Holy Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings

Bridegroom Orthros services are so called from the haunting theme song which begins:

Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight
And happy is that servant whom he shall find watching,
But behold, unworthy is that servant whom he shall find heedless… (cf Matt. 25:1 ff, Luke 12:35 ff)

Our Lord is the Bridegroom whom His beloved bride, His people, were not ready to
receive. At these services we read the scathing prophesies addressed these three
days to the leaders of Israel (Matthew 21:18 – 23:39). Will we be ready when He
comes again?

Holy Wednesday Evening

Unction: We bless oil and members are anointed with it for healing, for Our Lord’s death and Resurrection are for this as well: “By His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). At this service the choir sings the first part, but the second half is mostly readings.

Holy Thursday afternoon

We serve the Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil celebrating the Mystical Supper at which Our Lord washed His disciples’ feet and instituted the Eucharist.

Holy Thursday evening

Orthros of Holy Friday: During it we read twelve Gospel readings of Our Lord’s crucifixion, interspersed with some of the most beautiful hymns of the whole year. In the middle of this service a large Cross is placed in the center of the Church for veneration.

Holy Friday morning

Royal Hours of Holy Friday: We again contemplate the crucifixion, reading sections from the Gospel readings from the previous service.

Holy Friday afternoon

Great Vespers of Holy Saturday: The Epitaphios, a fabric with an image of the Lord laid in the tomb, representing the burial cloth of the Lord, is carried in procession and laid in the bier, which is covered with flowers. In some traditions, the bier represents His Tomb. In others, it represents the “Unction Stone” on which He was laid and wrapped in the clean linens and spices before He was placed in the tomb.

Holy Friday evening

Orthros of Holy Saturday: The Epitaphios is carried in procession around the Church. The many readings and hymns of the Holy Friday services present us with many the different facets of the awesome and compelling mystery of our Lord’s Passion. It is at this service that the Epitaphios taken from the bier to the altar, symbolizing Christ’s body being placed in
the tomb, which will also be the place of Resurrection.

Holy Saturday morning

Initiation of new members and Divine Liturgy: This is the ‘Blessed Sabbath’ on which God rested — in the Tomb, the real meaning of Genesis 2:2. It is the most appropriate time for Baptism, as those baptized are ‘buried’ with Christ to share His Resurrection (Romans 6:3-4). Lent has its origin as the last intensive preparation for those who would be baptized this day. Today we read from the 15 Old Testament readings appointed that illuminate Baptism, including the Creation from Genesis, and the Exodus, and we read the first Resurrectional Gospel from Matthew 28.

Holy Saturday night (and into Sunday morning)

Paschal Service: This is THE service of the year for Orthodox, and no one wants to miss it. At midnight all lights in the Church are put out. This is the darkness and silence of the Tomb. Finally the bishop or priest comes out of the altar with a candle. Everyone comes forward and lights a candle from this light. Carrying the candles, we make an outdoor procession to the front door of the Church. There we hear the greeting ‘Christ is Risen!’ for the first time and reply, ‘Indeed He is Risen!’ We will greet each other this way for forty days. We go into the Temple, now brightly lighted, and sing the joyous Paschal Orthros and the Divine Liturgy, and receive the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord. After this service we go to the Parish Hall and find the tables sagging with every kind of good food, and we celebrate together until quite late.

Pascha, Sunday afternoon

We gather for the joyous Paschal Agape Vespers (the Gospel is read in many languages) and more feasting.

St. Jacob Netsvetov, Enlightener of the Peoples of Alaska

It’s just over two weeks until our Chrismation into the Orthodox Church, and Janna and I have finally settled on our patron saints. Janna is taking St. Seraphim of Sarov, and I have decided on St. Jacob (Yakov Netsvetov) of Alaska.

