Lazarus Saturday & Palm Sunday
Categories: hymns, feast-days
Date: 11 April 2009 11:39:41
Troparion for Both Feasts:
By raising Lazarus from the dead before Your passion,
You did confirm the universal Resurrection, O Christ God!
Like the children with the palms of victory,
We cry out to You, O Vanquisher of death;
Hosanna in the Highest!
Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord!
Kontakion for Lazarus Saturday:
Christ the Joy, the Truth and the Light of all,
The Life of the World and the Resurrection
Has appeared in His goodness, to those on earth.
He has become the Image of our Resurrection,
Granting divine forgiveness to all!
Troparion for Palm Sunday:
When we were buried with You in Baptism, O Christ God,
We were made worthy of eternal life by Your Resurrection!
Now we praise You and sing:
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord!
Kontakion for Palm Sunday:
Sitting on Your throne in heaven,
Carried on a foal on earth, O Christ God!
Accept the praise of angels and the songs of children who sing:
Blessed is He that comes to recall Adam!
While a great number of Christians are celebrating Christ's resurrection from the dead, us Orthodox will commemorate Palm Sunday tomorrow, which together with today's commemoration of the Saturday of the Holy and Righteous Friend of Christ, Lazarus [what a title: "Friend of Christ"!], is a joyous event at the end of penitential season of Great Lent -- Holy Week is counted separately to Great Lent in the Eastern Orthodox calendar. The Reverend Alkiviadis Calivas writes on the theological significance on Lazarus Saturday here:
It prefigures both the resurrection of Christ, as well as the general resurrection of all the dead in the end times. The hymns of the feast also emphasize the biblical truth that the resurrection as such, is more than an event. It is a person, Christ Himself, who bestows eternal life now upon all who believe in Him, and not at some obscure future time (Jn 11.25-26).
In addition, the resurrection of Lazaros occasioned the disclosure of Christ's two natures, the divine and the human. He manifested His divine power by His foreknowledge of the death of Lazaros and by the final outcome, the miracle of his resurrection. Also, in the course of the dramatic events Jesus displayed deep human emotions. The Gospel records His deep feelings of love, tenderness, sympathy and compassion, as well as distress and sadness. The narrative reports that He sighed from the heart and wept (Jn 11.5, 33, 35, 36, 38).
The hymnography for Lazarus Saturday is very moving, and this extract shows, with Lazarus crying out to Christ, and Hell, fearful of what is happening, imploring Lazarus to leave quickly:
"Though I lie in bonds, O Saviour," Lazarus cried from below to You his Deliverer, "yet shall I not remain forever in the depth of Hell, if You will only call to me, ‘Lazarus, come out;’ for You are my Light and my Life."
"I implore you, Lazarus," said Hell, "Rise up, depart quickly from my bonds and be gone. It is better for me to lament bitterly for the loss of one, rather than of all those whom I swallowed in my hunger."
Shaking the gates and iron bars, You have made Hell tremble at Your voice. Hell and Death were filled with fear, O Saviour, seeing Lazarus their prisoner brought to life by Your word and rising from the tomb.
And tomorrow, Palm Sunday: The Feast of the Entrance of our Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, we will rejoice in song as we commemorate the arrival of our Saviour into Jerusalem on a donkey, as we enter Holy Week:
O Christ God, when before Your voluntary sufferings You did explain to all the confirmation of universal resurrection; You did raise Lazarus in Bethany by Your exalted might, after he had been dead for four days. And to the blind You did give sight; for You are the Giver of light, O Saviour. You did also enter the city with Your Disciples, sitting on an ass, fulfilling the preaching of the Prophets, as though riding upon the cherubim, and the Hebrew youths received You with palms and branches. Wherefore, we also carry olive branches and palms, crying out to You in gratitude, Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he that comes in the Name of the Lord.
And the priest will bless the palms also with this most wondrous prayer:
O Lord our God, that sits upon the Cherubim, Who has raised up the might of Your Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that through His Cross and Grave and Resurrection He might save the world; and at Whose coming today to Jerusalem, unto His voluntary Passion, the people that sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, taking the symbols of victory, the boughs of trees and branches of palms, did go forth and proclaim the Resurrection, by anticipation. Do You, the same Lord, preserve and keep us also who in imitation of them do bear in our hands palm and boughs of trees, on this eve of the feast. And like unto those multitudes and children who offered unto You Hosanna, may we also in hymns and spiritual songs, attain unto the Life-giving Resurrection on the third day, in the same Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom You are blessed, together with Your all-holy, and good, and life-giving Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
A blessed Feast Day to all!