Friday’s events are recorded in Matthew 27:1-62, Mark 15:1-47, Luke 22:63, Luke 23:56, and John 18:28, John 19:37.
In the early morning hours, as Jesus’ trial was getting underway, Peter denied knowing his Master three times before the rooster crowed.
Good Friday is the most difficult day of Passion Week. Christ’s journey turned treacherous and acutely painful in these final hours leading to his death.
According to Scripture, Judas Iscariot, the disciple who had betrayed Jesus, was overcome with remorse and hanged himself early Friday morning.
Meanwhile, before the third hour (9 a.m.), Jesus endured the shame of false accusations, condemnation, mockery, beatings, and abandonment. After multiple unlawful trials, He was sentenced to death by crucifixion, one of the most horrible and disgraceful methods of capital punishment known at the time.
Before Christ was led away, soldiers spit on him, tormented and mocked him, and pierced him with a crown of thorns. Then Jesus carried His cross part of the way to Calvary and then a man named Simon was compelled to carry it the rest of the way. At Calvary, Jesus was again mocked and insulted as Roman soldiers nailed Him to the wooden cross.
Jesus spoke seven powerful statements from the cross, including “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34, NIV), “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46, NIV), and His last words were, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Then, about the ninth hour (3 p.m.), Jesus breathed his last breath and died.
By 6 p.m. Friday evening, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body down from the cross and lay it in a tomb.
Thus cried out the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus, who was nailed to the cross for the sins of the world, and therefore for you and me, brothers and sisters. My God, My God! Why have You abandoned Me? He cried out according to His human nature, which has infirmities, not sins. But how could God the Father, who sent Him into the world to save the world, forsake His only begotten, His beloved Son? Divinity was inalienable and will forever remain inalienable from the human nature of Jesus Christ. This abandonment means, beloved brethren, that human nature in Jesus Christ was left to all the torment, to all the horror of the sufferings of the cross, to all the terrible, deadly sorrow that He experienced back in the garden of Gethsemane before His capture by a gang of villains led by Judas Iscariot.
He then began to be horrified, to grieve, and He said to the disciples: My soul is exceedingly sorrowful . . . tarry ye here and watch with me (Mt. 26:38).
Imagine, then, what were the torments of the body, what was the sorrow of the all-righteous and all-loving sensitive soul of the God-Man, who underwent execution for all human sins, for the sins of Adam and Eve and all their descendants without exception, and therefore for yours and mine! And you and I, brethren, are great sinners and are deserving of countless punishments for our innumerable iniquities. Judge, I say, judge, what was the sharpness, bitterness and burning of the sufferings of the cross, what was the spiritual sorrow of the Lamb of God, who took upon Himself the sins of the world; how hard it was for God to abandon Him, that is, to give His humanity all the burning suffering, to give His soul overwhelming, boundless, terrible sorrow. After that, you will understand in what state the soul of the God-Man was as He hung upon the cross, when He cried out: My God, why did You leave Me? Yes, the soul was together with His most pure body in a state of terrible, inconceivable and unimaginable suffering.
Know from here, O man, whoever you are, the bitterness, absurdity, ugliness, abomination, madness, hideousness, torment, and lethality of sin; know how it is unnatural to us, uncharacteristic of our divine nature, which was created in the image of God; and how the all-holy, all-perfect, all-good Deity abhors it. And after that, judge, everyone, how we should deal with sin, which seduces us and defiles and perverts our nature—corrupting her, plunging her into eternal dishonor, into eternal sorrow, into eternal torment, if we do not hate it—that is, sin—with all our soul; if we do not repent of iniquities, if we do not completely turn away from sin.
