NOTES for Mar 15:16-47

Today's reading may help us, to some degree, make sense of the sharpest question facing a person: how does almighty God allow the existence of suffering and evil, especially when it is always the purest and most innocent people who suffer? Today we are given a glimpse of how God relates to evil in the world. We read how the Lord Himself passes through the very thick of human suffering. He descends from heaven in order to share with humanity all the darkness, all the horror of its loneliness and pain. Jesus is abandoned by His disciples; He passes through the soldiers' mockery, the shameful procession to the place of execution, and the agonizing crucifixion on the cross. In order to drink to the end all the bitterness of human torment, He refuses to drink the wine with myrrh that would dull the pain.

The King of all the earth, the Son of God, is "numbered with the transgressors." He does not come down from the cross, so that He may pass through the most terrible thing: "My God! Why have You forsaken Me?" He passes through the darkness of God-forsakenness belonging to fallen humanity. After this He, like each of us, sinks into the cold of death. The veil in the temple, which separated God from people, was torn: the Son of God had walked the human path to the end. The few disciples who remained buried Him like any mortal man.

Such is God's answer to the existence of suffering on earth. He does not merely sympathize; He suffers with us completely, with us and for us.

Here is also our answer: Christians, each in his own measure, take part in the sufferings of Christ, suffer with the world, and in this way take part in Christ's redeeming sacrifice, and through this also in His Resurrection.

Christ's death on the cross seems mysterious to many. It truly is mysterious, and if it does not seem that way to us today, it is only because the Gospel accounts have become familiar to us. So familiar that we no longer think about their mystery, taking everything described in them as common knowledge and self-evident. In reality, Jesus' death is an utterly incredible event. Not death on a cross - that can be explained by the sinfulness of fallen humanity - but the fact that death became reality for Him at all.

The matter is not only that He is the God-man: God's fullness in Him could be hidden, could become unconscious even for Him, and only He knows what He experienced at that moment. The state of God-forsakenness is familiar to us, and even in a certain sense habitual, and our nature corrupted by sin has adapted to such an abnormal existence for itself. But nothing of the kind can be said of Him: He was born and grew up conscious within Himself of God's fullness, and to lose it was for Him a trial we simply cannot imagine. The matter also lies in the fact that, for human nature in general - and for transformed human nature, such as the Savior's human nature is, especially - death is an unnatural phenomenon. To us it seems natural, and in a certain sense it truly is natural for us, but only in the sense in which, for example, the presence in an addict's body of the drug that is killing him is "natural." For normal human nature, death is something unnatural, and for transformed nature it is directly impossible.

How then could the Savior die, even from the point of view of His own humanity? Death obviously could not have become reality for Him in any way unless... unless He Himself, absolutely voluntarily, fulfilling the Father's will, consented and resolved to enter it. To come into contact with it. To make it voluntarily, for Himself and for His own existence, just as real as it is real for us apart from our will. To do this for our sake - because otherwise even the fullness of the life of the Kingdom that He brought us would have remained incompatible with our fallen nature. God's fullness had to be brought into the world not simply in human nature; it had to enter the world clothed in mortal human nature, absolutely identical to our own in our present condition.

The only difference was that our mortality turned out to be the involuntary consequence of a sin committed by free choice, while His mortality was a temporary condition He voluntarily accepted upon Himself, unconnected with any sin. In this sense Jesus' death was truly absolutely voluntary: without any compulsion or necessity, He agreed to enter a condition entirely unnatural to Him and absolutely foreign to Him. Here He was moved not by necessity or inevitability, but by love - for the Father and for those whom He wants to save.

According to the letter of the judicial sentence, Christ was condemned only to crucifixion. But too often people are not satisfied with "lawful" suffering. Some are possessed by hatred; others are excited by the thrill of persecution. And so, from the soldiers amusing themselves, and then from the gawking crowd, additional mockery and suffering before death begin. They did not end on that long, endless day, and for twenty centuries now we have continued to inflict wounds on the Lord beyond those mentioned on the Gospel pages.

On that same day Simon of Cyrene had the lot of carrying the cross for a little while, and by doing so he eased the way of the cross a little. Christ forces no one to carry His cross; He calls each of us to carry our own, which cannot be compared with His. We are inclined to avoid even that, but it can happen that by avoiding the carrying of our own cross we refuse Christ any easing of His burden.

And it is good if we see this before it is too late, not together with the centurion who understood Who had been crucified only after the execution had already taken place.

