the present moment, even though this world passes away like a dream. Just like the disciples on the road, we squabble over honors, position, material advantage, power.
We know how the story ends: weakness defeats strength. Death tramples down death. Life emerges from the tomb. Perfection takes place in silence. But we, with our clamorous egos, ignore that story, and try to make up our own, with ourselves in the starring role.
This coming Holy Week, however, gives us a chance to correct our perspective, to review the story that underlies reality. Holy Week, by calling us to focus on Christ, reminds us that he is the protagonist of our life and of all creation, for in him and through him and for him all things were made, and by him fallen nature was refashioned anew.
During the coming Holy Week, we are invited to meditate on the hollow nature of earthly power and success, and to experience the life-giving reality of Christ’s kingdom, the kingdom of the self-emptying God who is revealed to us a crucified servant.
Even if we know the story, even if we have experienced its truth and seen the nature of created reality and glimpsed the God-man who made us, to live in accordance with that story is a hard thing, as long as we hang on to our self-concepts and sense of ego.
But each year, Holy Week invites us back into the mystery of Christ, back into the authentic pattern of our life and salvation. We are not learning a new story; we are being called to experience and live more truly the Story that has existed since before the beginning of time.
During these coming days, then, let us truly lay aside all earthly cares and crucify our minds with Christ. He is always there, waiting for us to catch up, just as he patiently waited for the apostles to believe 2000 years ago.
If we allow ourselves to be transformed during this coming Holy Week by the renewing of our minds, then, we hope, this renewal will remain with us throughout all the days of the coming year, and even in eternity.
To him who is going to his voluntary Passion for our salvation, and who invites us to partake of his cup and his baptism together with him, Christ our true God, be all glory and adoration, together with his Father and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.