Imagine, imagine what would have happened to us if the only begotten Son of God had not suffered for our sins and had not satisfied the righteousness of God, and if God had withdrawn His grace from us forever? Oh, the mere imagination, the slightest idea of that chills the blood and terrifies the soul. Oh, if only I and all sinners would always remember this abandonment by God of unrepentant sinners, especially when sin tempts us. Then everyone would flee from sin more than from a snake or a bloodthirsty beast, more than from a cruel enemy! Oh, then there would be many more who would be saved. Then the earth would not be afflicted with terrible disasters for the sins of man: crop failures, floods, devastating earthquakes affecting thousands of human lives, widespread diseases, fruit damage, destructive fires. Then it would be the paradise of God, abounding in truth and all kinds of natural gifts of God. Then there would have been peace and security on earth; there would not have been these terrible atrocities, among which we have recently seen the most terrible of the terrible—the brazen and vicious murder of a peaceful and loving, meek tsar in broad daylight.1
Oh, how the world is now overflowing with lawless and iniquitous people! But how long will it still exist—this sinful world, this earth, the dwelling of sin, stained with the blood of guiltless and innocent victims, this accumulation of all kinds of abominations? Isn’t the time of the universal fiery purification already coming? Yes, it is of course already near at hand. If the apostles at one time spoke of its nearness, then we can speak all the more strongly about the nearness of the end of the age.
Brothers and sisters! As long as we still have time, let us approach the Savior of the world with fervent repentance and with love and tears kiss His wounds that He suffered for us. Let us love the truth, let us love mercy, so that we may have mercy. Amen.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 10, 2023
🌳 A Homily for Holy Monday 🌳
✞ In The Name of The Father and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit!
Dear brothers and sisters! The last week before Pascha is dedicated to the memory of the last days of the earthly life of the Savior, His sufferings, death, and burial, and is called Holy and Great Week. “We call this week great,” says St. John Chrysostom, “not because its days are longer or there are more of them, but because our Lord has performed great and ineffable benefactions throughout this week. In this week, the long battle is over, death is destroyed, the curse is destroyed, the power of the devil is destroyed, his instruments are plundered, God is reconciled with man, and Heaven becomes accessible to him; men are united with the angels… the barrier is removed, and the God of peace reconciles the Heavenly and the earthly.”
Additionally, every day of Holy Week has been since ancient times dedicated by the Church to special commemorations. Contemplating the humiliation and glory of the Son of God in the Old Testament prefigurations, on Holy Monday, the Church commemorates the chaste Joseph. “Joseph,” the Synaxarion says, “is an image of Christ, because Christ becomes an object of envy for His fellow Jews, is sold by a disciple for thirty pieces of silver, is confined in the dark and gloomy pit of the tomb, and having risen from it by His own power, reigns over Egypt, that is, is victorious over all sin, ruling over all the world; in His love for mankind, He redeems us by the gift of mystical grain and feeds us with Heavenly bread—His life-giving flesh.”
Contemplating the innocent sufferings of Jesus Christ in the types of the Old Testament, the holy Church calls to mind the Gospel narrative about the barren fig tree, which withered up at the word of the Lord. When Christ the Savior and His Disciples were returning from Bethany to Jerusalem, He grew hungry. Seeing the fig tree, the Lord went up to it, and finding nothing but leaves, He said: Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away (Mt. 21:19).
Behold, brothers and sisters, such is the power of the Divine word! Throughout His earthly ministry, the Savior only taught, forgave, healed, and resurrected, and now, at the end of His ministry, He utters a curse. But why and for what purpose does the Lord subject a soulless creation, which is unable to feel either punishment or mercy, to such a fate? The Lord couldn’t have cursed the fig tree just because He felt hungry and found no fruit on it. We know from the Gospel that before His public ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ spent forty days and nights in fasting and prayer, and despite hunger, He indignantly rejected the tempter’s suggestion to turn stones into bread.
The fig tree was cursed by the Lord, brothers and sisters, not in revenge for its barrenness, but to show the lofty goal, the mission of the Son of God—the salvation of mankind. It was one of those symbolic actions by which the Savior sometimes, instead of words, expressed the lofty truths of His teaching. The cursing of the fig tree shows us that just as there is a time for mercy and patience, so there is a time for judgment and punishment.
St. John Chrysostom says that, “since the Lord has always been beneficent and punished no one, He had to give them proof of His justice and vengeance, that the Disciples and Jews might know that though He could wither up His crucifiers, like the fig tree, He voluntarily surrenders Himself to crucifixion; that He didn’t want to show this upon men, but furnished the proof of His justice upon the tree.”
