Six days before the Passover.
Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:Contemplation for 23 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
- How His Resurrection is the beginning of a new and bright day in the history of mankind;
- How His Resurrection is my peace and my strength, and the resurrection of my soul while I am still in the body.
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!
T
HIS TEXT COMES to us on Lazarus Saturday and so, is technically outside of Lent. Still it seems fitting to end this here rather than yestreday for Lazarus Saturday is the Beginning.Six days before the Passover Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, announcing to all of us the universal Resurrection. Something was coming and in this man Jesus, something new was about to happen.
22 April is a sad day for my family. 22 April of 1982 saw the rape and murder of a close friend and a neighbour of our family. We were the first ones contacted for help by the girl's mom and brother. My mom rushed to their house to get them out, to offer comfort... to call the police, the clergy. A year later in May the girl's brother together with my brother were killed in a motorcycle accident. Spring is never a good time for us as far as memories go.
And yet here is Lazarus Saturday.
At the funeral mass for Shelly, the young girl, the priest asked her to pray for us.
Here is Lazarus Saturday.
We will today celebrate a baptism. My friend and roommate, the Catechumen Michael, will be, before your reading of this most likely, the Newly Illumined Michael. He will enter the waters of baptism and die. And will rise again.
And something new will be born, something holy and eternal. And we shall sing along with all the Saints and Angels, "As many as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ, Alleluia."
And while I know not the plans of God around "ecumenism" and the like, I have lived now under a growing sense of God's mercy for which, knowing I'm not yet destroyed, I am unfeignedly thankful. And in that Mercy I know that the young girl as certainly as Michael, will be shielded in a way that we can not know, that we can not understand. For this is Lazarus Saturday.
The day on which God wept at the horror of human loss.
The day on which God felt the pangs that only the mourning can know.
The day on which God's love for us drove home the destruction of hades.
A friend dies.
A brother is born.
Death is destroyed by death.
There can be nothing worth fearing any more.
Huw, I'm so sorry for your family's pain.
And wow, congratulations to Michael.
I've always really liked Lazarus. I was really really curious for years whay we never heard anythign from him after he was raised. There are mentions, but he never wrote anything. The one (one of many actually) thing(s) I can thank Dr. Gene Scott "Stanford PhD, Inc." was that he brought ot my attention that Lazarus and Mary the Mother of God sailed to France on mission trips and that Lazarus did indeed live on to be Bishop. Which is all to say that I feel Michael should be very blessed on this day. Praise God.
Knowing you is a blessing huw. Thanks.