Bonovox

The Monk James has given his blanket permission to post his meditations on each day of Holy Week.  Since I will be kind of busy this week, and this is so much more beneficial then anything I could write, please enjoy.  He only asks that you pray for him. (If you want to drop him a line: frjsilver a t optonline.net )

Have a blessed week....I can hear the strains of "O Christ is...." already!

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 LAZAROS SATURDAY AND PALM SUNDAY

When the Great Fast ends during the Evening Service on the eve of Lazaros Saturday, another week-long period of even more intense fasting and liturgical services begins.

Lazaros Saturday and Palm Sunday together form a small island in ‘the sea of the Fast’ (Triodion). These two days are not included in the Holy Forty Days, nor are they part of Passion Week. The services of these days have two main themes: Baptism, and our concomitant rebirth to everlasting life in Jesus Christ -- graphically illustrated in His raising of St Lazaros (Eliezer) from the tomb; and the joyous welcome He received as He entered the holy city of Jerusalem five days before His crucifixion. Israel's eternal King now comes to Zion riding on ‘a colt, the foal of an ass’, to fulfil the prediction of the prophet ZekharYah ((ZE 9:9).
In passing, we might note that the name ‘Lazaros’ is a Greek attempt to reproduce the Hebrew name _’eliy`ezer_ , ‘my God ( is my) help’. Nearly all the names of people and places in the Bible are somehow intentional, and recognizing their meaning is often helpful in understanding the narratives in which they appear. Too much of that significance is lost when these names are presented in garbled Latin -- as though that were English -- with no attempt to explain them.

This Saturday commemorating the resurrection of Lazaros is one of several baptismal days appointed by the Typikon. These days are remnants of a time when catechumens who had completed their preparation for Enlightenment and were ready to be ‘clothed in Christ’ (GAL 3:27) were brought to the font by their sponsors. In fact, that forty-day period of preparation for Baptism is one of the concepts contributing to the structure of the Great Fast as we now have it.

The death/rebirth symbolism of triple immersion in the waters of regeneration has been amply described elsewhere, but we should keep it in mind as we remember the raising of Lazaros on this day. This miracle of Jesus, in which He restores life to a man four days dead, is a sign of His authority over life and death. And His example of weeping over the death of Lazaros validates our own sense of frustration and loss, expressed in tears when death overtakes those we love. Still, we should not weep like people without hope (1 THESS 4:13), for we know that Christ is risen, and that He will also raise us who have faith in Him, for so He promised (JN11:25).

The Lord’s divine prerogatives concerning our own life and death, demonstrated in His raising of St Lazaros as a representative or prototype of us all (see the Apolytikion for these two days), will have its supreme expression only a few days later. In Jesus Christ's own resurrection from the dead, His return to life makes it clear that He is the One Who has ‘authority to lay (His) life down, and authority to take it up again’ (JN 10:18). Demonstrating that authority over His own life and death proves that He is able to keep His promise to us who believe in Him.

Palm Sunday commemorates Christ's triumphant entry into the holy city of the Jews. By virtue of the many signs and miracles He had performed for His people, Israel, especially the raising of His friend, Lazaros, Jesus was already being acclaimed as the Messiah, the Christ, God's Anointed, the Savior of Israel.

Jesus is greeted by throngs of people waving palms and branches, symbols of victory and royalty, much as we accompany the Book of the Gospels and the Holy Gifts with liturgical fans. The crowd welcomes Him with ecstatic cries of ‘Hosanna!’ This Aramaic expression, repeated so often in the services of this day in its evangelical Greek transliteration, is the cry of suppliants to their benefactor, or the acclamation of admirers to a victorious warrior or king. It means ‘Save us!’ or ‘Be gracious to us!’ In a Hebrew form (_hoshi`a na’_), we find these words addressed to God in Psalm 118:25 (Hebrew numbering), but the Greek 70's text (Psalm 117:25) translates this as ‘Save us!’, so it is remarkable that the Aramaic is preserved in the Gospels.

Yet, for all the enthusiastic reception He got on Sunday, where was the acclaiming throng on Friday of that same week? They were a rioting mob on the Stone Pavement, screaming ‘Crucify Him!’ That’s where they were, and that’s where we so often find ourselves as well when, by our sinful infidelities to the covenant we made at Baptism, we once again turn over to the executioners the One Whom we had so recently accepted as our Savior.

Lord, take us with You to the cross, for it is rightfully ours. But if You will take the punishment we deserve, and die so You can rise from death, then raise us up again with Yourself when we die. Save us with Your salvation!