This fig tree was an image of the Jewish people, and its cursing is an image of the rejection of the Jews. It had leaves and looked as if there were fruit on it (and the Jewish people observed outward religiosity, adhering to rituals and traditions), but there was no fruit on the fig tree, and there was no fruit of faith and religiosity in the Jewish people; and both were rejected by God. Depicting the fate of the Jewish people by the cursing of the fig tree, the Lord wanted to show His future judgment of unrepentant sinners by a momentous action to bring us to reason. Every soul that doesn’t bring forth spiritual fruit is likened to the withered fig tree, for whoever has no good deeds sanctified by faith and prayer won’t be protected from condemnation by external manifestations, for it’s not enough for salvation just to be baptized and called a Christian, but we have to be a Christian in deeds, in our lives.
St. John the Baptist called to repent and bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance (Mt. 3:8). The Lord will ask us for fruits of repentance at the Dread Judgment. What are these fruits? They are works of mercy and compassion, works of Christian love, namely: to visit the sick and imprisoned, to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to give shelter to the stranger, to guide a man on the path of truth and salvation, to have peace between us, and to humbly and patiently bear our cross in life.
In addition to the story about the barren fig tree, the holy Church also edifies us in the Matins Gospel with the parable of the wicked vinedressers, spoken by the Savior this day. In this parable, which depicts in the most direct way, the Jews who used to beat the prophets, and who crucified the Son of God with His coming to earth, one can’t help but see the terrible censure for Christians who violate the commandments of God and thereby continue to crucify the Savior Himself with their sins.
In the Gospel reading at Liturgy, the holy Church reminds us of the fate of the Jewish people and of the end of the world, as all this was predicted by Jesus Christ. With the image of great calamities and the end of the age, the faithful are called to prayer and spiritual vigilance, to also be ready to meet the coming Christ with a pure soul; they’re called to generosity and patience and are comforted by the Savior’s promise of the spreading of the Gospel throughout the world, and that disasters will be stopped for the sake of the elect.
Dear brothers and sisters! So that we not become like the barren fig tree and not put our lives in eternal danger, so we might be delivered from eternal sufferings and might be justified at the righteous Judgment of God, we must adorn our lives with good deeds. Be faithful children of the holy Orthodox Church, keep holy its covenants and statutes, always go to the church of the Lord and there educate your soul for eternal life, fervently pray to the Lord, constantly read the word of God and incarnate it in your life, condemn no one, pray for one another, patiently bear one another’s infirmities, forgive one another, and the God of peace, our Lord Jesus Christ Who suffered for us will ever be with us, and at His second and glorious coming, He won’t abandon us, but will account us worthy of His invitation: Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Mt. 25:34).
🌳 On Holy and Great Monday We Commemorate The Withered Fig Tree 🌳
❖❖❖ Monday (Holy Week). [Matt. 24:3–35] ❖❖❖
The Lord goes to a voluntary passion. We must accompany Him. This is the duty of anyone who confesses that by the power of Christ’s passion he has become who he is now, and of anyone who hopes to receive something which is so great and glorious, that it could not even enter one’s mind. How must one accompany Him? Through reflection and sympathy. Follow the suffering Lord in thought; and in your reflection extract such impressions as could strike your heart and bring it to feel the sufferings which were borne by the Lord. In order to better accomplish this, you must make yourself suffer through perceptible lessening of food and sleep, and an increase in the labour of standing and kneeling. Fulfil all that the Holy Church does, and you will be a good fellow-traveller of the Lord to His sufferings.
On Holy and Great Monday we commemorate the blessed Joseph the All-comely and also the withered fig tree. In as much as the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ has its beginning on this day, and as Joseph is regarded as an image of Christ from former times, he is thus set forth here.
