Lazarus Saturday Meditation

Source: oca.org

With epic simplicity the Gospel records that, on the coming to the scene of the horrible end of His friend, “Jesus wept” (Jn. 11:35). At this moment Lazarus, the friend of Christ, stands for all men, and Bethany is the mystical center of the world. Jesus wept as He saw the “very good” creation and its king, man, “made through Him” (Jn. 1:3) to be filled with joy, life, and light, now a burial ground in which man is sealed up in a tomb outside the city, removed from the fullness of life for which he was created, and decomposing in darkness, despair, and death. …

The time of fulfillment was at hand. Christ’s raising of Lazarus points to the destruction of death and the joy of resurrection which will be accessible to all through His own death and resurrection.

—Archpriest Paul Lazor, from the Introduction to The Feast of Palms: The Services of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday