A Homily on the Burial of the Divine Body of Jesus Christ - Part 1

What thing is this? Today there is great silence upon the earth, great silence and stillness, verily great silence, for the King sleeps. The earth was frightened and became still, for God fell asleep in the flesh and raised up those who from ages past were sleeping. God died in the flesh and Hades shuddered. God slumbered briefly, and those in Hades awoke.

 

Where now that so recent tumult, those cries, that clamor against Christ, O ye lawless? Where the populace, the oppositions, the ranks, the weapons, the spears? Where the kings, the priests, and the judicable judges? Where the lanterns, the swords, the boisterous shouts? Where the rabble, the jeering, the irreverent guard? Verily in truth, and in truth verily, “the peoples have meditated things empty and vain” (cf. Ps. 2:1). They have stumbled against the Cornerstone, Christ, and they were broken; they have hurled themselves against the solid Rock, and they were crushed, and their waves dispersed into foam. They struck against the invincible Anvil, and they were shattered. Upon the wood of the Cross they raised up the Rock of life, and It brought them down and slew them. They bound the great Sampson, the Sun, God, but He, having loosed the age-old bonds, destroyed the Philistines and iniquitous. God, the Sun, Christ set beneath the earth and wrought for the Jews lasting nocturnal darkness. Today is salvation for men upon the earth and for those who from ages past are beneath the earth. Today is salvation for the world, the visible and the invisible. Twofold today is the Master’s coming, twofold the economy, twofold the love of men, twofold the descent and also the condescension, twofold His visitation of men. From Heaven to earth, and from earth to the nether world God makes His way. Ye that from ages past have fallen asleep, rejoice! Ye that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, receive the great Light! With the servants is the Master; with the dead is God; with the mortal is Life; with the guilty is the Guiltless; with those in darkness is the unwaning Light; with the captives is the Liberator; and with those in the nethermost is He that is above the very heavens. Christ came upon earth, and we have believed; Christ is among the dead, let us descend with Him and behold those mysteries yonder! Let us come to know the wonders of the Hidden One hidden under the earth! Let us learn how and to whom the kerygma was manifested in Hades!

 

What then? Did God save absolutely all when He appeared in Hades? In no wise. But there also He saved them that believed. Yesterday economy, today authority; yesterday the tokens of infirmity, today those of majesty; yesterday the tokens of humanity, today those of Divinity. Yesterday, He was slapped; today He smites the tenement of Hades with the lightning of His Divinity. Yesterday He was bound; today He binds the tyrant with infrangible bonds. Yesterday He was condemned; today He bestows liberty on the condemned. Yesterday Pilate’s ministers mocked Him; today Hades’ gate-keepers saw Him and trembled.

 

But hearken now to the sublime tale of Christ’s suffering! Hearken and offer praise, hearken and glorify, hearken and preach the wondrous works of God: how the Law retires; how grace blossoms forth; how the types pass away; how the shadows vanish; how the Sun fills the whole world; how the Old Covenant has grown old; how the New is established; how things of ancient times have perished; how things new have flourished. There were two peoples on Zion at the time of Christ’s Passion, that of the Jews and that of the nations; and two kings, Pilate and Herod; and two high priests, Annas and Caiaphas. And this was so that simultaneously there be two Paschas, the one terminating, and Christ’s just beginning. On that evening two sacrifices were performed, since two salvations, I mean of the living and of the dead, were accomplished. The Jew bound a lamb and sacrificed it by slaughter; but he from the nations sacrificed God in the flesh. The former gazed upon the shadow; the latter ran to God, the Sun. The Jews bound Christ and sent Him away; but they from the nations eagerly received Him. The first offered as sacrifice an animal victim; the second the body of God. The Jews commemorated their passing over from Egypt, whilst they from the nations heralded their deliverance from error.

 

And these things, where did they take place? In Zion, the city of the great King, where He “wrought salvation in the midst of the earth” (Ps. 73:13). In the midst of two living beings was Jesus, the Child of God, known (cf. Hab. 3:3), in the midst of the Father and the Spirit, two living Beings; Life from Life, he says, known as a living Being, and in the midst of angels and men He was born in a manger. In the midst of two peoples He lies as the Cornerstone; in the midst of the Law and the prophets He is preached; in the midst of Moses and Elijah He is seen upon the mount; in the midst of two thieves He is recognized as God by the grateful thief; in the midst of the present life and the future He sits as the eternal Judge; and today in the midst of the living and the dead He works a twofold life and salvation. Nay, again I say a twofold life, a twofold birth and also rebirth. Listen now to the circumstances of Christ’s twofold birth and acclaim the wonders. An angel announced to Mary Christ’s maternal birth, and an angel announced to Mary of Magdala His awesome rebirth from the grave. At night Christ is born in Bethlehem, and at night in Zion He is reborn. Upon His birth he receives swaddling bands, and here also He is wound round with swaddling bands. When born He received myrrh, and at His burial He receives myrrh and aloes. There Joseph was the name of Mary’s non-husband husband, but here Joseph of Arimathea proved to be the burier of our Life. In Bethlehem in a manger the former took place, and the latter in the tomb as in a manger. First the shepherds were given news of the birth of Christ, and first the shepherd, Christ’s disciples, were given news of His rebirth from the dead. There the angel cried “Rejoice!” to the Virgin, whilst here Christ, the Angel of Great Counsel, cried “Rejoice!” to the women. At His first birth Christ after forty days entered the earthly Jerusalem, and the temple, and as firstborn He offered a pair of turtle-doves to God. But at His resurrection form the dead Christ after forty days ascended to the Jerusalem on high, from whence He departed not, and as the incorruptible Firstborn from the dead, in the true Holy of Holies He offered to God the Father our soul and body as two spotless turtle-doves; and like some Symeon the ancient, God the Father received Him uncircumscribably into His embrace, into His own bosom. If, however, thou hearest these things as though they were fables and not with faith, the unbroken seals of the Master’s tomb condemn thee with respect to Christ’s rebirth. For just as Christ was born from the Virgin whilst the natural gates of the virginal nature remained closed at the opening of the womb, so also Christ’s rebirth was wrought whilst the seals of the tomb were unbroken. But as to how Christ, our Life, was placed in the tomb, and when, and by whom, let us listen to the sacred words.