Thoughts for Good Friday at the Passions and Burial of Christ
Preaching in the Russian Church; Lectures and Sermons by a Priest of the Holy Orthodox Church: Chapter XII
It was our earnest desire to pursue the story of our Savior’s trials and His Crucifixion; but when I looked on Him whom they pierced, my spirit failed before the terrible sight; I could not watch with Him another hour, and yet I could not leave the hallowed scene. It seemed as though I saw Him brought back from Herod where the soldiers mocked Him. I followed Him through the streets again as the cruel priests pushed through the wild crowd and hastened Him back to Pilate’s court. My ears sounded with the cry: Crucify Him, crucify Him! Give us Barabbas, the robber; let Barabbas go; but Christ, the King of the Jews, Jesus, the Saviour, He must die! And there He stood, who loved me and gave Himself for me, like a lamb in the midst of wolves, with none to pity and none to help Him.
As Jesus Christ hung apparently helpless upon the cross, He had only to utter the word, and in a moment more than twelve legions of angels (what an invincible force of energetic beings!) would be ready to succor and defend. But to have shunned all pain and anguish, to have refused the cup which His Father had given Him, to have rejected the cross—this would have been to leave man to his doom; this He could not do. And so, He saved others, Himself He could not save.
Our Lord for a long time bore His cross, as though He felt not its weight; even from the time of the most helpless age of humanity, when He was born in the smallest town of the smallest kingdom on the earth, when there was no home, no cradle for Him, and when, except His humble mother with her guardian, none but a few shepherds took any interest in His birth, He bore His cross till at length He was completely delivered up on it. We could not follow Jesus throughout in His earthly life. During these holy days, we have but endeavored to follow Him only through a few of the last scenes of His entire sacrifice. In a measure we understand, and we feel in His sufferings, as His body, in its weight drooped, being sustained but by four nails, as the cross was raised over the multitude of people on the hill and then the shock as it went down into its socket. Only a chosen few, and likewise in a small measure can they understand how He—who prayed, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do—has stretched out his arms on the wood in order to embrace a sinful world. But no mortal knoweth how the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word of God is not bound by death. As a word from the lips dies not entirely away at the moment its sound ceases, but rather gathers new strength, and passing through the senses penetrates the minds and hearts of the hearers, so also the Hypostatical Word of God, the Son of God, in His saving incarnation, whilst dying in the flesh, fills all things with His spirit and might. Thus when Christ waxeth faint and becometh silent on the cross, then is it that heaven and earth raise their voice unto Him, and the dead preach the resurrection of the crucified, and the very stones cry out. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst; and the earth did quake and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose.
O sinful man, O nature, bereft of perfection. O reason, a mind earthly winged, down low, stoop thou under cover of repentant shame before the light of this grave. Christian, there is no other place for thee today but by the Cross of Christ. “Broken and distributed is the Lamb of God, which is broken, yet not severed, which is ever eaten, yet never consumed, but sanctifying those that participate.” Therefore come, ye sons of toil and ye daughters of Eve; come, come, ye citizens of the easy-going wide world; see, His side is now and forever opened for us. O mother, sufferest thou for thy children? Bring them to the tomb of Jesus and quiet thyself in the stillness of His silence. Brother, sister, behold in the Saviour thy kinsman. And thou poor, lonely wanderer, here He quietly lies in one place that thou mayest find Jesus, thy only Friend. We come, who labor in Thy infinite sorrow for the sins of mankind, we who are heavy laden with our infirmities, we come and supplicate before Thy breathless form.
Uniting all things in one, grant that we all may inseparably be one with Thee and Thy Father, O Lord Jesus Christ! Thou that reconcilest all, grant that all may be of one mind in faith and in love toward Thee. Thou that bears not with the envious and contentious, destroy all wicked heresy and separations. O Jesus! Thou that lovest and pitiest, gather into one flock all wandering sheep. Thou that givest peace to all, still the voice of spite and dispute among those who call upon Thy name. Thou who communicatest to us the very Body and very Blood of Thyself, grant that we truly be flesh of Thy flesh and bone of Thy bones. O Jesus, the God of our hearts, unite us with Thee, now and forever. Amen.
This is a digital edition of Beacon from the Bay: The Collected Works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich of Jackson and San Francisco, a several-month-long project to catalogue the out-of-print works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich, the first American-born Orthodox priest.
If you would like to purchase print copies of Beacon from the Bay for a personal or church library or bookstore, you may do so from Amazon. All support is greatly appreciated for this labor of love.