Great Thursday. Our Venerable Father Hilarion the New. Holy Stephen the Wonderworker (464).
Great Week. Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat. The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is celebrated in the late afternoon today.
Matins – Luke 22:1-39. Vespers with Liturgy – Exodus 19:10-19. Job 38:1-23. 42:1-5. Isaiah 50:4-11. 1 Corinthians 11:23-32. Matthew 26:2-20. John 13:3-17. Matthew 26:21-39. Luke 22:43-45. Matthew 26:40-27:2.
Read Job 38:1-23
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory for ever!
As we approach the culmination of the Great Fast, today we come liturgically to the hour when the Son of man will be betrayed into the hands of sinners (Matthew 26:45). We sing in one of the stichera at this mornings Vesperal liturgy: Judas, the deceitful traitor, with a deceitful kiss betrayed the Lord and Saviour; he sold the Master of all as a slave to the transgressors; the Lamb of God, the Son of the Father, went as a sheep to the slaughter…
As we read and reflect on the voluntary Passion to which our Lord goes, it can be tempting to ask why? Why did it have to happen this way? why must the Son of God, the only sinless one, suffer such humiliation and torture for my sake? This and similar questions have been asked throughout much of Christian history – but somehow often the answers do not seem satisfactory.
In the second Old Testament reading from this morning’s liturgy God provides Job with a different kind of answer: Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:1–7)
This answer is paradoxical, God does not give an answer that would assure Job’s understanding. He does not attempt to offer a causal or logical explanation at all – rather God’ s answer is based on who He is, and who Job is – in a word, it is personal: Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. (38:17,18)
We like to know the answers to things, we like to be assured that we fully understand before we believe, but the language of causation, rooted as it is in logic and the physical sciences, can be misleading when applied to a reality whose true existence is rooted in Personhood. In such a reality, love is a far more important category than causation.
The short, but also the long answer is the one given by the prayer of the Church: the Lord went as a sheep to the slaughter, for He alone is compassionate and the Lover of mankind.