Today two texts are read which, at first glance, are striking because their thoughts do not coincide. The Second Epistle of John can be called a pastor's letter to friends, in which he blesses them and informs them of his arrival. In the Gospel text we read about the execution and death of Christ. And after reading these texts it may seem that, after such an execution of the teacher, a group of people continues his work, speaks about what he spoke about, and remembers him. But that is not so. Before His death Jesus says, "My God, My God! Why have You forsaken Me?" And, as if in answer to Christ's words, the apostle writes to a Christian family: "Whoever abides in the teaching of Christ has both the Father and the Son." This points out to us that, in following Christ, we are not alone on this path. Doubts and fears, a feeling of abandonment and confusion, may torment us, but we are guarded and led by Christ. Christ's death proclaimed to us the Resurrection from the dead and the salvation of the world through His sacrifice, through Communion. And as we follow Christ, we must remember His sacrifice and partake of His Holy Mysteries. Lent is a time of constant prayer and of following the path of repentance. During Lent the Church helps the Christian on this path. But the path of repentance always passes through Communion without condemnation, with a pure heart and humility. Let us walk the path of those who followed Him in Galilee, who came to Jerusalem and became silent, suffering witnesses of the execution. And let us approach the bright days of Easter in prayer and in special participation in the works of Christ.

Today we stand before our tortured Lord, and, like a tragic overtone to everything taking place, the clock strikes the third, sixth, and ninth hours. Have you noticed how painfully the clock sometimes strikes when we are waiting for someone? Even when we are no longer waiting, but simply sitting in petrified stillness, as if not in this world, the clock can suddenly strike so ominously, frighteningly, and yet soberingly. And it is so remarkable that we have these prayers of the Hours. Let us turn to them now. And let us try to live through the third, sixth, and ninth once again...

But then it turns out that the third hour is about something else; it is about Pentecost, not about the nailing to the cross. "O Lord, who at the third hour sent down Your Most Holy Spirit upon Your apostles, do not take Him from us, O Good One, but renew us who pray to You." Why? Why this sudden disruption of the logic of the liturgical text's construction? But of course we remember: "...these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour..." (Acts 2:15) Someone will find this circumstance insignificant, a chance coincidence; someone else will see it as a conscious falsification for the sake of preaching "one's own" truth; someone will say that the evangelist Luke symbolically linked the event of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles to the moment when the execution began, as a symbol of the beginning of the preaching of the Word of God in the world. But perhaps we need neither the first, nor the second, nor the third line of reasoning. What we need is simply to stand before the events that are taking place and cry out: "Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me."

"O Christ God, who at the ninth hour tasted death in the flesh for our sake, put to death the reasoning of our flesh and save us." Put it to death, for "the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14). These words are often interpreted in the traditional way: I have died to the world, and the world has died to me. But if the apostle Paul had wanted to say that, he would have said that; instead he said "crucified"...

When our Lord was crucified, the world changed so much that it is now impossible to live in a world where the Lord is not crucified. And although many still live that way, we live differently; therefore we too are crucified. With Him.

What so amazed this centurion about the death of the Lord Jesus? After all, the centurion was a soldier who had seen many deaths and executions in his lifetime... We can only wonder.

Three evangelists testify to the darkness that covered the earth during the execution, and Matthew speaks of an earthquake at the moment of Christ's death. Perhaps these natural phenomena became signs for the centurion, because in the Greco-Roman "Olympian" religion the immortal gods often react in similar ways to the death of their mortal children. This is how Matthew and Luke understand the centurion's reaction. Mark, however, says that the death itself, the way Jesus died, became for the centurion a sign of the unusual nature and distinctiveness of this Executed One.

Death on a cross is terrible and agonizing. A crucified person dies very slowly, gradually suffocating and losing strength. By the moment of death he has no strength left even to breathe in, much less to cry out. The centurion had surely seen this many times. But this Crucified One dies unexpectedly quickly, before they even had time to break His legs, as if the One who has authority over the times of life and death revealed His love for Him even in death. Jesus dies, giving His spirit into the hands of the Father, and the centurion hears these words. And finally, His cry before death testifies, as modern doctors explain it, that Christ dies not from suffocation but from a ruptured heart: in the view of a Roman centurion, not a shameful death, but a noble one.

We do not know whether this is so or not. But what matters is that the contemplation of the cross of Christ touched the heart even of a hardened and not at all sentimental pagan. Are we losing this ability to respond from the heart to the suffering of the Savior? For only by being crucified with Him can we also be raised with Him...

Why the death of Jesus so startled this centurion? Isn’t the centurion a warrior having seen quite a lot of deaths and executions … We can only guess.

Three evangelists testify of the darkness which covered the earth at the time of the crucifixion, Matthew speaks about the earthquake at the moment of Jesus’ death. These natural phenomena were maybe signs for the centurion, because immortal gods react mostly like this to the death of their mortal children in "the Olympian" Greco-Roman religion. This is surely how Matthew and Luke understand the reaction of the centurion. But Marc lets know that it is exactly the death, the way Jesus died that became to the centurion a sign of strangeness, peculiarity of this executed.

Death on the Cross is horrible and painful. The death of a crucified man is very long: he chokes gradually by losing strength, and by the time of the death he doesn’t have enough strength, even for an inspiration, not to talk of a cry. The centurion has surely seen this several times; but this Crucified dies suddenly fast (they couldn’t even have time to nail His feet), as if the One Who has power on the duration of life and on the term of death manifests His love to Him{Jesus} during the death. Jesus dies, having handed His spirit in the hands of the Father (the centurion listens to these words). Finally, His death cry certifies (as contemporary doctors explain) that He dies not of asphyxiation, but rather in of cardiac rupture: this death is not shameful, but noble according to the conceptions of the Roman centurion.

