THE BEGINNING OF THE CROSS - SATURDAY OF LAZARUS “Having fulfilled the Forty Days... we ask to see the Holy Week of Thy passion.” With these words sung at Vespers of Palm Friday, Lent comes to its end and we enter the annual commemoration of Christ’s sufferings, death and resurrection. It begins on Saturday of Lazarus. The double feast of Lazarus’ Resurrection and the Entrance of the Lord to Jerusalem is described in liturgical texts as the “beginning of the Cross” and is to be understood, therefore, within the context of the Holy Week. The common troparion of these days explicitly affirms that “by raising Lazarus from the dead Christ confirmed the truth of general resurrection.”
It is a Sunday, i.e. a Resurrection service on a Saturday, a day usually devoted to the liturgical commemoration of the dead and the joy which permeates these services stresses one central theme: the forthcoming victory of Christ over Hades. Hades is the Biblical term for Death in its universal power, for that inescapable darkness and destruction that swallow all life and poison with its shadow the whole world. But now — with Lazarus’ resurrection — “death begins to tremble.” For there begins the decisive duel between Life and Death and it gives us the key to the entire liturgical mystery of Pascha.
Let us first of all understand that Lazarus, the friend of Jesus personifies the whole mankind and also each man, and Bethany, the home of Lazarus the Man, is the symbol of the whole world as home of man. For each was created friend of God and called to the Divine friendship: the knowledge of God, the communion with Him, sharing of life with Him. “In Him was life and Life was the light of men” (John 1:4). And yet his friend, whom God loves, whom in love He has created, i.e. called to life, is destroyed and annihilated by a power that God has not created: death. God encounters in
His own world a power which destroys His work and annihilates His design. The world is but lamentation and sorrow, tears and death. How is it possible? How did this happen? These are the questions implied in St. John’s slow and detailed narrative of Jesus’ coming to the grave of His friend. And once there, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Jesus weeps because He contemplates the triumph of death and destruction in the world created by God. “It stinketh” say the Jews trying to prevent Jesus from approaching the corpse and this awful warning applies to the whole world, to all life. God is Life and the Giver of Life. He called man into the Divine reality of Life and behold “it stinketh”... The world was created to reflect and proclaim the glory of God and “it stinketh”. At the grave of Lazarus God encounters Death, the reality of anti-life, of destruction and despair. He meets His Enemy, who has taken away from Him His world and become its prince. And we who follow Jesus as He approaches the grave, we enter with Him into that hour of His, which He announced so often as the climax and the fulfillment of his whole work. The cross, its necessity and universal meaning are announced in the shortest verse of the Gospel: “and Jesus wept”... We understand now that it is because He wept, i.e. loved His friend Lazarus that Jesus had the power of calling Him back to life. The power of Resurrection is not Divine “power in itself,” but power of love, or rather love as power. God is love and Love is Life, Love creates Life... It is Love that weeps at the grave and it is Love that restores life. This is the meaning of the Divine tears of Jesus. In them love is at work again — recreating, redeeming, restoring the darkened life of man: “Lazarus, come forth!...” And this is why Lazarus Saturday is the beginning of both: the Cross, as the supreme sacrifice of love, the Resurrection, as the ultimate triumph of love.
By raising Lazarus from the dead before Thy Passion, Thou didst confirm the universal resurrection, O Christ God! Like the children with palms of victory, we cry out to Thee: O Vanquisher of death: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!
—LAZARUS SATURDAY TROPARION
“Christ — the Joy, Truth, Light and Life of all And the resurrection of the world, In Him love appeared to those on earth And was the image of Resurrection, Granting to all Divine forgiveness
—LAZARUS SATURDAY KONTAKION
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