I found St. Jacob in my search for saints named “James” (my real first name).  In Greek, “James” (for example, St. James, the brother of our Lord) is Iakovos, which is also the name of the Old Testament Jacob.  So I expanded my search to Yakovs, which is the Slavic form… and this Yakov/Jacob happens to be close to us in time and location, as well as my connection to Russia, having taken several years of the language as well as visiting Russian many years ago on a school trip.

Edit: The short bio I had originally published here has been moved to its own page.

Fr. Hopko is a prominent Orthodox Christian lecturer and speaker, well-known both in Orthodox and ecumenical circles. He served as a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and as a delegate from the Orthodox Church in America to the Assemblies of WCC in Uppsala, Sweden; and Nairobi, Kenya. He was also President of the Orthodox Theological Society in America from 1992 to 1995.

Note: I originally found this video here, but since I didn’t have the plugin to play it on that site, I am rehosting it here. I hope that is okay.

Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” And He laid His hands on them and departed from there.

One of the things that continually impacts me when in an Orthodox service is the kids.  I’m kind of used to the youngest generation being left in the nursery or sent off the “children’s church” to leave the grown ups to worship in peace.  But in the Orthodox church (at least most of them), there is no nursery during the liturgies.  So, you see children of all ages doing their thing in the church nave with everyone else.

Not only does their presence fascinate me, but their behavior as well.  The very small children, the babes in arms, behave as you would expect, and sometimes have to be taken outside to calm down for a while.  But even the older children are mostly allowed to be children.  They wander from their parents to their god-parents to their friends’ parents mostly at will.  I’ve seen them turned around coloring in the pew, or playing quietly with a doll or toy car.

One Sunday there was a little girl drawing in a coloring book in front of me. The thought that popped into my mind was about how their parents really should make their kids pay attention a little better.  But then I looked more closely and saw that she was whispering the responses during the litanies and crossing herself at proper times. It was only then that I realized that she was paying attention better than I was.

During the Great Entrance (when the clergy carry the holy mysteries around the people and deliver them to the alter), you will see children eagerly position themselves to touch the vestments of the priests as they pass by.  Then when it’s time for the faithful to receive the Eucharist, all the children (who have been baptized) approach the chalice to partake of the Body and Blood of our Lord, even the infants (though they are generally carried).

While we don’t have children of our own yet, I look forward to raising them in the Church and treating them as full members of the Body of Christ.

… a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Marriage is a pretty big deal.  When you get married, you decide and commit to become one flesh with someone else.  You don’t just decide that you’re going to live together, share a bed, and maybe raise a family… you decide that what is yours is theirs.  In some ways, you have to cease being who you had always been.  St. Paul quotes the verse above from Genesis 2 in his letter to the Ephesians:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

To Paul, when a man and woman get married, they are ceasing to live for themselves and begin to live for each other.  But wait!  Is he talking about marriage or is he speaking “concerning Christ and the church”?  This dying to yourself and growing in union to each other… is he referring to husband and wife, or Christ and His body?

Of course, the answer is Yes!  In the same way that man and wife become one flesh,  a Christian grows in union with God.  In His “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17, Christ describes eternal life as “that they may know You, the only true God…” As crude as this may sound, I imagine that knowing God in this way is something like the way Adam knew Eve when she conceived Cane.  If intercourse is the ultimate expression of marital love, then communion is the pinnacle of the Christian life.

I’ve been married for over 7 (blissful) years and I intend to continue to be for the rest of my life.  But my marriage isn’t based on a vow that I recited way back when.  I really meant it then, and I still mean it now.  But I don’t continue in this relationship simply because of the contractual arrangement I made with my wife on our wedding day.  I continue because I love her.

And this is my point.  Marriage is so much more than a ceremony and a certificate.  In the same way, Christian salvation is so much more than a “sinner’s prayer”, or one-time (or even once-a-day) forgiveness of sins, or even baptism.  Salvation is to know the one true God, to die to yourself and to live forever in that relationship, and to grow deeper and deeper in communion with Him.  And just like any good marriage, it takes lots of work… and just like any good marriage, it is way more than worth it.

