Saturday, February 28, 2004
Lenten Fast
The New Martyr Kyranna
Kellia: Deuteronomy 5:6-12 Epistle: Hebrews 1:1-12 Gospel: St. Mark 2:23-3:5
6-12, especially vs. 12, "Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord
your God commanded you." The disciple of the Lord perceives time, like the rest of God's
creation, as "subjected to futility" (Rom. 8:20) and, like all other created beings, knows that time
groans now and labors in birth pangs until it is finally delivered "from the bondage of corruption
into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21). Furthermore, realizing that God has
yoked the destiny of time to the destiny of all who are in Christ, the Church calls upon us to
hallow and sanctify time, so that with the rest of creation, the minutes, hours, days, months and
years may be liberated with us to magnify Christ Who has manifested Himself in His creation.
To this end, the Church provides us with seven daily hours of prayer as God teaches us by the
Psalmist: "Seven times a day have I praised Thee for the judgments of Thy righteousness" (Ps.
118:164 LXX). In addition, we have received a weekly cycle of time to hallow with fasting the
Lord's betrayal on Wednesdays and His Passion on Fridays, to sanctify His burial and His
harrowing of Hades on the Sabbath day, and to celebrate the awe of His Glorious triumph over
death on the first day of the Week - 'the Lord's Day.' The weekly cycle of prayer is written large
in the yearly cycle with the blessed Feast of Holy Pascha at its center.
From the beginning our gracious God and Creator taught us to hallow all time and to pace
ourselves to its pulse of "an evening and a morning, one day" (Gen. 1:5), so that we might offer
up praise and thanksgiving continuously for His gracious providence which is "new every
morning" (Lam. 3:23). The centerpiece of the human vocation to transform time, the Sabbath
Day, was given at creation when God "blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it
God rested from all His work which He had done in creation" (Gen. 2:3).
Notice, if you will, it was not Moses who first gave the Sabbath commandment, but the Lord
Himself at creation. As St. John Chrysostom said, "the Sabbath did at first confer many and great
benefits; for instance it made them gentle toward those of their household, and taught them God's
providence and the creation as Ezekiel said (20:12); it trained them by degrees to abstain from
wickedness and disposed them to regard the things of the Spirit."
And here we have the three aspects which Moses made explicit when he passed along the
existing commandment concerning the Sabbath observance: to keep it holy to the Lord "as He
commanded you" (Dt. 5:12), to refrain from work, and to rest (vs. 14). During this time taken
from work we should remember "that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your
God brought you out thence with a mighty hand" (vs. 15).
However, because the Resurrection holds the greatest significance for the transformation of time,
the Church celebrates each first day of the week with greater solemnity even than the other six
days of the week, including the Sabbath day. She has done this from the earliest times, for we
know that, in His rising from the grave, the Lord has provided us with access to His eternal
Sabbath. "For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did
from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall" (Heb. 4:10,11).
It was for these reasons that the Council of Elvira in 306, in its 21st canon, required that
Christians substitute the first day of the week as the uniquely Christian day of rest. Christ our
God Who gave us the sabbath commandment did not revoke His own law. Rather, as St. John
Chrysostom said, "He greatly enhanced it," so that now we no longer make one day a festival
"who are commanded to keep a feast all their life long."
Come let us worship Him who hath lightened all by His third-day Resurrection.
