March 26, 2024

Great Tuesday.
Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Gabriel.

Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
Matins – Matthew 22:15-23:39. Sixth Hour – Ezekiel 1:21-2:1. Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts – Exodus 2:5-10. Job 1:13-22. Matthew 24:36-26:2.

Read Exodus 2:5-10

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

There is so much going on in our Holy Week liturgies – readings, hymns, processions, extra sacraments…the list goes on and on. In this wonderful liturgical smorgasbord, one of the most important elements is the final preparation for the adult catechumens, before their baptism on Holy Saturday at the vesperal liturgy of St. Basil, and perhaps today’s reading from Exodus can be read with this in mind.

Moses is drawn from the water, and is named for this very fact. His life is in danger, and yet the powers that seek to kill him end up being the vehicle of his salvation: the rulers of Egypt (the Pharaoh) want to Israelite boys dead, yet the rulers of Egypt (Pharoahs) daughter save this little boy; the waters of the Nile (and the pagan gods that, the Egyptians believe, control them) should mean death to Moses, and yet it’s the water that brings him to safety. This is an poignant image of our baptism: we go into water that symbolizes both life and death, we die with Christ in that water (as we’ll read from the epistle to Romans on Holy Saturday) and we rise to new life with Christ.

Even Moses’ name makes this clear. It probably derives from an Egyptian suffix for names that means “…is born.” Think of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses (or “Ra moses”), which means “Ra is born.” So what happens in the water of the Nile (and in the water of the baptismal font)? Someone is born to new life! And who? The fact that the name Moses has lost its original core (perhaps the name of a god) – or maybe never had it in the first place – points to how our baptism leaves our personality entirely intact, while permanently joining us to Christ. I go into the water with my own name, and I come out the same man, yet also entirely renewed. I go in a sinner, and come out freed from sin and united to Christ. I am completely myself, 100% the individual person God wants me to be, precisely because I let go of enough of what, in my sin, I see as my “individuality,” and join myself to Jesus.

All of Holy Week and Pascha can be read as a meditation on my baptism – God dies for me, and if I die with him, I will live with him.