We do not know if that was the case or not. Nevertheless, is important the fact that the contemplation of Christ on the cross also "touched" the heart of an inveterate and quite unsentimental heathen. Aren’t we losing the faculty to react by our heart to the sufferings of the rescuer? For only being crucified with Him, we can be resuscitated with Him.

In the hour of suffering, those who were usually not especially active and were not in view were nearby. These were the silent women who served Christ and the apostles from their possessions; this was Joseph of Arimathea, who had long hidden his discipleship but now cast caution aside. Joseph, who was not afraid to go to Pilate to ask for the Body of the Executed One, also had the chance that day to serve Jesus with his possessions: a piece of cloth and a tomb. First of all, however, all those who buried the Lord served Him with faithfulness and unexpected steadfastness.

At decisive moments, when questions of life and death stand starkly before us, faith is proved not by theories, and problematic arguments recede into the background. What becomes most important are simple deeds filled with quiet courage and wordless love.

Sometimes people who have remained unnoticed for a long time suddenly find themselves at the center of events. Thus, all at once, Joseph of Arimathea, whom the evangelist mentions, appears on the scene. Almost nothing is known about him except that he was a man of very high standing. What was Jesus to him? What was his relationship with Him? A secret disciple, as the other evangelists also say about him, but what did it mean to be His secret disciple? To give support in a situation where none of the open disciples could do anything, to use one's position so that the impossible would become possible? Yes, of course, that too. But the main thing was readiness.

In a certain sense it is easier to be an open disciple. Jesus, of course, tells all the disciples and everyone willing to hear that one must always keep watch, that spiritual laxity and the path into the Kingdom are incompatible. Still, for those who are constantly beside Him, it is easier in a certain sense. They see the Teacher with their own eyes; for them He is absolutely real at every moment of their life. The secret disciples, no doubt, communicated with Him much less often. He appeared to them and disappeared, and one could never say exactly when He would appear next.

The apostles experienced something similar during the Last Supper, when they understood that Jesus was going to leave them for a time. They did not know where He was going; they did not truly understand the Teacher and could not imagine what they would have to live through very soon. But they understood that, at any rate, now they would be left alone for some period of time, and a completely undefined one at that. They would not see the Teacher, would not hear Him, would not know where He was or what He was doing, and would not know what He would require of them when He returned.

This situation very much resembles the situation of every Christian today. We live in the age of the coming Kingdom, but when it will be completed no one knows except the Father. We cannot calculate any time frames here, even approximately. We can only live with the awareness that on any day everything can come to an end and the Savior can return.

One cannot prepare for that day in the way we prepare for one event or another in our world. We can usually imagine the events of our world somehow; we can at least try to think through and calculate what we may need, though how successful and adequate that calculation will be is another question.

But as for the Kingdom and the return of the Messiah, here we can neither imagine nor calculate anything. What remains is readiness as an inner spiritual state, presupposing the very spiritual alertness whose necessity Jesus spoke of and which His secret disciples constantly had to maintain: waiting for the Teacher's unexpected appearance and inwardly ready to do what is completely impossible to imagine in advance.

There is one point in common for both of today’s readings. In the Gospel of Mathew Jesus says: ‘As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.’ (Mat. 24:27). And Paul writes in his letter to Corinthians: ‘God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ (2 Cor. 4:6) The New Covenant is not a secret knowledge available just for a few chosen ones. It is not an exclusive association hostile to aliens. Nor is it a list of requirements that sets up a scale of good and evil based on the depth of the person’s fall into the abyss. The New Covenant is not an ideology intended to mould the souls and minds of its disciples. It’s not even a life-pattern that brings you flowers and fruits in return for rejecting something. It is the light that shines as a lightning from one end of heaven to the other. The light that illuminates and reveals everything – truth and lie, good and evil, life and death. The light beaming from the face of Jesus Christ. And is not just that it can be hard to live without this light in a world that is dark, frightful and cold. Reality proves there is simply no life at all outside of this Light.

Today in the Gospel we read about one manifestation of true human greatness. The faithfulness and love that moved Joseph of Arimathea are truly worthy of every praise and imitation. When every hope had ceased, when Jesus had died on the Cross and everything was over, at precisely that moment there remained people faithful to Him.

It is not easy to remain near the Crucified God. It is still harder to mourn His death. What did Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and Mary Magdalene experience and think on Holy Saturday, when the Lord lay in the tomb in the flesh? And how did Joseph dare to go in to Pilate to ask for the Body of Christ, disregarding both the laws about ritual defilement, since that morning the chief priests would not enter the house of the pagan Pilate, and the danger of being accused of complicity in the case of the Executed One? They pass through the horror of Friday and Saturday to the end and remain together with the One who has died and with His Mother. To be with God to the end, wherever He goes. And when He descends into hell, where people cannot go with Him, they weep and wait for Him on earth.

And this waiting does not remain in vain.