Joseph was the son of the Patriarch Jacob, born to him by Rachel. Being envied by his brethren on account of certain of his dreams, he was first concealed in a dug-out pit, and his father was tricked by a bloody garment and the deceit of his children into thinking that he had been devoured by some beast. Joseph was then sold to some Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; they, in turn, sold him to Potiphar, captain of the eunuchs of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. His wife was enraged by the young man’s chastity, because not wishing to commit sin, he fled from her, leaving behind his garment. She slandered him to his master, and he was put into bonds in a harsh prison. Afterwards, he was released because of his ability to interpret certain dreams; he was brought before the king and appointed governor of the whole land of Egypt. Later, he was made known to his brethren through his distribution of grain. Having spent the whole of his life well, he died in Egypt, recognized as being great in his chastity and kindness toward others. He is, moreover, a prefiguring of Christ. Christ was also envied by His own people, the Jews: He was sold by a disciple for thirty pieces of silver and was imprisoned in the dark and gloomy pit of the grave, whence He broke out by His own power, triumphing over Egypt, that is, over every sin. In His might He conquered it, and He reigns over all the world. In His love for mankind He redeemed us by a distribution of grain, inasmuch as He gave Himself up for us, and He feeds us with Heavenly Bread, His own Life-bearing Flesh. For this reason, Joseph the All- comely is brought to mind at this time. He is also commemorated on the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ.
At the same time, we also commemorate the withered fig tree, because the divine Evangelists Matthew and Mark tell of it after their accounts of the palm branches. One says, “Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry” (Mark 11:12); while the other says, “Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, ‘Let no fruit grow on you ever again.’ Immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matt. 21:18-19). The fig tree, then, is the Jewish synagogue, in which the Savior did not find the necessary fruits of obedience to God and faith in Him, but only the leafy shade of the Law; He took away even this, leaving it completely bare. But if anyone should ask, “Why did an inanimate tree wither and fall under a curse when it had committed no sin to make it wither?” It was because some people, seeing that Christ went about doing good to all, never causing real suffering for anyone, imagined that He had only the power to do good and not to do harm. The Master, who loves mankind, did not wish to demonstrate His power on a man and commit such a deed. To convince an ungrateful people, however, that He also possessed the might to impose punishment, but not wishing to use that power in His goodness, He inflicted such punishment upon inanimate and insensible nature.
There is also another mysterious explanation, which has come down to us from the wise elders. As St. Isidore of Pelusium says, “This was the tree of the transgression of God’s commandment, whose leaves, the transgressors, also used to cover themselves. Because it did not suffer at that time, Christ, in His love for man, cursed it, so that it would no longer bear the fruit that was the occasion of sin.”
It is also quite clear that sin is likened unto the fig, inasmuch as it possesses the “delight” of sensual pleasure, the “stickiness” of sin itself and the “hardness and sharpness” of a guilty conscience.
The Fathers, moreover, put the story of the fig tree here to arouse compunction and in relation to the story of St. Joseph, since he is a prefiguring of Christ.
The fig tree is also every soul which is devoid of all spiritual fruit. In the morning, that is, after this present life, if the Lord finds no refreshment in such a soul, He withers it with a curse and hands it over to the everlasting fire. It remains standing as a dried-up post, striking fear into those who do not produce the fitting fruit of the virtues.
Through the prayers of St. Joseph the All-comely, O Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 22, 2022
✞✞✞ Day 6: Trial, Crucifixion, Death, and Burial on Good Friday
Friday’s events are recorded in Matthew 27:1-62, Mark 15:1-47, Luke 22:63, Luke 23:56, and John 18:28, John 19:37.
In the early morning hours, as Jesus’ trial was getting underway, Peter denied knowing his Master three times before the rooster crowed.
Good Friday is the most difficult day of Passion Week. Christ’s journey turned treacherous and acutely painful in these final hours leading to his death.
According to Scripture, Judas Iscariot, the disciple who had betrayed Jesus, was overcome with remorse and hanged himself early Friday morning.
Meanwhile, before the third hour (9 a.m.), Jesus endured the shame of false accusations, condemnation, mockery, beatings, and abandonment. After multiple unlawful trials, He was sentenced to death by crucifixion, one of the most horrible and disgraceful methods of capital punishment known at the time.
Before Christ was led away, soldiers spit on him, tormented and mocked him, and pierced him with a crown of thorns. Then Jesus carried His cross part of the way to Calvary and then a man named Simon was compelled to carry it the rest of the way. At Calvary, Jesus was again mocked and insulted as Roman soldiers nailed Him to the wooden cross.
Jesus spoke seven powerful statements from the cross, including “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34, NIV), “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46, NIV), and His last words were, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Then, about the ninth hour (3 p.m.), Jesus breathed his last breath and died.
By 6 p.m. Friday evening, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body down from the cross and lay it in a tomb.
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