Homily 66 #

On Holy and Great Saturday. A homily of our holy father Gregory of Antioch

What is this stillness on the earth? What is this great silence? It is because the King is asleep. The earth was filled with awe and became silent, for God has fallen asleep in the flesh. God has died in the flesh, and Hades trembled. Though He slumbered but a little while, God raised up those who had been sleeping from the time of Adam.

Where now are the loud voices of yesterday, the lawless accusations against Christ? Where is the great crowd? Where are the elders, the priests, and the corrupt judges? Where are the torches, the swords, the countless words, and the restless throngs? Truly, the people filled themselves with emptiness; they stumbled against the Solid Rock and were broken.

They lifted the Lord onto the Cross—and when He descended, He struck them down. They bound the Sun, Christ, but He broke the eternal bonds, gave light to those in darkness, and defeated the devil. The Sun went down beneath the earth and brought shadow over the Jews, turning their fleeting joy into deep sorrow and bitter mourning.

Today there is salvation for those living on earth, and for those who have long been held beneath the earth.

In this, we see the double expression of God’s love for mankind, and His humility: He descended into the earth as a man and was buried, but as God He brought the dead up from Hades. Yesterday He was judged, struck on the cheek, and bound; but today He bound the devil with unbreakable chains and set the condemned free. Yesterday the servants of Pilate mocked Him, but today the gatekeepers of Hades, seeing Him, disappeared; death was trampled down, and the power of Hades was destroyed.

Yesterday, when the Lord hung upon the Cross, all creation wept. The sun darkened its light at noon; the earth shook; rocks split apart as a rebuke to the Jews; the veil of the temple was torn; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep arose. From the sixth hour until the ninth, darkness was over the whole land, and at the ninth hour, Jesus gave up the ghost.

Christ was born in Bethlehem by night, and by night He rises again from the dead. He received swaddling clothes at His birth, and likewise was wrapped in linen for burial. An angel announced His birth to Mary, and again an angel proclaims His resurrection. At His birth, Joseph was the betrothed; here, it is Joseph of Arimathea. Just as He was born without disturbing the seal of virginity, so too did He rise without breaking the seal on the tomb.

Later it is said: The Righteous Sun went down into Hades. Then a man named Joseph came—rich and from Arimathea. Truly he was rich, for he received the Lord’s body, the Priceless Pearl, the Creator of all things.

Nicodemus also came—the one who had earlier come to Jesus by night. These two secret disciples, Joseph and Nicodemus, came to hide in the tomb the body of God in the flesh, joining one another in love for God. Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes for the body of Christ, and Joseph is praised for his boldness in approaching Pilate.

Without fear, Joseph entered and wisely began to ask for the body of Jesus—not using many words, lest he provoke the judge and lose his request. But entering, he said:

“O Pilate, I come to thee with a small request: give me the dead body for burial—Jesus of Nazareth, condemned by thee, hanging upon the Cross, and scorned by all.

What use is this body of the Stranger to you? Give me the body of Him who, of His own will, became a stranger—He who hath not where to lay His head.

Give me the Stranger who has no city, no village, no temple, no dwelling place, no relatives, no companions—only a single Mother.

I beg thee for the Dead One: sold by a disciple, cast out by His brethren, struck by His own servants, abandoned by His disciples, separated from His Mother, given vinegar and gall by those who ate His bread, and wounded by those He had healed.

I beg thee, O Pilate, for the One who hangeth on the Cross. He has no father on earth, no friend, no brother, no disciple, no one to bury Him. He is alone and forsaken—He who created all things.

Give me, O Pilate, the dead body for burial.”

These were the words that Joseph said to Pilate. And Pilate gave the order to release the body of Jesus. Then Joseph and Nicodemus took Him down from the Cross and buried Him.

On the next day, which was the Sabbath, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said: “We remember that that deceiver, while He was yet alive, said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ Therefore, command that the tomb be secured until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He is risen from the dead’—and the last deception will be worse than the first.”

But Pilate said to them, “If you call Him an enemy of the law and a deceiver, then why are you afraid of Him? For He is already dead and has been buried. You have guards and soldiers; do as you will—watch over Him, seal His tomb with iron, or mark it with a seal, so that you cannot later say, ‘If Pilate had not forbidden us, we would have destroyed the dead man.’ As you know how, secure the tomb. And if any of His disciples come, kill him.”

They went and reinforced the tomb with iron and set many guards around it, profaning the Sabbath by doing evil, imagining, in their lawlessness, that they could imprison the Creator and God of all.

O wicked breakers of the law! Why do you call the Lord a deceiver—He who freed so many from unclean spirits? O accursed liars! He fed you in the wilderness for forty years, gave you manna, and brought forth water from the rock. Was He a deceiver who, with five loaves, fed five thousand people, and who worked many miracles before your eyes—giving sight to the blind, cleansing lepers, and raising Lazarus from the tomb after four days?

O cursed people! If the Lord is a deceiver, then why do you fear His words?

And so it was that on that night, as the soldiers guarded the tomb, a deep sleep overcame them. But the angel of the Lord came down from heaven, awoke the guards, rolled the stone away from the tomb, and sat upon it, mocking the iron seals. He said to them: “O you guards! Where is the One you were watching? He is risen, as He said while He was yet alive. Behold—who has stolen Him? Was it not your own priests who called Him a deceiver?”

The prophet rightly spoke of you: “Be astonished, O ye heavens, and be horribly afraid, O earth, for this people hath sunk into such unbelief.”

When he had said this, the angel became invisible.

Let us also, then, as faithful ones, beware lest we fall into unbelief, and let us cast off all evil deeds: envy, anger, slander, theft, and all other forms of injustice. May Christ our God make us worthy of the joy of His Resurrection. To Him be glory, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.