Introduction
In our churches, Matins/Orthros is normally sung in the morning. So why, you may ask, are we now suddenly having it in the evening? Also and even odder, why during Holy Week do we have Vesperal Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (obviously an evening service) in the morning?
I’m really sorry you asked those questions.
(If you didn’t ask and don’t care, just skip down to the next section, beginning with the video.)
The answer: I don’t know. It’s unclear.
But here’s my guess: It’s because our Matins/Orthros hymn “Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight…” (see below) was written in the monasteries, where Matins is a middle of the night service, sung in the dark leading up to dawn. (When I was on Athos, I remember the dreaded knock on my door about 2:30 a.m.: “Pater, the services have begun.”)
It does not make sense to sing that midnight hymn in the morning light. However, put Matins at 2 a.m. in your church, and guess how many people would attend…! So for this Week, in parish use, Matins gets pushed back to the evening before. That leaves Vesperal Liturgy with nowhere to go except the next morning.
Does that explain it? Probably not. If anyone has a better explanation I’d be grateful if you’d share it.
However, I think this “upside down” schedule unintentionally reflects the feeling of Holy Week when everything seems upside down, when Good is treated as evil, Right as wrong, our deathless God is put to death. Then after Pascha things return to normal again.
P.S. Don’t be overly surprised if I get my timing off at some point this week. I’m preparing well ahead, and then trying to Post exactly one full day ahead, and already I’m wondering “but which day is that?”
The Troparion for “Bridegroom Matins”
“Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find awake; but unworthy is the servant whom He shall find sleeping. Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death and be shut out of the Kingdom. But rouse yourself crying: Holy, holy, holy, are You, O our God. Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us.”
This hymn, sung on four evenings this Week, derives from our Tuesday morning Gospel reading – about the ten bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom who arrives late, at midnight. Just so, in the middle of the night before Pascha morning, Christ the Bridegroom will rise from death to be “married”, united with His Bride the Church, with us His people forever.
CDs of the beautiful music of Archangel Voices are available from http://www.archangelvoices.com
Later on Palm Sunday
After Christ’s entrance into the City, to everyone’s great surprise Jesus went not to challenge the Roman governor, the political authority, but instead to the Temple, the center of Jewish religion. (Explanation: Animals for sacrifice were required to be purchased in Jewish shekels instead of the usual Roman currency.) Seeing men changing money and selling animals at exorbitant prices, He overturned their tables and drove them out. ”It is written,” He said to them “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” Matthew 21:13 He phrased it so very carefully, since He was not yet ready to be arrested. He only made everyone do a sort of “double-take”: What does He mean “My house? His house? What is He saying? Who does He think He is?
Who indeed?
Jesus healed a few people, then He and His disciples went back to Bethany. People had such eager anticipation on Palm Sunday morning… and this is it? this is all?
Gospel reading: Matthew 21:18-43
Please read the Gospels as we go through Holy Week. There is more in them than I can possibly cover here.
In tonight’s Matins Gospel it is already Monday morning. Jesus and His disciples had stayed overnight with Martha, Mary and Lazarus. It says “He was hungry”. (For once, did Martha not fix breakfast?) Jesus saw a fig tree with no fruit on it, and He cursed it. Matthew says it immediately withered. Mark says that evening on the way back they found it withered.
Why would the Lord do that to an innocent tree? As a symbol of the result of not “bearing fruit”. (See the parable below.)
I think the key is in the next line: “If you have faith you can say even to this mountain ‘Be cast into the sea’ and it will happen.” What was “this mountain” in front of them? Mount Zion, the “temple mount” as some call it today, the center of Judaism. The fig tree was the Jewish nation which would now reject Jesus their Messiah and be “cast into the sea”, so to speak. It would wither like the fig tree.
When they came to Jerusalem that morning, Christ foresaw and described the destruction of the City and the Jewish nation by the Roman army which would take place forty years later. After that, Temple worship never resumed – not even to this day. Christians saw that as the sign that the One, True and Perfect Sacrifice had been now been made. There was no more need for Jewish Temple sacrifices. (Read Hebrews.)
We hear more about that at morning services early this week.
He came to the Temple. The authorities now began a coordinated last attempt to discredit this “false Messiah”, lest he lead a rebellion and the nation be destroyed. So began the questions: “Who gave you authority to do these things?” Christ very smoothly turned it back on them: “I will tell you if you first answer me a question. Was the Baptism of John from God or from men?” They hesitated. If we say from men, the people will turn on us for they revered John. But we can’t say from God, because John said Jesus was the Messiah. They answered, “We do not know”. Jesus responded, “Then neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things”. Clever! Their attempt didn’t work.
We’ll hear more about the confrontation tomorrow evening. I suspect it continued for some while, and that the Gospel accounts give us only the core of it.
James Tissot, c 1890
Then Jesus took charge of the questioning: A man told his sons to go work in his vineyard. One said Yes, but didn’t do it. The other said No, but did it. Which did his father’s will? That was obvious: The one who said No, but did it. Jesus responded: I say to you, You say Yes to God, you practice your religion, but when John came and spoke the truth about Me you rejected him – while the sinners, tax collectors and harlots who aren’t “religious”, who say No to God – they believed John. Despite all your pious words you are not doing God’s will.
Herein is a warning to all today who worship and pray and say “Yes” to God all the time and think that’s enough.
Then came Christ’s parable of the vineyard, a fairly common Old Testament image of the Jewish nation. Here the Landowner is God who established their nation and then went off to a far country. The vinedressers are the Jews. God sent His servants the prophets to collect the fruits, but they beat some, killed others. Now the parable moved into the present: Finally the Landowner sent his Son, and they killed Him. So what will the Owner do to those vinedressers? His hearers didn’t “get it”: This was about them and what they will do this Week. They answered: He will destroy them and give the vineyard to others who will give Him the fruits. Jesus said: “I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation which will produce the fruits of it.”
And so it was: The rulers of old Israel arranged the murder of the Son of God, their own Messiah, and most of their people naturally followed them. The Kingdom was taken away from them, and the Church is now the new Israel, the true Israel. See, for example, Galatians 6:16
Herein lie both a promise and a threat.
The promise: The Church, by the word of Jesus Christ, is eternal. In almost every generation we’ve heard that the Church is done for. No it isn’t. We always rise again. The Church is the Body of Christ who is risen and cannot die again. He said the power of death will never prevail against His Church. Matthew 16:18
The threat, which seems particularly relevant this year: No part of the Church on earth is eternal. In the icon above, the Holy Orthodox Church sails on forever through history, despite all the threats against her. However, is it possible for someone to fall out of the ship? Yes!
Learn from the parable: We also must produce “the fruits” for God. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5:22-2
If we are unfaithful, if we do not produce these fruits, The Church will continue, but without us. He will take the Kingdom away from us, as He took it away from the old Israel, and give it to a part of the Church which will produce for Him. As Saint John the Baptist said, “If God needs children of Abraham, He can raise them up from these stones.” Matthew 3:9
Next Post will arrive Sunday afternoon for Monday morning Vesperal Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts