Please get to church tonight. If you cannot, please try to find yourself a way to worship live-stream. This is much too beautiful to miss – my favorite service of the year.
Is this a funeral service? Is this a resurrection service? The answers are: Yes!
We stand before the bier on which Christ is laid out before us. On the Epitaphion see His Body lying stone cold dead, with His Blessed Virgin Mother and Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus and the Holy Women and often holy angels mourning. We join in singing Lamentations over Him. This derives from an ancient Mediterranean custom of women singing laments at peoples’ deaths.
By the Boston Byzantine Choir
At 10 minutes 45 seconds the Third Stasis begins: “Every generation to thy tomb comes grieving to sing its hymn of praise to thee, O Savior.” – a hymn especially beloved by Orthodox people.
Listen carefully and notice: Throughout these long Lamentations over Christ, the words of lament are put not in our mouths, but rather in the mouth of His Mother and sometimes Joseph, Nicodemus and the holy angels. We are not mourning. The Orthodox Church does not focus much on Christ’s suffering, great as it was. For deep down even at His lowest moment when it felt to Him like His Father had forsaken Him, He knew what He was doing and what would be the outcome. And now we do, too.
Rather tonight we focus on the laments of his Blessed Mother, for she did not know.
Have you ever considered what she went through? She suffered as no other mortal on earth has ever suffered. Not only was her only Son dead, but also she alone knew who her Son was – the Son of God come to save the world. And He has failed. They have destroyed Him. And so there is no hope for the world, no hope for mankind, no hope for anyone ever. Life may continue, but now in the end it will all come to nothing, only darkness and destruction in this world and the next – for God has failed! Her’s was the ultimate horror. She alone – and all alone – knew what her Son’s death meant. There was no one who could comfort her
– not even brave young John who had stood with her and would now be her son.
That poor dear blessed Woman! Truly “the Mother of Sorrows”, as Roman Catholics call her. Truly, as Elder Simeon had prophesied, “A sword will pierce your own heart also.”
But even in the Lamentations, there are words of hope for the coming Resurrection. And soon, very soon, she would not sorrow or lament: “The angel cried to the Woman full of grace: Rejoice, rejoice,… your Son is risen from His three days in the tomb!” That is why we do not join her in her lamentations. For we know what she did not during those long hours before His Resurrection: In the End, if we have lived and died with Jesus Christ and in Christ, there will be nothing for us to lament, for her Son has risen victorious.
Late in the service, something happens which moves me deeply year after year. We all process out of the church, when that is possible, following Christ’s Body laid out on the Epitaphion – in the way people lay out their departed at funerals. We become part of Christ’s funeral procession, and following His precious Body, we go out into the darkness, into death. Some Orthodox walk three times around the church. Then coming back into the church we all pass under the Epitaphion – one by one, yet all together – in symbol passing through death with Christ.
In this procession of the Epitaphion we “act out” what happens when we die. We follow Christ into death – our death, His death – into the darkness, alone yet not alone.
And when we come out from under the Epitaphion, where do we find ourselves? In church, still in The Church. We are still alive. We are still with Him. We are still with each other. In this life we live with Christ in His Church. We die with Christ in His Church. And after we have departed and “passed on”, we are still in the Church. Through it all, nothing essential has changed.
Jesus Christ has conquered death and hell. He has broken down the boundaries between Heaven and earth. His Church is a supernatural community which encompasses Heaven and earth. All things in all worlds are One in Him.
Brothers and sisters, if you are with Jesus Christ, do not fear death. We pray for the “departed”, don’t we? our way of saying that when people die they have only gone on a journey. For “in my Father’s house there are many rooms…”, and we pass from this room to the next. “I go to prepare a place for you, so that where I am, you may be also.” And that’s all there is to it.
At the very end, the Lamentations service almost becomes a Paschal celebration. Though His Resurrection on earth doesn’t come till tomorrow night, we now begin to celebrate Christ’s victory over hell and death. Tomorrow morning we will celebrate the first Divine Liturgy of Pascha – actually of Christ’s triumph “down below”. Het has now descended into hell, hades, the “underworld”, sheol, that “lower dimension”, the dark place of the dead. One translation calls it “the land where all things are forgotten”, where the dead from all times were held captive by Satan and where he intended that they finally fade into nothingness.
But no more. Now Christ is driving Satan crazy, rescuing the dead of all times – past, present, future – leading them up into the light, into life again. We will see that tomorrow in our Paschal icon, and then for the next Forty Days we will sing the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
At the end of tonight’s service, in the Old Testament reading (Ezekiel 37: 1-14) the question is “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel was asked that question about the “bones” of Israel, their nation laid level by the Babylonians. But our question tonight is about real bones, Christ’s bones. Can He rise again? And our bones. Can we be raised again from death? The answer in all three cases is Yes! Yes! Yes!
Yes – We believe not only in a bodiless spiritual afterlife, but “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.” Christ said, Christ promised that at the Last Day all who lie in the graves will rise. At the End, all good things will be raised again and restored. “A new Heaven and a new Earth.” John wrote, “We will be like Him”, like Jesus Christ risen from the dead.
So already in tonight’s Epistle (1 Corinthians 5:6-8) we begin the celebration: “Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed for us. Cnrist has conquered death and hades. Therefore, let us keep the Feast.” We can’t wait.
But then quickly, we return to the Tomb on earth (Matthew 27:62-66), with a great stone still sealing the door, and we wait just a little while longer. We sing this hymn (normally a Sunday Troparion) about what has already happened below, an is about to happen here on earth.
When thou didst descend to death, O Life Immortal, thou didst slay hell with the splendor of thy Godhead: and when from the depths thou didst raise the dead, all the powers of heaven cried out: O Giver of Life, Christ our God, glory to thee!
Next Posts will arrive tomorrow for Saturday Morning: First Divine Liturgy of Pascha – Christ’s Victory over Hades and for Midnight Sunday: GREAT AND HOLY PASCHA!