A Homily on Great Friday Before the Epitaphios

I see a man tormented, slain, wrapped in linen and laid in the tomb. But who is this? Who is this victim of malice and vengeance? Not a man only, but the God-Man, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ. For what was the innocent, sinless, righteous, and immeasurably loving God-Man slain? By whom was He slain, and where are the murderers? He was slain because He loved people as no one ever has; and those who ought to have understood this love did not want to understand it; because He did them many—countless many—benefactions such as no one else has done; and yet these benefactions were interpreted perversely; because He worked many of the greatest, most beneficial miracles, such as no one else has worked, and yet people looked upon these miracles with cunning malice; because He called Himself, when it was needful, that which He is—namely, the Son of God, come to save those who are perishing; because He exposed crying injustices; because the whole world went after Him, the whole people—witnesses of His miracles and partakers of His benefactions, who nevertheless soon forgot these benefactions and miracles: this is why the God-Man was slain. By whom was He slain? By the Jews, those who had also killed the prophets who exposed their injustice and iniquities before the coming of the Savior; by the Jews, God’s chosen people, to whom God had shown a countless multitude of benefactions, of astonishing miracles, sung to this day daily by the Orthodox Church. But here, however, is the greatest mystery, into which we all now especially need to look deeply: the tormentors and murderers of the Son of God were not the Jews and pagan Romans alone; in these torments and in this murder all of us too are very, very much to blame. Why? Because the Son of God, Jesus Christ, as the Savior of the world, was the victim of our sins; suffering and dying, He received from the all-righteous heavenly Father, in His humanity, the punishment for the sins of us all. The Jews did to the God-Man what perhaps we too would have done with our passions, had we been in their place—and indeed, to tell the truth, what we do even now, only on a smaller scale and in a different form, to certain of our neighbors. So then, look more intently upon this divine Sufferer, this three-days’ dead One. This is the victim of our sins. This is the victim of God’s infinite love for the world that is perishing in its sins, and consequently for me and for you, beloved brother. The Son of God took upon Himself, in place of me and in place of you, the horrors of eternal justice, of the eternal punishment that lay before me and before you; He drank the cup of the righteous wrath and fury of God the Almighty, which I and you ought to have drunk; He took upon Himself all the burning, sharp arrows from God’s quiver, prepared for sinners, which should have struck and scorched me and you eternally—the ungrateful and evil-natured sinner. The eternal righteousness and wisdom of God, through men themselves, punished the God-Man on behalf of men. In terror and reverence I bow before the justice of God, before the holiness of the Tri-hypostatic Godhead, which—for the casting away of the injustice of sin and for the sanctification of the sinful man created in the image and likeness of God—in the Person of the Father was pleased to punish, on behalf of men, the most holy God-Man; in the Person of the Son was pleased to become incarnate and to take upon Himself the punishment for all human injustices; and in the Person of the Holy Spirit was pleased to sanctify repentant sinners, to renew them, and to pour Himself out in tenderest and holiest love into their hearts. Brothers! Attend to the mystery. Consider how dreadful, how repulsive, how hateful to God is the sin that has entered into men, how dreadful is the punishment for sin, when the all-holy and righteous Lord did not spare His beloved Son, but gave Him up for us to such sufferings and death. If God’s righteousness dealt thus with the green tree—that is, with the God-Man—then what will become of the dry, barren tree, such as we sinners are? So then, fellow sinners! Be afraid to keep adding sins to sins, iniquities to iniquities. Looking upon this divine Sufferer, learn to hate and loathe, from now on and forever, every sin, and to love righteousness and virtue. But if we keep adding sins to sins deliberately and knowingly, and in this way crucify the Son of God within ourselves often and repeatedly; if we repent hypocritically and commune of the divine Mysteries unworthily; if, having confessed and partaken of the Holy Mysteries unto cleansing and sanctification, we live fearlessly, according to the whims of a corrupt heart, then these very wounds in the hands and the feet and the side of our Savior will be to us not unto salvation but unto condemnation, and then no one, forever and ever, will deliver us from the torments of Gehenna.

My brothers! Let us bring to the Lord, who suffered and died for us, tears of sincere repentance and compunction, and let us live in unceasing repentance and well-doing. Amen.