April 4th, 2026: Lazarus Saturday

must remain absolutely daunted. First, so, I

will congratulate those who were received into

this church on this glorious morning. We rejoice

with them. They entered not just great and holy

week, as we all will on Monday, but a great and

holy life. You heard Thomas in this account say

to the other apostles, When Jesus has set his

mind and his path going towards where they said

he would be killed, Thomas says, let us go and

die with him. That's a good word for the newly

baptized because you have died. We have all died,

those of us that have united ourselves to Christ

and been joined to Christ in the church. We have

all died and risen again. And we hear that. incredible

word that that word of affirmation and consolation

and triumph I am the resurrection he who believes

in me though he were dead yet shall he live yes

we have died with Christ we will go with him

like Thomas whoever lives and whoever believes

in me shall never die do you believe this that

question is given to Martha But let us also remember

that. We are being asked when we hear a gospel

such a question. That question is directed towards

us. Because it's not at all clear until we make

a definitive stand. We can hear about the resurrection.

You can see the resurrection. The multitude of

people, the people at the grave of Lazarus, And

what is the response of the Jewish leaders? They

are at that point set very definitively on the

course, as it says, to destroy Jesus. And lo,

the parable in the Gospel of John comes true.

Even if they have seen a dead man rise from the

dead, they will not believe. Why? Because, why

does anybody not believe? Because the heart is

already married to something else. Or you might

say in another metaphor, the heart is buried

beneath rubble in a tomb. And the rubble is greed.

In the case of the leaders, a raid against Jesus.

The rubble is envy. for what he had done and

the adulation he was about to receive on Palm

Sunday. The raising of Lazarus is then God's

promise to us, but we must move beyond, I heard

about it, to I enter my own heart, to sense that

the Lord has called me out from death into life.

The raising of Lazarus is God's promise to us.

It's God's message and word for us. If we are

our friends, as Lazarus was the friends of Christ,

he will help us too. If we love Christ as we

claim to, and then when we follow his commandments,

he will help us too. Most of us, I'm not guessing,

I know, are just as troubled, stressed, confused.

sometimes anxious, and sometimes angry as everyone

else in society. Because for many of us, our

focus is on all of that. And that's what feeds

our soul. And so people look at us and they say,

Christians are no different than we are. Why

should we become Christian? Where is the joy

of the resurrection in those people? Because

that's what it takes. for someone to believe.

Saint Silouan once said to Jesus in a prayer,

Christ, don't give me more joy, or else my heart

will break. But what do we say? We say, Christ,

don't give me more stress and problems. Fix this,

fix that, fix the other thing, or else my heart

will break. Do you see the difference? We've

been going to church, all of us, for so many

years. And now our catechumens have been coming

for the past six, eight, nine months and a year

or something more than that. But do we have the

joy within us? If not, we need to seek out the

reasons, the causes. And we will discover, as

St. Maximus the Confessor says, that the cause

is that our bond with Christ, our connection

with him is weak. All the coming days now. or

have so much grace, will we be able to remain

in that or sense any of it? It's because these

days are not just historical landmarks that we

somehow keep. I was at the grave of Lazarus in

2010. It's on this little street in Bethany there.

And it's a house owned by a Muslim family. Of

course, they take money, so I have to run it.

And you go through a narrow thing and you go

down a little stair. And it's a small cave area.

Somebody else here I know has been there. About

the size of our altar. And our pilgrim group

sang, How's it go? By raising Lazarus from the

dead before thy passion. And we felt such joy.

But it's here at this liturgy today that the

grace of God is truly made manifest. to the extent

we experience this grace, is up to us. It depends

on the degree of our preparation. It depends

on how much we prayed. It depends on how we fasted

and lent, how we struggled, how much we loved,

how much we visited the poor and the sick and

those in prison, as St. Paul says in the reading

from Hebrews today. So that we might hear what

God is saying within us. If our connection with

him is weak, we have to discover the cause of

that. But even when we are dead, says St. Maximus,

in the very midst of our darkness, In the midst

of our death and worries and troubles, Christ

comes to us just as he came to Lazarus. And when

you hear that he raised Lazarus, and when you

hear that he descended into the grave himself

and to death to free the souls that were there,

don't think this is something that happened a

long time ago. The heart is a tomb, says so many

of the hymns and so many of the church commentators

on the scriptures. The heart is a tomb. And deep

within it are buried our thoughts, our mind,

the center of who we are. It's buried and imprisoned

in that darkness, and Christ comes to those who

call upon him, and those who call upon him will

be helped, even the name Lazarus today. Eliezer,

we find the promise of the resurrection because

it means God is my helper, God himself, the God

-man who comes to the aid of Lazarus, the four

days dead Lazarus, the friend of God who would

be truly helped by God. That's why we heard in

the epistle also these words of St. Paul quoting

Psalm 118, the Lord is my helper and I will not

fear what men shall do to me. And why we sang

twice at the baptism, And before the epistle.

The Lord is my savior. Of whom shall I be afraid.

The Lord is the defender of my life. So brothers

and sisters. On this glorious. This bright. This

important day. This memorable day for so many

of us. Let's strive. Really beg the Lord. That

we may live in the joy. And the blessing of the

presence of God. The blessing. of the resurrection,

and the joy of Pascha to come. Amen.