Jesus Christ, the Good Samaritan

“Which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”
And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Mercy. I’ve been think about this word lately.  What is mercy?  Orthodox prayers ask for it … a lot.  I guess I’ve always had an internal picture of God’s mercy as that part of him that allows him to forgive our sins in a “Oh, that’s okay, don’t worry about it” kind of way.  But in this Parable, the Samaritan “shows mercy” to the guy beat up on the side of the road. But he doesn’t just consider him forgiven, he doesn’t say “Whatever you did to deserve that, I don’t hold it against you.”  No, this Samaritan kneels down toward this guy in his worst condition, doctors him up, takes him to an inn to continue healing and promises the innkeeper that he will return to make sure his healing is complete.

Sound familiar?

In addition to being an example of how we should be merciful, it is also a parable about Christ himself. Origen describes it like this:

The man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is the Lord’s body, the inn, which accepts all who wish to enter, is the Church. … The manager of the inn is the head of the Church, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior’s second coming.

This is what mercy looks like.  When we pray “Lord, have mercy”, we aren’t simply saying “Lord, please wipe that sin off of my permanent record,” but “Lord, rehabilitate me so that I can once again and more completely have your life in me.”

Edit to add (2011/10/3): Also have a look at this post for a few more quotes from Church Fathers that explain this understanding of the parable.

When I got home, I scoured the internet trying to find a good recording of that musical setting of the prayer. I finally found out that it was written by Nikolai Kedrov, a Russian composer, and most of the versions on YouTube were in Russian (often titled “Отче наш” or “Otche Nash”, Russian for “Our Father”).  But I finally tracked down a hauntingly beautiful recording in English by Archangel Voices on their collection of music from the Divine Liturgy called Master Bless.  Have a listen below:

For those that might be interested, The OCA Diocese of the South has the sheet music (pdf) in their collection of liturgical music.

Much of what I post here will have to do with Christianity.  I’ve been a Christian all my life, sometimes better at it than others.  But a couple of years ago I went out looking for something to “refresh” my faith during Lent, something that I could commit to and stick with, not get bored of… something new.

What I initially found was a podcast entitled “At The Intersection of East and West“.  It’s a podcast that basically introduces the Eastern Orthodox Church for people in Western Christianity (i.e. Roman Catholicism and the various forms of Protestantism).  I had known that the Orthodox Church existed for a while, and knew approximately 3 things about them.  But as I learned more and more, I found that this faith that was so new to me was very, very old.  Much older than the Methodist faith that I have grown up with, older than the Church of England (from which Methodism came), and even older than Roman Catholic Church as it exists today.  I’m now convinced that if anyone can claim to maintain the original Christian faith, it’s the Orthodox Church.  More earnestly than anyone else, she has contended for “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints”.

Where does this leave me?  Janna and I are still Methodist, but more and more frequently we find an excuse to visit the Orthodox Church.  We’re learning, searching, praying … and blogging.  Stay tuned.

Try to gather together more frequently to celebrate God’s Eucharist and to praise him. For when you meet with frequency, Satan’s powers are overthrown and his destructiveness is undone by the unanimity of your faith.

- St. Ignatius of Antioch (died ca. 107 AD), from his letter to the Ephesians.

A Second reason why every Christian should [receive the Lord's Supper] as often as he can, is, because the benefits of doing it are so great to all that do it in obedience to him; viz., the forgiveness of our past sins and the present strengthening and refreshing of our souls. In this world we are never free from temptations. Whatever way of life we are in, whatever our condition be, whether we are sick or well, in trouble or at ease, the enemies of our souls are watching to lead us into sin. And too often they prevail over us. Now, when we are convinced of having sinned against God, what surer way have we of procuring pardon from him, than the “showing forth the Lord’s death;” and beseeching him, for the sake of his Son’s sufferings, to blot out all our sins?

- John Wesley (1703-1791), from his sermon The Duty of Constant Communion.