Great Friday; Great Week
Matins – John 13:31-18:1; John 18:1-28; Matthew 26:57-75; John 18:28-19:16; Matthew 27:3-32 Mark 15:16-32; Matthew 27:33-54; Luke 23:32-49; John 19:25-37; Mark 15:43-47; John 19:38-42; Matthew 27:62-66; First Hour – Zechariah 11:10-13; Galatians 6:14-18; Matthew 27:1-56; Third Hour – Isaiah 50:4-11; Romans 5:6-11; Mark 15:16-41; Sixth Hour – Isaiah 52:13-54:1; Hebrews 2:11-18; Luke 23:32-49; Ninth Hour – Jeremiah 11:18-23; 12:15,9-11,14,15; Hebrews 10:19-31; John 18:28-19:37; Vespers – Exodus 33:11-23; Job 42:12-16; Isaiah 52:13-54:1; 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:2; Matthew 27:1-38; Luke 23:39-43; Matthew 27:39-54; John 19:31-37; Matthew 27:55-61
Strict Fast. Abstention from meat, dairy and eggs, and foods that contain these ingredients. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
Read Isaiah 52:13-54:1
The ancient Church did not know the conventional chapter and verse breakdown of the bible that we know today. That is an early modern convention. Indeed these chapter and verse designations are editing and serve to frame our understanding of the text in a particular way. Here Isaiah 53 is a classic explanation of the suffering servant. It makes sense to read this on Good Friday, where Christ fulfills this prophecy on the cross. Yet, the reading keeps going:
“Sing, barren woman you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the Lord.
The tone changes at the beginning of chapter 54. Here is the point. The suffering of the servant in Isaiah leads to the birth from a once sterile womb. Christ’s own death provides the way to rebirth in him through a once sterile humanity. This is possible through the cross, for it is there that Christ converts death and uses it for his own purposes: as an instrument to bludgeon the enemy that vexes us all: death. It is our fear of death that leads us to sin. We chase earthly pleasures trying to make the pleasant experience of this finite world last. But death shall befall us all. Christ turns death from a period at the end of our life, to a comma, into a new way of being: resurrected with him. This is the source of the joy that Isaiah urges the barren woman to sin about.